The US Army has green-lighted the next development phase of its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) programme, clearing the service to order six prototypes from developer Bell.
On 2 August, the Army said it had approved the FLRAA “Milestone B”, pushing the programme into “the next major phase of development”.
In Pentagon parlance, Milestone B marks the official start of an acquisition programme, launching the engineering and manufacturing development phase that precedes low-rate initial production.
The approval “allows the army to exercise the first option [with Bell], which includes detailed aircraft design and build of six prototype aircraft”, the service says.
Bell’s FLRAA design is the V-280 Valor tiltrotor.
“The decision came after the successful FLRAA preliminary design review in April” and a further June evaluation by the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council, the service says. The council “confirmed that all sources of programme risk have been adequately addressed for this phase”.
FLRAA “has successfully achieved Milestone B and is officially a programme of record,” says Bell, a Textron subsidiary. “The Bell FLRAA team remains committed to its partnership with the US Army to execute the next phase of engineering and manufacturing development, and continuing the weapon system development and prototyping,” it adds.
FLRAA is an $80 billion aircraft development effort that stands to see the army purchase thousands of next-generation tiltrotors from Bell.
Bell had been working toward Milestone B since April 2023, when US government auditors affirmed it as the FLRAA vendor, dismissing a challenge by rival Lockheed Martin.
The army says it expects the FLRAA aircraft will achieve first flight in 2026 and that the programme will enter low-rate initial production in 2028, with “initial fielding activity in 2030”.
