'V-22 Could Provide The Capability Indian Navy Needs To Become A Blue-Water Navy'

VICTOR CHIN, Regional Director Military Business Development, Bell Helicopter, points out to Geopolitics how important it is for India to have the V-22, like the US military, because then there will be great interoperability between the two nations.

- Victor Chin

What is the focus of Bell Helicopters at Aero India 2017?

Bell Helicopters on the military sales side, we are offering a V-22, a tiltrotor. We are also educating about the V-280 Valor, our next generation tiltrotor. The V-22 is changing the way the United States Marine Corps, and the United States Military does operations, because the V-22 is twice as fast, traverses twice as far, and can carry twice as much when compared to a regular helicopter. The analogy I would like to give is, in 1965, the helicopter operation was perfected in Vietnam and helicopters could go by 110 knots. Today, you can go by 150 knots. So you have gained about 40 knots difference in these years. Back then, their formations, we perfected it. While today, we still do the same formations. So things have not changed the way we use helicopter in the operations. Now, we have the V-22 which is very unique because it can take-off like a helicopter and fly like a plane. V-22 can go twice as fast, while now you can change the way you do operations. So, no more are you restricted by air speed of a helicopter. This can go a thousand miles without refueling, changes the way you do things and so it becomes tremendous. We also want to showcase the V-280, the first flight is towards the second half of the year. All the lessons we learned from the V-22 and have implied it to the V-280, and that is going to change the way we do things worldwide.

What is the basic difference between V-22 and the V-280?