BREAKING: Army Chooses Bell Textron’s V-280 Valor Tiltrotor to Replace Black Hawk
… the V-280 Valor tiltrotor beat out Sikorsky-Boeing’s bid — the Defiant X coaxial rotor blade platform — in the years-long competition to design the future long range assault aircraft, or FLRAA, a key part of the Army’s plan to modernize its aviation platforms.
While I’m pleased to see the Valor going ahead, I *also* hope that the Defiant goes ahead in some fashion. There’s no reason why we should only have one VTOL transport. The Defiant would be spectacular in different ways than the Valor.
One response to “Bell V-280 Valor wins billion dollar contract”
This surprises me. The “footprint” of the Valor is huge. It’s quite a bit wider than a conventional rotorcraft. That means you can get fewer of them into landing zones than otherwise. That means you can fit fewer of them into hangars for maintenance than otherwise. And so on.