Originally Posted by
SplineDrive
If the competitive prototypes got to flight test, I don't think the award would have gone to Sikorsky. The Bell was poised to be faster and would have undoubtedly marched through its flight test points more quickly than Sikorsky. I think you're right... FVL yielded the more important of the two vehicles (FLRAA) and rather than deal with the political risk and fallout of awarding both aircraft to Bell, the Army killed the program and peanut buttered some legacy pork around. Sad thing is, both companied poured hundreds of millions of private investment into FARA, so the program ended up being damaging to the industry. There was definitely other work/programs NOT done because they were spending their own (and USG) money competing on FARA.
"the Army suddenly announced that it was cancelling the FARA program, after a cost to the taxpayer of over $2B, plus more than $500M in contractor funding"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikehir...h=479f146f4b5f
The Army needs to refund that $500 million. Of course they won't.