The Eagle Eye program began in 1993 with the
TR911X 7/8th scale
prototype. The
composite airframe was originally designed and built for Bell by the
California research company
Scaled Composites. The two demonstrator aircraft were powered by an
Allison 250-C20 turboshaft engine mounted in the center
fuselage, with a transmission system driving a tilting
rotor at the end of each wing. The aircraft had its maiden flight on March 6, 1998, and then entered a flight test program. Phase 1 (land-based operations testing) was completed in April 1998. Phase 2 (sea-based testing) started shortly after that. The first prototype was destroyed in an accident, but the second successfully completed the test program. These successes led to the entry into the
Deepwater program in 2002 and construction of the full size vehicle, called the
TR918, powered by a
Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207D turboshaft engine. Bell had promoted the Eagle Eye for a decade without finding a buyer, but in the summer of 2002, the
United States Coast Guard ordered the UAV as part of the service's broad Deepwater re-equipment effort. The Coast Guard machine was slightly scaled up from the company demonstrator and was designated as
Bell HV-911. It had a maximum speed of and an endurance of 5.5 hours with a payload. The USCG then put funds marked for development and procurement of the vehicle on hold. The US Navy and Marine Corps also expressed some interest, and there were inquiries from various foreign governments. In the summer of 2004, Bell established a relationship with
Sagem in
France and
Rheinmetall Defense Electronics in
Germany to sell variants of the Eagle Eye to
European governments. Bell proposed to provide raw airframes, the European partners would provide payloads and other gear as specified by customers, and Bell would perform system integration. The Eagle Eye prototype crashed in 2006, and Bell could not get enough interest or money to keep the program going. However, in January 2016, the
U.S. Army said it was searching for a mid-sized "runway independent" UAV, years after losing interest in the
Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout. Although the Army has not specified whether it wants a rotorcraft, VTOL, tiltrotor, launch and recover, or other runway independent design, Bell sees potential for the Eagle Eye to meet Army requirements. ==Specifications==