Sources first indicated this summer that Bell would drop Spirit AeroSystems as a supplier due to Boeing’s upcoming acquisition of the embattled aerostructures company.
An open digital architecture leads to increased interoperability, affordability, upgrades and enhanced capabilities like launched effects and autonomy.
The initial command and control gateway to earn a continuous Authority to Operate is changing multi-domain operations.
“Spirit has had a successful ten-year partnership with Bell on this program and we will continue to work with them to deliver on our joint commitments,” Spirit AeroSystems spokesman Joe Buccino said.
The award is worth up to $1.3 billion, but a follow-on production contract could put the program in the range of $70 billion over its lifetime.
Gray Eagle 25M supports soldiers across multiple domains. It's precisely what the Army needs.
“If we didn't have an S-97, we'd have to wait another year-plus to be able to fly those data points and to inform our production design,” said Sikorsky's chief engineer for the company's Raider-X FARA offering.
Consolidate network monitoring, performance management, and fault isolation into a single, comprehensive solution.
The question of whether the Defense Department or the primes should own all the data rights to various elements of the FVL program is a simplistic, false choice, says a CSBA senior fellow.
"We're going to be flying in lower flight profiles than we have over the last 20 years in counterinsurgency operations and so, even today, we are changing the way we train Army aviators," said Maj. Gen. David Francis.
“I think it's unanimous from all the soldiers involved that we got this one right,” said the Army’s project manager for the Future Tactical Unmanned Aerial System. Manned aircraft, FARA and FLRAA, are also moving out sharply.
In the competition for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, high agility and low life-cycle costs matter most, a former Marine tiltrotor test pilot argues.
Blending superior optics, advanced stabilization and AI-powered autonomy in a compact and rugged system, ASELFLIR 600 delivers unmatched intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.
The S-97 Raider is Sikorsky's proto-prototype for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. It's competing with the Bell 360 Invictus -- but unlike the S-97, the 360 isn't flying yet.
Despite tightening budgets, the Army’s pushing ahead with its plan to replace the Reagan-era UH-60 Black Hawk with a high-speed Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). It’ll pick between Bell’s V-280 and the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant-X next year, with the winner entering service in 2030.
The Army has learned from the Comanche scout chopper debacle, where it spent $9 billion in today’s dollars to get just two prototypes. With Future Vertical Lift, $7 billion will get 18 prototype aircraft, counting both the FARA scout and FLRAA transport.
The companies’ proposed Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) to replace the UH-60 is a sleeker, stealthier version of the prototype SB>1 Defiant now in flight tests. Can it beat Bell’s tiltrotor?