The V-280 Valor. (Bell)
Honeywell said June 16 that Bell has selected the company to provide the auxiliary power unit (APU) and cooling solution for the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA).
As a subcontractor on the FLRAA program, Honeywell said it will supply its 36-150 auxiliary power unit (APU) and Honeywell Attune cooling capability for the future tiltrotor aircraft.
“FLRAA will deliver new long-range high speed transport capabilities to the U.S. Army helping to ensure force readiness against emerging threats,” Rich DeGraff, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies’ president of control systems, said in a statement. “We are confident that our proven 36-150 APU and Honeywell Attune system will exceed the expectations of the Army throughout the FLRAA contract and subsequent active-duty service that will last beyond 2050. Honeywell looks forward to continuing to serve the Army on their future vertical lift fleet.”
Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft was named the winner of the FLRAA competition in December 2022, beating out a Sikorsky and Boeing team’s Defiant X coaxial rigid rotor helicopter offering for the program to find a platform that will eventually replace a sizeable portion of the Black Hawk fleet.
The initial FLRAA deal to Bell is worth up to $1.3 billion but could total $7 billion if all options are picked up.
The Army has recently detailed plans to move up the initial fielding of FLRAA by two years to 2028, with Bell telling Defense Daily it’s “confident” it can meet the accelerated timeline.
Honeywell said the 36-150 APU for FLRAA will provide a secondary source of electrical and hydraulic power for the platform that “enhances mission readiness and flexibility of aircraft operations,” noting that versions of the capability are currently in use on the Army’s fleet of UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters.
For the FLRAA cooling solution, Honeywell described its Attune high-density cooling technology as “a lightweight, low-maintenance and energy-efficient thermal management system” that is “up to 35 percent lighter and 20 percent more efficient than conventional systems with comparable cooling capacity.”
“Capitalizing on decades of experience producing industry-leading air cycle systems, Honeywell has developed Honeywell Attune with weight, size, and power advantages over traditional systems,” Honeywell said. “Honeywell Attune provides Bell with a lower-risk technical solution as it has been successfully introduced into commercial aircraft for both cabin and aircraft systems cooling.” In late March, GE Aerospace announced it had been awarded a subcontract to deliver the avionics system for FLRAA, which followed Bell’s prior decision to select GE as the “digital backbone” provider for the platform.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.