Lord has been selected by Bell Helicopter to work on the Bell V-280 Valor helicopter, which is competing for the US Army’s Joint Multi-Role Demonstrator (JMR-TD) programme contract.
The company will design and manufacture elastomeric components for the third generation tiltrotor aircraft.
Bell Helicopter president and CEO John Garrison said LORD’s advanced elastomeric components will serve as the critical enablers of V-280 tiltrotor’s increased rotor flapping and enhanced low speed agility.
”Team Valor continues to align interests and resources to deliver the highest levels of maturity and technical readiness to the US Army for their future vertical lift missions,” Garrison said.
Lord Aerospace & Defense president Bill Cerami said, ”We look forward to working alongside Bell Helicopter, bringing our expertise in elastomeric component design and manufacture to bear in order to maximise the long-term operational effectiveness, reliability and affordability of this aircraft in service for the US Army.”
Developed with an army-centric design, the V-280 Valor is claimed to provide the combatant commanders with an ability to conduct multiple vertical lift missions with enhanced agility and twice the speed and range of other conventional helicopters.
Offering the best value in procurement, operations and support, in addition to force structure, the helicopter also has fewer parts, lowering complexity compared with previous generation tiltrotors, and is expected to perform first test flight in 2017.
A subset of the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) joint future vertical lift effort, the JMR programme aims to develop a family of helicopters with enhanced avionics, electronics, range, speed, propulsion, survivability, operating density altitudes and payload capacities.
Other competitors selected for the programme include AVX Aircraft, Karem Aircraft and Sikorsky Aircraft-Boeing team.
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