Originally Posted by
txtworld
Given the valid questions raised, about whether Raider-X shall realize a speed advantage of any significance over the Bell 360 Invictus - what's the point of Sikorsky continuing with the design?
With the delay in receipt of the GE T901, they've an opportunity (if they act fast) to start from scratch - and produce an entirely new FARA design.
Perhaps they aren't permitted to do so, by the FARA tender rules - given the Army selected them as one of the two finalists, based upon their originally submitted X2-centric design.
Raider-X is the last chance to realize some revenue out of the many hundreds of millions of IRAD dollars and years of engineering time expended on X-2 technology. Raider-X is being designed/build on Army money, so it would require the Army's permission to radically change the design and Sikorsky can't move fast enough to build a largely new aircraft even if it wanted to, at this point.
They're stuck building a ship that will be more expensive and heavier than the Bell while barely meeting the performance goals and having to promise that the "full potential of X-2 Technology" will get unlocked with future power pushes of T901 or adding a second T901 while promising that they won't run into scaling issues... again.