Free Republic

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...

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Textron Inc (NYSE: TXT) announced today that Bell Textron Inc., a Textron company, has been awarded the development contract for the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program. The award is based on Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor that was developed and tested as part of the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD) program that began in 2013. The V-280 progressed through design, manufacturing, and more than three years of rigorous flight testing that provided extensive data validating the technical and operational advantages of the aircraft for the long-range assault mission. "We are honored that the U.S. Army...