Free Republic

The U.S. Army has announced that it’s next helicopter isn’t a helicopter.The US Army awarded Textron Inc’s Bell unit with the contract to build the next-generation helicopter, ending years of fierce competition between Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. to replace the aging fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks by 2030.The Army’s “Future Vertical Lift” award went to Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft, similar to the V-22 Osprey. The new aircraft can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but rotate massive props to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft at impressive speeds.Indeed, the specs are pretty impressive:General characteristicsCrew: 4 Capacity: 14...

This week (Nov. 14) marks the 41st anniversary of the beginning of the epic battle of the Ia Drang Valley of South Vietnam’s Pleiku Province in the Central Highlands. The first part of the operation pitted Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) against three regiments of the Peoples’ Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in a deadly struggle for Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray. For better or worse, the lessons of this battle during the early days of America’s Vietnam War shaped U.S. operational strategy for the remainder of the conflict and, indeed, still influence...

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - Staff Sgt. Joshua Olson called it his "Alive Day," the one-year anniversary of the day he lost his leg in Iraq. He marked the date by traveling from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington back to the Fort Campbell woods where he once instructed men as a squad leader. Instead of camouflage, he wore jeans and a T-shirt, and used crutches to get around on one leg. He wanted to get back to the comrades ---snip---