Sikorsky SB-1 flies for first time

[The Sultan]

Taking Lowering the Bar to Extremes

From Sans earlier:

[QUOTESeems Sikorsky's own demonstration flights have implied that. After reaching barely over 200 kt in Sept 2018, they subsequently have flown progressively slower in their big-to-do demo flights - only reaching 190 kt in July 2019 and then 180 kt in Feb 2020. And of course, nothing since then at all.
][/QUOTE]

From above article:

Raider achieved 187 knots, well in excess of the Army’s threshold speed for FARA.

Unless I missed a revision, the FARA min max speed was 180 knots. In what fuzzy world is 187 knots (+4%) considered well in excess of that requirement? In my world that difference is considered barely outside allowed measurement error. I know the commercial requirement is to demonstrate 10% margin to an never exceed airspeed limit, so they are (in their world) grossly short of the 198 knots required to get credit for being able to do 180 knots.

Sikorsky really needs better PR people. The speed thing is bad enough, the I not letting the Army sit at the real controls (paraphrasing) is worse. Implies that the 97 is not the easiest thing to fly. Wonder if their scared the Army pilot be slightly aggressive on the controls ending up in another collision between the rotors.