Spirit AeroSystems built the fuselage for the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft demonstrator. (Spirit AeroSystems)

Spirit AeroSystems, which is part of the Bell Textron-led industry team that recently won the US Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition, is in talks to finalise its statement of work for the programme, according to a Spirit official.

“We’re currently in daily conversations to develop that statement of work,” said Mark Miklos, senior vice-president of Spirit’s Defense & Space business. “Hopefully, in the near term, we’ll have some exciting news” to share.

Spirit built the fuselage for Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft demonstrator, which first flew in 2017, and is getting ready for FLRAA’s development phase. Its upcoming work will occur in Wichita, Kansas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“We have begun establishing the team,” Miklos told Janes on 9 June. “We’ve been very fortunate to maintain many of the teammates [and] engineers that worked on the demonstrator.”