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Bell puts faith in FARA redesign

23rd August 2021 - 19:31 GMT | by Tim Martin in London

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The 360 Invictus FARA competitor undergoes assembly at Bell's Amarillo production facility. (Photo: Bell)

As a FARA flyoff edges closer Bell has made a key design change to the 360 Invictus, one it hopes can produce a competitive advantage over Sikorsky.

The Bell 360 Invictus Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) contender will be redesigned with a new open tail instead of a ducted configuration to improve aircraft performance.

The move arrives ten months after Bell told Shephard it would consider implementing ‘some minor changes’ to the rotorcraft, dependent on the outcome of engineering, manufacturing and development weapons systems requirements laid out by the US Army.

‘We did do a lot of testing on [the ducted fan] and it matched our performance models but a leadership decision was made to have a better growth path,’ said Chris Gehler VP,

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