WASHINGTON — Fort Worth-based Bell notched a significant victory Thursday when a watchdog agency rejected a competitor’s protest of its winning bid to provide the U.S. Army’s next long-range assault aircraft.
The Army announced in December it had chosen Bell’s tilt-rotor V-280 Valor for its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, program to replace the iconic UH-60 Black Hawk.
The V-280 beat out the proposed compound rotor Defiant X offered by a collaboration of Boeing and Sikorsky, which is owned by Lockheed Martin. The losing team filed a formal protest of the Army’s decision, triggering a 100-day review by the Government Accountability Office.
