Overview
- The U.S. Army, which unveiled the name Wednesday at the Army Aviation Warfighting Summit in Nashville, said Cheyenne II honors the Northern Cheyenne and the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes and continues its practice of using Native American names.
- Derived from Bell’s V-280 Valor, the MV-75 is a tiltrotor designed to cruise above 300 mph, fly roughly twice the range of a Black Hawk, carry 14 troops, and accept upgrades through a modular open-systems digital backbone.
- The 101st Airborne Division is set to field the first unit, with officials promoting an accelerated schedule yet citing delivery windows that range from 2027–2028 to the early 2030s depending on tests and funding.
- Bell is assembling initial test aircraft in Wichita as suppliers advance subsystems, but Maj. Gen. Clair Gill said first flight and production dates remain unsettled because a sprawling supply chain and raw-material competition could slow work.
- Tiltrotor nacelles pivot upward for vertical takeoff then forward for airplane-like flight, a change that could extend medevac reach beyond the golden hour and let air assault units launch from safer distances than today.