EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

WASHINGTON — After years of development, prototyping and test flights, the Army today announced that Bell Textron’s Valor tiltrotor has won its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition to be the successor to the aging UH-60 Black Hawk and a key component of the Army’s future force.

The announcement gives Bell a massive victory not just in America but with the global community of 28 Black Hawk operators, many of whom are likely to follow the US Army’s lead when looking for a replacement in the future.

“I am excited to be part of this momentous day for our Army,” Douglas Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said in a release. “The thoughtful and disciplined execution of the FLRAA program strategy will deliver the transformational capabilities we need to support the Joint force, strengthen deterrence and win in multi-domain operations.”

For the past several years, teams from Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing have been racing alongside each other for the high-profile contract, producing futuristic prototypes and logging flight hours. Army leaders were initially expected to announce the victor earlier this year but said they needed additional time to review the bids. Then on Nov. 21, Bush told reporters a decision would be announced by the end of the calendar year, saying the delay was simply due to the necessary “quality control” and “due diligence” associated with a contract “this big.”

The exact requirements the service laid out for the aircraft remain closely held, but allowed the companies to produce two strikingly different designs: Bell’s tiltrotor Valor aircraft against Sikorsky-Boeing’s coaxial rotor Defiant X.