The choice of words by “the sultan” are interesting… it’s almost sounds as if he is afraid to loose his job because of the competition….
To me both programs are plain silly for a tactical vertical lift machine. They will never be able to replace a simple, cheap Blackhawk in terms of survivability/agility and especially costs. I don’t get why it is so important for the army to fly fast… is it plain envy to the airforce guys? It’s nice for semi-strategic movements to get the Christmas presents quickly from the main base to the various FOBs, but it will be interesting to see if a Valor OR defiant will still fly 200+ Kts, Limited to 20-30ft AGL due to a radar threat, or if they then slow down to half of that, like any other helicopter…. Then the government has payed an awful lot of money for the slightly quicker transport of MREs….