AVX/L3, Bell, Boeing, Karem, and Sikorsky have submitted their designs for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. None of them is a conventional helicopter.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.How does a company best known for designing tiltrotors, which are notoriously wide, meet an Army requirement for a scout aircraft that can fly down narrow streets?
By Richard WhittleWhatever their aircraft is like, Boeing’s PR strategy is definitely stealthy. There’s a strategic reason for that.
By Richard WhittleAwards for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft designs went to Bell, Boeing, Karem, Sikorsky, and a partnership of AVX and L-3.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Senate appropriators want to give the Army $75.4 million to kick-start its new scout aircraft, but key authorizers told us they are skeptical. (House appropriators are so far silent). The crucial questions: Can a manned, low-altitude, lightweight aircraft survive against the Russian threat? And can the Army afford the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA)…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.One of the oddest military drones aborning reinvents a stillborn technology from 1951. That’s because the unmanned aircraft revolution is resurrecting configurations that were tried more than a half century ago but proved impractical with a human pilot inside. The case in point: Northrop Grumman’s new Tern, a drone designed to do everything armed MQ-1 Predators…
By Richard WhittleAUVSI: There’s money in the 2018 budget to develop a new sea-based, armed vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone the size of the Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper, Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Jon “Dog” Davis, says. Davis expects to see them in the inventory well before the Army-led Future Vertical Lift program produces new…
By Richard WhittleDARPA, whose mission is to develop cutting edge and even crazy edge technologies to make sure the U.S. military stays ahead of its competitors, did just that in choosing the winner of its Vertical Takeoff and Landing Experiment Aircraft project, aka VTOL X-Plane. Aurora Flight Sciences was awarded an $89.4 million contract Thursday to build its exotic LightningStrike entry…
By Richard WhittleIn the 1934 film “It Happened One Night,” fictional slime ball “King” Westley shows off by floating to a landing on the lawn of his fiancée’s daddy’s estate in a newfangled autogiro – an airplane with a rotor to enable short take offs and landings. Today, two Defense Department programs are striving to meet the…
By Richard Whittle