Why do people keep talking about the Raider for FVL?
It's far below FVL medium size requirements. Sikorsky and Boeing have already shown their concept art.
To date, no ABC/X2 has been built with a GW greater than what 12,000lb, and about a 35' rotor diameter. Anyone care to guess why that might be?
And how is a compound less risky? There is zero precedent in service. You have a whole fleet of V22s with over 150k flight hours in operation. No ABC has ever been even remotely fielded. The highest time on any ABC prototype airframe was what? 100 hours?
As discussed ad nauseum in the X2 threads on here, while the whole
aerodynamic concept of a high hinge offset ABC rigid rotor is scalable, the reality of blade construction and subsequent required rotor spacing means drag increases exponentially. Do we all forget how Sikorsky suddenly dropped their large scale 737-fuselaged concepts in late 2006? Why was XH59 abandoned in favor of tiltrotors in the late 70s early 80s for JVX?
Simply put, a large scale X2 concept is a dog and pony show. I would not be surprised if Sikorsky and Boeing go to FVL and demo with the S97, and then CLAIM that it can be scaled up to FVL medium requirements.
Both Boeing and Sikorsky want FVL dead. Their revenue streams exist with UH60 and AH64. Boeing teaming up with Sikorsky is a win-win for them. But they have to make a presence in the FVL competition either way. The cheapest option is to show the large scale concept art, demo the S97, make outlandish claims (i.e. $15 mil for S97), and try to get the program killed.
Plus who in the world would say this thing was "considerably smaller"? Sure, the S-97 is considerably smaller than the Bell....because it is being pitched for AAS against a
Kiowa.