FARNBOROUGH, England — Designers with Fort Worth’s Bell Helicopter are about 60 percent into building a prototype of a tiltrotor aircraft that they say will outperform the V-22 Osprey and increase its potential.
The V-280 Valor concept has the attention of Army brass, who are helping to fund its development through the Army’s Joint Multi-Role Demonstrator program as a solution for the Defense Department’s future vertical lift requirement. A full-sized demonstration model on display at the Farnborough International Airshow had Army designators on the side as an indication of the intended future customer.
But Bell’s vice president of advanced tiltrotor systems, Vince Tobin, told reporters at the show Tuesday that the company had already begun designing a V-280 variant that would fit aboard ships’ hangar decks in hopes of luring the Navy into buying the aircraft as well.
In the Navy variant, the wide wings rotate to better fit on a ship and the tail is anhedral, facing down, in contrast to the Army variant’s dihedral tail, Tobin said. “The purpose of the anhedral tail is not to have to fold the tail to get it out of the way of the folding wings,” he said.
The prospective Navy design is just a concept for now, but Tobin said it points to the flexibility available to the service.
