On August 5, Bell Textron Inc., a subsidiary of Textron Inc. announced today that the United States Army has approved the Milestone B decision for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), officially initiating the Program of Record (PoR) for this advanced weapon system.
“This achievement marks a historic moment for both the U.S. Army and Bell,” said Ryan Ehinger, Bell’s Senior Vice President and Program Director, FLRAA program. “Now that the program has Milestone B approval, the course is set for delivering transformational capability to the warfighter. The FLRAA team remains laser-focused on working in tandem with the U.S. Army to execute the next phase of Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD).”
The Milestone B decision is a part of the Major Capability Acquisition process. It comes after years of the Bell team working alongside the U.S. Army and Bell’s FLRAA teammates to decompose requirements, reduce risk, and inform the weapon system acquisition. This includes the execution of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) ensuring integration and effectiveness of the aircraft’s design including weapon system design, sustainment and system integrations that are integral to the U.S. Army’s special mission requirements.
“This significant milestone is made possible by the years of hard work and sacrifice by Team FLRAA and our teammates throughout the Army and the Department of Defence,” said COL Jeffrey Poquette, FLRAA Project Manager. “We are poised to deliver a truly transformational aircraft for the Army. The hard work continues into the Engineering and Manufacturing Development Phase where we will design, build, and test FLRAA prototypes. It is certainly an exciting time for the program.”
Following the U.S. Army’s contract award for FLRAA in December 2022, Bell has established state-of-the-art facilities and innovative manufacturing processes to enhance cost, schedule, and performance. As the FLRAA program advances into the EMD phase, Bell’s focus will shift to continued design refinement and prototyping.
The new long-range assault aircraft is expected to fly twice as far and twice as fast as the current fleet. Leveraging advanced tiltrotor technology, a cutting-edge digital engineering approach, and an open architecture, the FLRAA will set new standards for reliability, affordability, and performance in long-range assault aviation.
