3 ms·

Those crayon-eating grunts are gonna end up shooting the blades off the V-280... you watch. <grin>

• meepmorp 3y ago
  > crayon-eating This is for the Army, not the Marines
  • warner25 3y ago
    I believe that this is ultimately supposed to replace not just the Black Hawk but the Army's Apache and Marine Corps' Cobra too. I recently had a conversation with a Marine Corps Cobra pilot who had real concerns about the configuration that a tiltrotor needs to be in when employing weapons.
    • dralley 3y ago
      Not the case. I don't think there's any plans to replace the Apache, but the closest thing would be the FARA program which hasn't selected a winner yet. There is a little bit of controversy though about the fact that none of the other existing or proposed rotorcraft would be able to keep up with the V-280 (for escort duties), so probably they will be attaching some weapons to the thing. But it's definitely not intended to be a dedicated attack helicopter.
      • warner25 3y ago
        I've been trying to find where I read this, and I can't, so I think you're correct. Maybe I was confused by some stuff that was just Bell and Sikorsky marketing material about their attack / recon variants. I'm thinking about the lack of an aerial escort with comparable speed and range for the Army. The Marine Corps, at least, has the F-35. It might not actually be necessary for the Army with UAS and long-range precision fires that could see the route / objective area and hit targets ahead of the Valor's arrival.