The Army reached agreements with four companies Oct. 2 to develop demonstrator models of what would become the service’s replacement platform for the current fleet of vertical-lift aircraft. Under phase one the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator program, AVX Aircraft, Bell Helicopter Textron, Karem Aircraft, and Sikorsky Aircraft are required to produce flyable test versions of vertical-lift aircraft within nine months. At that point, the Army will select two of the four companies to proceed to the next phase of development. Bell and Sikorsky each offered glimpses of their candidate aircraft at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition, held in Washington Oct. 21-23. Bell’s version, developed jointly with Lockheed Martin, resembles at first blush the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft it built for the Marine Corps and Air Force. The V-280 Valor differs, however, in several ways. Most prominently, it does not require the collapsible wings the Marines need in order to store Ospreys on aircraft carriers. Sikorsky’s SB-1 Defiant, built jointly with Boeing, more closely resembles a conventional helicopter. Instead of a single rotor, however, Defiant sports a coaxial dual-rotor design – with each moving in counter rotation to the other. Also, instead of a tail rotor, Defiant deploys a pusher propeller. The new design provides much greater lift, airspeed, and capacity over any present vertical-lift platform in the Army’s inventory, a Sikorsky spokesman said. AVX and Karem did not present designs at the AUSA show.