US Army names new state-of-art assault aircraft after Cheyenne

April 15, 2026 marked another historic day for the Cheyenne. The U.S. Army christened a new aircraft, considered “state of the art” in long-range assault warfare, after the Cheyenne people. The event took place during the annual Army Aviation Warfighting Summit, held this year in Nashville, Tennessee.

A delegation of Cheyenne was invited to attend, with all expenses paid by the U.S. Army. Those representing the Tribe included President Gene Small; Vice President Ernest Littlemouth; Eugene Little Coyote, assistant to Littlemouth from the Northern Cheyenne; and Governor Reggie Wassana of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

The aircraft, featured on YouTube, is the MV 75 Cheyenne II. The U.S. military has named several other fighter aircraft after Indian Nations. Littlemouth provided remarks on behalf of the Northern Cheyenne, saying, “It is an honor for the U.S. Army to name this state of the art aircraft after the Cheyenne. It draws upon the impact we had as a warrior nation.” Speaking in Cheyenne, and in a rather bold manner, he added, “Néá’eše ná-vó’k.hénohe tsé háa’e estse ná hó’néhe.” (We hope that the Army lives up to our name).

According to U.S. Army press releases, the aircraft, built by Bell Textron and previously known as the V 280 Valor, will replace the UH 60 Black Hawk as the Army’s primary assault helicopter.

The MV 75 pairs the vertical agility of a helicopter with the forward speed and reach of a fixed wing aircraft. Its rotors swivel from vertical for takeoff and landing to horizontal for cruise flight, a configuration the Army says will allow it to fly roughly twice as fast and twice as far as the current fleet.

Douglas R. Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said the aircraft’s performance envelope will allow for “full squad insertion at extended range, expanding medevac reach well beyond today’s golden hour, and enabling large-scale, long-range air assault operations that can reshape the battlefield.”

The letters “MV” stand for multi mission vertical takeoff, and the number 75 marks the year the Continental Congress established the Army. The service notes that it is the first entirely new airframe brought into Army inventory since the 1980s, built around a modular digital architecture designed to accept new weapons, sensors, and software without requiring a full redesign.

Bell has begun assembling the first six test aircraft at its facility in Wichita, Kansas. Rolls Royce is testing the AE 1107F engine that will power the platform. The 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, will be the first unit to field it.

Army officials said they evaluated more than 500 Native American tribes before selecting the name Cheyenne, continuing a tradition that goes back decades. The practice began in 1947, when Gen. Hamilton Howze, assigned to Army aviation after the Air Force became its own service, sought names that reflected what helicopters could do, rather than what they looked like.

He disliked the names of the earliest Army helicopters, the Hoverfly and the Dragonfly. The next aircraft, the H 13 of MASH* fame, became the Sioux, a nod to the Plains Nations who fought and defeated the 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. The practice became formal policy in 1969 with Army Regulation 70 28, which required aircraft names to be drawn from “Indian terms and names of American Indian tribes and chiefs,” with candidate names supplied by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The regulation also required that a name “appeal to the imagination without sacrificing dignity,” suggest an aggressive spirit, and reflect mobility, agility, flexibility, firepower, and endurance.

Apache, Black Hawk, Chinook, Kiowa, and Lakota all came from this tradition. Regarding the MV 75, Col. Jeffrey Poquette, the project manager, said in an Army release that the service was “honored to have the Cheyenne tribes’ approval to use their name.”

The Cheyenne inhabited the Great Plains for roughly 400 years as nomadic buffalo hunters, fighting as mounted warriors across a range that once stretched from Montana into Texas. Today the people are represented by two federally recognized governments: the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma.

Col. Tyler Partridge, commander of the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, said in an Army release that the speed and range of the new tiltrotor would “fundamentally change how we conduct air assaults.” His unit is expected to take delivery of the first Cheyenne IIs in 2027.

(Contact Clara Caufield at acheyennereview@gmail.com)

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