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 Bell is trying to capitalize on its experience building the V-22
Osprey tilt-rotor plane together with Boeing Co <BA.N> as it designs
a lighter, cheaper and less complex aircraft, the V-280 Valor, that
could eventually translate into billions of dollars of orders for
the winner of the Army competition.
"We're leveraging all those lessons learned and bringing them
forward to revolutionize how the Army conducts operations in the
future," Keith Flail, a former Army officer and program director for
Bell's "Future Vertical Lift" efforts, told Reuters in an interview.
Flail leads more than 100 engineers and other experts who are
working on the V-280 at a low-rise office about 15 minutes from the
company's larger facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
Bell is on track to fly a demonstrator aircraft in 2017, Flail said.
The V-280 will use composite materials, a new straight-edged wing
design, and fixed engine nacelles instead of the rotating ones used
on the V-22.
"It's really all about affordability," he said last week. "The
technology we're looking at here is to reduce weight and to reduce
cost and to reduce complexity."
Tilt-rotor aircraft take off and land like a helicopter but fly like
a plane.
Bell has teamed up with Lockheed Martin Corp <LMT.N> and Spirit
Aerosystems Holdings Inc <SPR.N> for the V-280. It is one of four
bidders the Army chose in September to work on a preliminary
technology demonstrator for the "Joint Multirole" aircraft that will
replace thousands of Boeing Apache and Sikorsky Black Hawk
helicopters now in use.
The Army plans to choose two firms to build prototypes next June
with an eye to first flights in late fiscal 2017.
Boeing teamed up with Sikorsky, a unit of United Technologies Corp <UTX.N>,
to bid for the new program, using Sikorsky's X2 design. Two smaller
firms, AVX Aircraft Co and Karem Aircraft Inc, also won contracts
for initial design work.
Bell and Karem are both working on designs based on tilt-rotor
aircraft. Such aircraft are particularly well-suited for the vast
Asia-Pacific region since they can fly farther and faster using less
fuel than a conventional helicopter, Flail said.
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Chris Gehler, another former Army officer and head of V-280 business
development, said Army officers who had worked with the Marine
Corps' V-22s in Afghanistan and Iraq were keen to acquire similar
technology, especially given the increasing focus on regions like
Asia and even Africa.
"The sweet spot for speed, range and payload, that's really where
the tilt-rotor outshines the other technology, and that's
particularly important when the Army and the Department of Defense
are talking about a pivot in strategy to the Pacific region," Gehler
said.
He said Army officials were interested in new aircraft that could
travel at higher speeds than current helicopters, which could help
Bell's tilt-rotor bid.
Virginia-based defense consultant Jim McAleese said the V-280
program was critical for Bell, since production of the V-22, its
largest military program, has peaked, and the Army has canceled
plans to upgrade its 1960s-era OH-58 Kiowa Warriors, work that would
have been done by Bell.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; editing
by Alwyn Scott and Jonathan Oatis)
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