Choice of words are interesting indeed: “ when Sikorsky and Boeing had competent engineering and management.“.
But wait, what does the new Bell Invictus replicate?……..why, its the Boeing/Sikorsky Comanche! What is interesting is that the Bell Invictus design has dropped the copy of the canted, ducted fan tail of Comanche in favor of a conventional canted tail. Wondering why they did that as the Comanche ducted fan was quite powerful-good for 100 kias right sideward flight and capable of flying forward at 80 kias, swapping ends to fly backwards at 80 kias while staying in formation with the photo chase, then after the Ch Test Pilot from Euro-Copter was suitably impressed, Mr. Lappos returned it to a conventional, nose in front mode. Why would you drop such a capability? ( But then, truth be told, this was SA’s third ducted tail, with previous successful efforts on the S-67 and S-76 preceding, so for Bell it was going to be a first, and doubly so for the canted aspect, which had been flown on the S-61R and CH-53D before productionizing on the S-70 and CH-53E lines ).