AMARILLO, Texas — At six months old, the V-280 Valor already is flying 160 knots. Bell [TXT] will tell you it has cruised at 190 knots and after a demonstration of the aircraft here, there is every reason to believe it will meet or exceed that speed.
What’s lost in raw numbers is how this aircraft can dance at 30 feet above the ground. It can pirouette. Everyone admits it is not a move that’s necessary in combat, but it is incredibly deliberate, steady, and demonstrates the hove capabilities of the advanced tiltrotor.
For about an hour, Bell sent its test pilots up and out on the V-280 on June 18 for journalists – sister publication Rotor and Wing was there — and company dignitaries. There were Israeli businessmen. It taxied, took off and spun in hover.
Then the pilots demonstrated a relatively conventional takeoff that ate up a bunch of runway. When the pilots brought it around again, they performed a jump-takeoff. The V-280 can rise from standing still, rotate its rotors forward and enter forward-flight cruise mode in 20 seconds.
In the half-year since its first flight on Dec. 18, 2017, the next-generation tiltrotor, the only one of its kind, has performed and been more easily managed than even Bell’s own test pilots expected.
Unlike its predecessor, the V-22 Osprey, the V-280’s twin engines stay put while just the rotors move to create thrust and lift, depending on how the aircraft is being flown. That allows a major operational perk for the Army.
Without a nacelle hanging in the field of fire the V-280 can mount door guns.
It is still an experimental aircraft, but in its young life, pilots have put 35 hours in air time on the aircraft – call it an even 40 after the gracious flight Bell gave to the media June 18.
It’s only real competitor for revolutionary new vertical-lift technology, the Sikorsky [LMT] SB-1 Defiant, has not yet flown. Both aircraft are entered in the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD).
On June 18, the V-280 made pirouettes over the tarmac, pulled a jump-takeoff and flew comfortably at 160 knots, or more than 180 mph, according to test pilot Don Grove.
“This aircraft has absolutely exceeded my expectations, in terms of capability,” Grove said.