The hidden cards in this FARA competition are political influence and the military need to maintain the engineering capability of three helicopter manufacturers.
Having recently developed new aircraft, both Sikorsky and Bell both have strong engineering departments capable of clean sheet designs.
Sustaining engineering is far from being able to design a new aircraft from scratch. It has been over a quarter century since Boeing engineering partnered with Sikorsky on the Comanche, and with Bell on the Osprey. Forty five years have past since Boeing (actually Hughes) designed the Apache on their own.
If next month Boeing Vertol does not win the opportunity to design and build a FARA prototype aircraft, I don’t see their future as very promising.
I could see Boeing being selected for the reason above and their focus on relative simplicity compared to the coaxial aircraft, and Bell selected based on low risk and demonstrated ability to perform on schedule. Since the two aircraft are taking pieces of the AH-56 arrangement, flying them against each other has complementary knowledge gained for the Army: which is worth the pain of integrating, the wing and increased download or a prop and its increased complexity?