Air Force, Marines Most Interested In Medium-Lift Aircraft

When the first Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aircraft are deployed, currently anticipated in 2030, they will be in the medium-lift category, according to Maj. General William Gayler.

Gayler, the new commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, AL, said during the Aviation Association of America's Mission Solutions Summit last Friday that Congress required the Army to consider FVL as a joint program including the Air Force and Marine Corps, and they are most interested in that segment of the fleet, according to a report from Defense News.

The Army is still the lead service in the acquisition process.

The program is divided into five "capability sets", and set 3 refers to the "medium-lift" variant of the aircraft.

“Since it’s a DoD joint program, we think the right answer is to go with [capability set 3] with other services, but we obviously will still be very interested in 1 or 2 as well,” Gayler said.

Set one is the lightest variant, with five being the heaviest.

The teams developing the aircraft are still targeting late 2017 for the beginning of flight testing for the FVL. Bell has said it is still confident it can field the V-280 Valor in 2020. The Army has said recently that it is looking at the possibilities of fielding FVL aircraft prior to the 2030 target date.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.army.mil