The Army is just weeks from revealing its choice for
a future long-range assault aircraft, Bell’s V280 Valor, or, Sikorsky Boeing’s
Defiant X, according to the service’s acquisition chief.
Which is your favorite Assault Aircraft? Mention in
the command section.
The service aims to go public with the winner of the
future long-range assault aircraft competition in October or November, Doug
Bush told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S.
Army’s annual conference.
But, he noted, the announcement is
“conditions-based. There’s a process that the source selection board goes
through to not just make the source selection but then, importantly, to kind of
audit themselves and have others audit them to make sure it was done the right
way before we announce it.”
“It does take a while,” he added, “but we want to
make absolutely sure that we do this the right way and that we got what’s best
for the Army.”
Bell and a Sikorsky-Boeing team are competing for the Army’s future long-range assault aircraft program. The two aircraft in the mix differ greatly; Bell’s V280 Valor is a tilt rotor aircraft, and Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X features coaxial rotor blades.
“This is our largest and most complex competitive procurement we have executed in the Army in the history of Army aviation,” Maj. Gen. Robert Barrie, Army aviation program executive officer, told Defense News. “That system is going to be with us a long time; it goes without saying that we want to make sure everything is done correctly and in a disciplined manner.”
The Army was initially expected to make a decision around June, but that slipped to September. The award was then again delayed.
“Source selection boards are event-driven
activities,” Barrie said. “We try and put estimated times when they’re going to
complete, but the reality is they’re complete when the various sub-portions of
the schedule are completed, and we’re working through it in a very deliberate
but also prudent speed.”
The award will be one of the Army’s largest
helicopter procurement decisions since the 1980s.
Both future long-range assault aircraft demonstrator
aircraft spent several years logging test flights. They first flew in a joint
multirole technology demonstration followed by two phases of a competitive
development and risk-reduction effort.
future long-range assault aircraft prototypes from
the competition winner are due to the service by 2025. Assault aircraft is
expected to enter the fleet in 2030.
My personal favorite long-range assault aircraft is
Sikorsky Boeing’s Defiant X.
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