Jane Edwards
A U.S. Marine Corps official has said he believes the service branch’s future vertical lift program should operate as an optionally piloted helicopter designed to perform some missions, Flight Global reported Friday.
“Especially for a high reliability airplane, we view that airplane as a manned platform,†Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, told reporters at an American Enterprise Institute event in Washington.
Leigh Giangreco writes the service branch could deploy a new aircraft under the U.S. Army-led FVL program by 2030s.
The Bell Helicopter–Boeing team and Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky subsidiary expect to fly their respective prototypes of V-280 Valor and SB-1 Defiant helicopters by late 2017 under their cooperative research agreements with the Defense Department, Giangreco reports.
