Accepting Reality
To a slightly lesser degree, Sikorsky and LM management are suffering from the same delusions as EVTOL startup developers “This technology will be viable, if just given time for development, a huge infusion of cash, and one or two technical miracles”.
For the FLRAA program, LM management was betting that Bell would fail badly. This would have left the US Army with the option of either canceling the whole program (and continue buying Blackhawks), or selecting the least bad of two failures. If choosing the second option, selecting the cheapest of the two would have made good sense. Since this would leave the Army more money to buy more Blackhawks. This also explains the ridiculous low ball cost of the LM submission.
For FARA, given the Army’s track record of failures to develop a Kiowa replacement, LM was more interested in getting US Army funding to develop X-2 technology than manufacturing production aircraft. The limited mission and high cost of an X-2 FARA translates to very low production volume.
So in short, LM is in FARA for the development dollars for X-2 technology. Switching to a conventional helicopter configuration robs them of this funding.
Last edited by CTR; 29th Apr 2023 at 12:37.