Bell Selects Sierra Nevada Corp. for its High-Speed VTOL Development Team 

An artist’s conception of Bell Textron’s High-Speed Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft. BELL TEXTRON

National Harbor, Md. — Bell Textron Inc. has entered into a teaming agreement with Sierra Nevada Corp. for Bell’s High-Speed Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft, Bell announced Sept. 19. As part of the collaboration, SNC will specifically support the design and development of mission systems for HSVTOL variants.   

Bell’s HSVTOL vehicles blend the hover capability of a helicopter with the speed, range and survivability features of fighter aircraft, with low downwash hover capability and jet-like speeds of more than 400 knots. This family of scalable aircraft concepts is designed to carry out U.S. Air Force and Special Operations Command missions across the full spectrum of conflict and political scenarios, including personnel recovery, contested logistics and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and strike.  

“In an effort to advance technical maturity and deliver HSVTOL capability to warfighters sooner, Bell is assembling a team of industry-leading partners. We’re thrilled to have SNC onboard,” said Jason Hurst, vice president, Innovation, Bell. “We’ve made significant progress in Bell’s HSVTOL technology development in 2022, and we look forward to showing this progress in the upcoming year.”  

Bell is currently executing its HSVTOL risk reduction effort and participating in the AFWERX HSVTOL Concept Challenge, a crowdsourcing effort for the Air Force and Special Operations Command. Bell is one of 11 companies from more than 200 challenge entrants selected to receive market research investments aimed at advancing HSVTOL technology. 

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