The FLRAA RFP responses are due in less than three months. Isn’t time running out for the SB>1 to prove it can meet the US Army threshold requirements?
For some reason, Army has been going through all kinds of gyrations to keep Lockheed & Boeing in the competition despite its consistently disappointing performance (although they do get points for creative press releases). SB>1 was built for the "technology demonstration" phase. One wonders, in the two years since its [delayed] first flight and having only flown ~26 hours how much technology has actually been demonstrated The next phase is "risk reduction". This is what Defiant-X is being touted for, After
that comes the competition to actually go to production.
I guess they're not going to do that much more with the SB>1 airframe. The consensus here seems to be that it'll never reach its promised speeds. I don't know, but then again S-97 Raider (to be replaced by "Raider-X") never reached its promised speed, either. I wonder if Army is thinking that if they don't have two "competitors" regardless of how they're doing, Congress, not paying attention as usual, will complain about the lack of competition and that could hurt funding.