The Army recently conducted its first soldier touchpoint for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), starting the process to gather user feedback that will inform continued development of the Black Hawk replacement.
The soldier touchpoint in late November was the first of 12 such planned events for FLRAA, with the Army noting data gathered will inform “preliminary design as well as the development and delivery of virtual prototypes” of the Bell [TXT]-built aircraft.
“Soldier touch points are key to FLRAA’s program strategy. In the past, this has included Army pilots flying both demonstrator aircraft,” Col. Jeffrey Poquette, the Army’s FLRAA project manager, said in a statement. “Today, the focus is on crewmembers and combat soldiers who are representative of the FLRAA’s passengers. These interactive events provide our team with crucial feedback to build transformational capabilities for FLRAA.”
Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft was named the winner of the FLRAA competition in December 2022, beating out a Sikorsky [LMT] and Boeing [BA] team’s Defiant X coaxial rigid rotor helicopter offering for the program to find an eventual UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter replacement (Defense Daily, Dec. 5 2022).
The Army’s initial FLRAA deal to Bell is worth up to $1.3 billion but could total $7 billion if all options are picked up.
Paul Wilson, Bell’s program manager for FLRAA, told Defense Daily in October the company is heading toward a preliminary design review (PDR) in early 2024.
Wilson also confirmed the FLRAA program remains on track for a Milestone B decision in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024 to move into a program of record, setting up first flight in the “mid-2020’s” and first unit equipped in the early 2030’s (Defense Daily, Oct. 11 2023).
The Army said the planned soldier touchpoints with FLRAA are intended to “optimize both human and system performance while ensuring mission ready capabilities are delivered to the warfighter.”
The recent soldier touchpoint at the Bell Flight Research Center in Arlington, Texas involved an infantry squad and two Black Hawk Crews from the 1st Cavalry Division, the Army noted, with the soldiers practicing embarking and disembarking from a FLRAA fuselage mockup “in a variety of simulations and scenarios” that included adding “more equipment and tasks for each iteration.”
“The [soldier touchpoint] was incredibly valuable and is paramount to the successful development of the FLRAA,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Tylor Enright, an aviator with the 1st Cavalry Division, said in a statement. “It’s great that they are willing to hear about what soldiers and crewmembers actually need for future missions in these aircraft to be successful.”
The Army added that the soldier touchpoint included support from the Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Test and Evaluation Command, the Redstone Test Center and Special Operations Command.