Bell Textron celebrated the three-year anniversary of its V-280 Valor tiltrotor’s first flight last week, noting that the aircraft has now flown for 200 hours and completed more than 150 individual test flights. The company also announced the successful demonstrations of the aircraft’s newly installed Tactical Common Datalink (TCDL) and ability to carry external cargo. The V-280 was selected in March 2020 to compete in the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program alongside the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/military-aviation/bell-v-280-valor-marks-testing-milestone