Posted on 05/11/2025 3:59:20 PM PDT by Libloather
It’s a plane. It’s a helicopter. It’s both. Meet "FLRAA," the Army’s new tiltrotor for Future Long-Range Air Assault. This is how the Army will island hop in the Pacific to fend off China. And by the way, Chinese President Xi Jinping has nothing like it.
With a stunning announcement, the Army did more than ax 40 generals and open the door to AI. The Army bet its future on this radical aircraft, whose engines swivel to take off and land like a helicopter, or fly high and fast like an airplane.
This aircraft was on pace to enter the Army inventory in the early 2030s.
Then came the Army shake-up. On May 1, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the Army to focus more on the Indo-Pacific. In that region, sheer distance and Chinese missile threat rings are locking out current helicopters. For the mission of air assault – when troops move into hostile and contested areas by rotary-wing aircraft – the hard truth is that the Army has a looming capability gap.
"We can't actually do the large-scale, long-range air assault today" with the speed and distance required in modern warfare, Maj. Gen. Brett Sylvia, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said last year.
That’s unacceptable, given Xi’s growing appetite for military confrontation.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Mine too.
Not the same power delivery and mgmt design.
No more risky than a Chinook.
Correction. It does but it’s done smarter.
“ Money would be better spent on a contract for more A-10s. Proven technology”
The future is in non-manned aircraft.
Rockets and drones, small to large in volumes you can’t imagine.
Hyper-sonic missiles and anti-personnel drones. That is the future of warfare.
Impunity!
The GE powered WARTHOG! Need a few hundred more of these ground troop lifesavers!
We’re doing drones too, big time. My company is involved in the phased array antennas to control drone swarms, both our and enemy swarms. Amazing technology.
“And by the way, Chinese President Xi Jinping has nothing like it.”
Unfortunately, China’s R&D program = stealing what we develop. Then they try to mass-produce it at much lower cost.
The saving grace is that an aircraft like the one depicted would require A+ quality metallurgy, synthetic materials, and quality control. To date mainland China seems incapable of that.
Guys, please read the details of how the engines are set up versus the Osprey, the speed the range, the offensive capabilities before making offhand uninformed comments.
SOURCE:
DuckDuckGo / WIKI AI
The A-10 Warthog’s GAU-8/A Avenger cannon has a firing rate of approximately 3,900 rounds per minute. This high rate of fire allows it to effectively engage a variety of ground targets.
“So it’s another Osprey”
My first reaction, too, even before looking at that photo. I imagine they learned a lot from the Osprey program and this craft won’t have the teething pains Osprey did.
I get that. But this isn’t a non-maned aircraft.
Not possible: I think Jimmy Carter had the production lines & tooling destroyed. Too "provocative" you know.
I can only imagine the ‘requirements” food fight that will ensue between the USMC & Special Ops folks.
Any dreams of fielding such an aircraft by the ‘early 2030’s” is a pipe dream. The V-22 took 20+ years to design, test, build and field...and it’s still the most incident prone aircraft in the DoD fleet.
Had a pair of A-10’s fly over my house while I was painting the peak on a 20-ft ladder, on the way home from a July 4 concert flyover. That would be very briefly terrifying if I had been a target.
“ Why not put all our aircraft under Army and Navy control, as in WW2?”
Aircraft is Strategic Air Command. Land and air based nuclear weapons. Now support that mission.
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