It has a lot of potential to do things it's not intended to and probably get away with it, extra door gunners and all the underslung wingspace for weapons. You could potentially almost put the same amount of firepower as Puff the Magic Dragon out each side of a support version as no other chopper will be able to keep up with them, imagining Vietnam War scenarios.

The Bell V-280 is better than the Sikorsky SB-1, faster and more fuel efficient and smaller. BUT i wonder if the V280, which will be closer to battle spaces than the V-22, has an issue which made my spill my drink. The V280 will be the successor to the UH-60 and likely the UH-1Y, so it will fly and land closer to the enemy just as the black hawk did, so the likelihood of bullet strikes. WHAT IF, while in forward flight, one of the rotating mechanism for one of the two rotors systems was damaged by a bullet impact, and one or both of the rotating housings could not pivot - ??? If a helicopter gets hit, it can do auto rotate, or just lower its speed and land. . But if the Valor get go into helicopter mode, it can land. I think the driveshaft is what tilts the rotor housing, but could the propellors be stuck in forward mode... is this a possible malfunction? What happens then, Valor can't land with the props forward.. WhaT hapPenS theN?????!

@@Defender78 Auto rotation is used so rarely that it hasn't actually ever been used in combat. So in reality, as we've seen from the loss of three Blackhawks last year, auto-rotation did nothing to save them as particular conditions need to be met.

Those are separate competitions

The gunship/attack variant is the Raider X. Same family as Defiant just optimized for the armed role.

@@njengakim They just shitcanned the scout contracts too a couple of days ago. Pity they looked awesome.

@@knowahnosenothing4862 yeah its a shame but i am not surprised, scout helicopter is not worth the risk especially with today's anti air weapons. Honestly i don't think any manned attack helicopter is safe. That task is to going to be done by drones.

I think redundancy is very important to the US army. Having two engines when you only need one engine to run it improves reliability.

You need to research into the FLRAA program it seems... You got a ton wrong.

You must have some reliably specs that you can question its reliably.

yes, because that isn't true. That aircraft can fly on a single engine since both props/rotors are connected.

You don't even know the very basics of the platform... just stop.

This demo version had 10K HP from it's two engines, but the actual flight article with RR AE1107F engines will have 14K HP, possibly enough to land or take off on one engine in hover or STOL depending on fuel/cargo loads carried. It can also operate like the V-22 with one engine functional like a conventional aircraft in a rolling landing as it was designed to do in emergencies. Most of the V-22 crashes have been in the transition to hover where any problem becomes a BIG problem. V-280 has been designed to avoid those problems, it's up to Bell to deliver on that big task.

No it can run on one engine. It can also autorotate.