By Robbin Laird
In my forthcoming book on the paradigm shift in maritime operations, I focus on the importance of pairing distributed capital ship operations with the capabilities that air vehicles and autonomous systems can provide to deliver maritime effects in a contested environment.
To achieve competitive overmatch in the air, performance characteristics like range, speed, and payload capacity is paramount. However, unlike land-based military services, the future platforms of Naval Aviation must also be sized to fit the restrictive confines of surface ship flight decks and hangar bays. Herein lies the delicate balance between the capability to support concepts like Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) while also developing a cost-effective solution that fits the physical footprint available onboard.
With the Navy clearly focused on DMO and working ways to more effectively operate a distributed fleet, the speed and range of tiltrotor technology is an obvious advantage. This is why the Navy is already procuring the CMV-22B, initially purchased for large deck carrier replenishment duties, but users of the aircraft and several Admirals I have spoken to have already embraced the idea that intra-ship support needs to be part of the CMV-22B future.
And as the DoD looks towards the future regarding vertical lift, it is clear that any new crewed air asset must be capable of working with air, sea and land-launched autonomous systems. This is a key consideration for the U.S. Army in acquiring its new tiltrotor aircraft, Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), which is being developed with a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) architecture to work with launched effects and other autonomous technologies.
I had a chance to talk with Tyler Harrell during the 2025 Navy League meetings held the first week of April 2025. Harrell is an experienced Naval aviator with the MH-60S “KnightHawk” helicopter with multiple carrier deployments in his time on active duty. He is now a manager of Naval Sales and Strategy at Bell.
We discussed the Navy and its way ahead regarding vertical lift and the role which tiltrotor technology might play in that future. He underscored that the Army approach of working a crewed tiltrotor platform with autonomous systems was a key enabler in Bell’s approach to working with the Navy regarding their future vertical lift technology. Leveraging the Army’s innovations with tiltrotor provides commonality among the services and a cost-effective path for the Navy to shape its own fleet of aircraft.
According to Harrell, Bell has been developing a comprehensive solution from the ground up with their focus on bringing future vertical lift to the Navy. Here he highlighted the V-247 Vigilant, which is a fully autonomous tiltrotor designed to team with manned assets while operating from the smaller disbursed surface ships. He noted that Bell has invested more than 300,000 engineering design hours to mature the technology.
He underscored: “it is a tiltrotor platform with a common open architecture that provides the range, speed, and dynamic payload capacity that ship commanders need to win the future fight.”
Harrell indicated that the Navy was reviewing how to meet the extensive mission requirements which the MH-60’s currently perform, and how to prioritize them across a crewed-uncrewed teaming operating concept. Which missions can an autonomous air vehicle be held solely responsible for? What tactics, techniques, and procedures can evolve to utilize both manned and unmanned teaming? And which missions should be reserved for a pilot in the cockpit?
According to Harrell, Bell remains committed to providing the right solutions to these answers and brings over 750,000 tiltrotor flight hours to back it up.
Another key enabler that he highlighted revolved around the Army’s MOSA architecture that is being developed in collaboration with Bell for FLRAA. This not only cuts down on overall lifecycle sustainment costs, as obsolescence of federated systems can be quickly replaced, but also enables rapid response to emerging threats and flight requirements through software updates. Updates that can be accomplished in hours vice years.
The way Harrell characterized the way ahead for the Navy regarding future vertical lift is the need to build three pillars of interactive and integrated capability. The first being the speed, range, and dynamic payload capacity necessary for distributed maritime operations. The second pillar is the capability to work manned-unmanned teaming as the payloads of the future are integrated into the fleet. The third is an open system architecture that allows for rapid payload innovation and integration.
And for Harrell, the challenge and the opportunity for Bell is to demonstrate that the tiltrotor enterprise could provide a comprehensive approach for building those three pillars of future vertical lift for the Navy.
Featured image: Artist’s rendering of V-247. Credit: Bell