Army cools on large programs as Bell continues push with FLRAA

Just months after the Army canceled one planned helicopter, and just a day after its top officer hinted at other large-program cuts, Bell Textron execs said they’re simply focusing on starting deliveries of their V-280 tiltrotor by decade’s end. Frank Lazzara leads the company’s sales and strategy efforts for the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, program. At the Army’s mainstay conference, Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said the service won’t hesitate to cut programs that don’t support its modernization goals. FARA, an effort once hailed as the service’s No. 1 aviation priority, has been canceled. FLRAA could be worth up to $70 billion for Bell, depending on the number of aircraft sold. The FLRAA program is a major modernization effort and part of the Army’s plan to keep costs low is to build the aircraft with a modular, open-systems architecture. Bell will now build the tiltrotor’s fuselage in-house, pulling the work away from Spirit AeroSystems. Company execs confirmed the fuselage production switch-up and stated that they are fully prepared to start building the fuselages in-house. As the Army awaits the arrival of its high-speed, high-capacity tiltrotors in 2030, it is already practicing the new operating concept that they will enable, known as L2A2. The idea is to deliver one brigade combat team over 500 miles behind enemy lines and able to conduct sustained combat operations.