US Army to choose final helo design of new Scout Helicopter by 2020.

The U.S. Army is currently seeking to officially select a new armed scout helicopter by 2020, and with several future vertical life prototypes flexing their muscles in a bid for the freakishly lucrative contract.

An artist rendering of the possible future rotorcraft of the U.S. Armed Forces (Picture Source: U.S. Army)

The service's chief advocacy group decided to remind the world where the inspiration for this new rotorcraft really came from: Avatar. Reminding us that science-fiction often inspires the U.S. Armed Forces and vice versa.

The quad-turbine air cab appears on the front cover of some Association of the U.S. Army 2019 annual meeting literature spotted by Samuel Bendett, an analyst for the Center for Naval Analyses.

In 2018, the Army awarded five contracts to defence firms to whip up ambition new designs for its so-called Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft to succeed the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior retired in 2017 and partially replace the AH-64 Apache as the service's attack helo of choice.

Those designs include Sikorsky's coaxial rotor S-97 Raider and Bell's tiltrotor V-280 Valor, both of which have enjoyed relatively positive results from testing and trials in recent years.