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US Army keeps FLRAA costs and risks under wraps

4th May 2021 - 18:00 GMT | by Tim Martin in London

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Bell will find out in 'the summer' of 2022 if the V-280 Valor tiltrotor is to become the US Army's new long range assault aircraft (Photo: Bell)

Ahead of a FLRAA contract award to Bell or a joint Boeing and Sikorsky team, the US Army has decided to keep manufacturing costs and programme risks confidential.

The US Army has revealed that manufacturing costs and programme risks associated with its Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) effort will not be made public.

Instead, those details are to be kept confidential to ‘maintain the integrity’ of the competition, according to FLRAA project manager COL David Phillips.

The move represents a change of tack from the army, which originally quoted a $43 million average manufacturing cost for FLRAA when issuing an RfI in April 2019.  

‘I’m familiar with several [cost] studies that have gone on since then,’ said Philips, but he declined to confirm if the manufacturing cost figure

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Tim Martin

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Tim Martin


Tim Martin is Air Editor for Shephard Media, based in Belfast. 

Tim has experience writing …

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