Originally Posted by
SplineDrive
“It is fast but that’s it.” Hmm… well, let’s see, compared to the V-22, V-280 is smaller, has much lower disk loading, has increased low speed agility (meets the Army requirements for a tactical transport), has fixed nacelle on top of the wing for clear field of fire, and myriads of design and cost improvements based on 500,000+ flight hours of V-22 experience plus the development efforts of the 609 and JMR-TD tiltrotors and other aircraft in the last 30 years. It is not a V-22 painted olive green.
I cannot imagine the Defiant-X being chosen. Can’t reach Vh, no publicly demonstrated low speed agility, only dozens of flight hours, no demonstration of any required capabilities, no flights with Army pilots, no field history, and no field history of any ABC aircraft. None. Since the XH-59 flew and didn’t meet it’s design goals there have been three more rigid coaxial aircraft and a grand total flight time in the mid-hundreds of flight hours… combined. Three of those vehicles don’t appear to have met the engineering goals and one was only ever designed to fly fast with very limited maneuver requirements. Any projections of costs, maintenance requirements, service suitability are just made up bunk. Sikorsky needs a new strategy and product in the pipeline to maintain a viable engineering department because the X-2 has been a 15 year long dead end.
You never saw me writing that they should choose Defiant! ;-) Fully agree with your arguments. I think both contenders cannot perform and survive (at the moment) how a Blackhawk can in tactical operations..(no, I am not a Blackhawk pilot either...) there was too much Focus in both designs on „just“ being fast, which should, to my opinion, not be the main driver for helicopter operations. They should be flexible, maneuverable, and tolerant to ballistic damage and if the new designs then are a bit quicker and have larger range, that’s nice...