December 18 marks the First Year of Flight for the Bell V-280 Valor.
With more than twice the speed and range of current helicopter models, the V-280 Valor is Bell’s proposal for the future US Army aircraft as part of the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) program.
In nearly 85 hours of flight and more than 180 rotor turn hours, some V-280 flight testing milestones are:
- Forward flight at 250 knots true airspeed;
- In-flight transitions between cruise mode and vertical takeoff and landing;
- 50-degree banked turns at 200 knots indicated airspeed;
- 4,500-feet-per-minute rate of climb and sustained flight at 11,500 feet altitude;
- Single flight ferry flight of over 370 miles; and
- Demonstrated low- and high-speed agility with fly-by-wire controls.
The V-280 prototype was recently moved from Bell facility at Amarillo where it was built to the Arlington Flight Research Center both in Texas.