The Ripsaw design is so flexible, the company claims, it can scale up and down for different missions.

With its trademark tiltrotors too big for the Army’s FARA requirement, Bell is squeezing every ounce of performance out of a helicopter. Will it be fast enough?

Phil Clay, a former Navy test pilot for the Imminent Fury/Combat Dragon close air support experiments, says the Air Force should purchase “at least a wing” (20 planes) of the Light-Attack Aircraft for SOCOM and the so-called foreign internal defense (FID) mission to combat insurgencies. 

Textron is not just betting it will win the Next Generation Squad Weapons contract: It’s betting the Army will want to start buying in bulk ASAP. That’s not a bad bet.

Instead of trying to scale down its tiltrotor technology, Bell will offer a derivative of its Bell 525. Will it have the speed and range the Army wants?

The new drone is just one part of an ambitious overhaul of Army aviation.

Romania, a NATO ally, is nervously watching Russian moves in the Black Sea, is spending big on American military kit.

As counterterrorism missions show no signs of slowing down and civilian casualties always a worry, the commando command is turning to a light, guided munition to chase down fast-moving targets.

AUSA: Bell Helicopter is moving right along with its new V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor being built under the Army-led, multiservice Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. The V-280 – which flies at 280 knots cruising speed — resembles the bigger V-22 Osprey built by Bell and Boeing for the Marine Corps, Air Force Special Operations Command… Keep reading →

Bell’s V-280 tiltrotor didn’t take flight – not yet – but it has tilted its rotors into helicopter mode and spun them up during its first-ever “restrained ground run test.” This test mode plugs the whole aircraft into a bulky apparatus to ensure it doesn’t take off by accident. (That would be bad). The test… Keep reading →