And moving away from Tribal Names as well. A pity that is. It brought up many interesting discussions and some internet research here on the Apache, Blackhawk, Iroquois and Kiowa tribes.
Raider and S-97 are Sikorsky names, not US government designations. If adopted, it would be given a different designator such as MH-97.
Wow, coaxial rotors to eliminate the tail rotors. Just like the Kamovs.
Yep. Coax rotors are not new. Sikorsky's marketing it as "whole is better than the sum of the parts", which is partly true. Toss in coax, with pusher, with fly by wire, with other stuff and it gets interesting.
There is/was/might be a version of this on the servers somewhere that's a bit scarier. Autonomous. I'm sure the details or project are classified but the concept isn't.
Allows for slower rotor speed to prevent transonic tips, and also counter-acts the trailing blade loss of lift.
Toss in a pusher prop (which it has) and you get a fast as balls helo.
While expensive, its got better legs and nearly 1.5x the speed of an MH-6 (or MH-60) and for its intended use, that is key, the less time you spend in hostile areas, the less chance of being dead.
Bingo. Conventional rotory aircraft have asymmetry of aerodynamic lift. Faster the rotors go, more of an issue. If you look closely, these rotors are rigid, which most are not.
Huh. I had no idea SOCOM used the MD-500 for their stuff. We had one for ocean surveys off ships. I flew in it once but didn't think it was all that or anything (at least to work out of, the pilots may have thought otherwise). I spent a good bit of time in contract Jet Rangers and Long Rangers doing offshore stuff for the Navy and liked them better.
160th owns 51, according to Wikipedia. And 72x MH-60M. Civvie designation is MD-500 Defender, with different letter designators for different configurations. They're small, fast and cheap. Think Corvette of the sky.
Did you travel on the inside or outside the MD500? Even without the doors, being inside is much more uncomfy than the benches.
Be interesting to see the flight tests. I wonder if the rotor-tip speed in flight might cause any issues/problems.
That is the main issue the aircraft is geared around. Hence the rigid rotors and coaxial configuration. There's a few other aspects you could figure out by very closely looking at the aircraft that most people could noodle out but might be considered ITAR technical data. Stupid, but that's US law. Unless it's public domain, restating certain technical information without a commodity jurisdiction ruling or an export permit can be an ITAR violation.
AFAIK, "X2 technology" is still in the middle of State Department wrangling. I used to be on the team that was doing said wrangling. Hopefully it will be declared not ITAR, but I doubt it. None of it is really revolutionary stuff.
Is this trying to compete more with the V-22 Osprey?
V-22 companion. V-22 is unarmed and a sitting duck against damn near anything. It has countermeasures (chaff, ECM), but no counterfire countermeasures (Say HAARM, or hell, a 20mm cannon). This could be used for scouting LZ's and providing covering fire.
V-22 essentially cannot realistically be armed with effective weapons. Only place is the tail gate.
