MOSCOW – Helicopter maker Bell unveiled its design for the US Army’s FutureAttack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) competition on Tuesday: theoptionally-manned 360 Invictus.
Bell, a subsidiary of Textron, was awarded a contract in April to design aprototype helicopter to fit the US Army’s FARA needs. However, Bell willhave to clear several competing designs from the likes of AVX, Boeing,Sikorsky and Karem Aircraft before winning the big contract.
FARA is part of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative, a programto put a new generation of helicopters into service by 2030. The other keypart of the FVL is the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), designedto primarily replace the aging UH-60 Black Hawk, built by Sikorsky, andAH-64 Apache, built by Boeing.
Last month, the Army asked the competitors to accommodate dutieslinkperformedby the MH-6 Little Bird, a scout chopper used for delivering special forcesbehind enemy lines that’s affectionately known as the “killer egg,” intotheir FVL design entries.
Bell unveiled the design at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, onTuesday, showing an attack helicopter with a sleek, shark-like body liftedby a single rotor with four short, 40-foot blades
The Army’s demands of Bell’s design are steep: the aircraft is capable ofreaching 180 knots, has a range of 135 nautical miles, with 90 minutes oftime on-station and can lift up to 1,400 pounds, according to the programwebsite link.
Read Top Stories
Further, the 360 Invictus has a supplemental power unit, to give it anextra boost at the critical moment, and a fly-by-wire control system,shedding the hydraulics still in use in the aging US chopper fleet.
“Proven on the Bell V-280 Valor and Bell 525 Relentless, Bell’s advanceddigital flight control system harmonizes mature technologies fornext-generation performance while offering an upgrade path to higher-levelcapabilities, such as optimally crewed flight operations,” Bell wrote onits website.
The chopper was required to have short blades so that the Army is “able tooperate in urban canyons as well as out in mixed terrain,” JeffreySchloesser, executive vice president for strategic pursuits at Bell, saidat the unveiling, Military.comlink reported.
