Originally Posted by
noneofyourbusiness
Of course Bell achieved a max level flight speed of 305 knots against their original target of 280 knots, which is even more impressive. Still, your post raises an interesting question: Why couldn't the Defiant team get just three more knots to achieve their promise? Could it be vibration was so bad that they just couldn't do it? I don't know but I'm curious. It's also interesting to observe that a while back they started trumpeting they had reached 235 knots which, ..."met the Army requirement" and said they were going to concentrate "...where it is more important..." "...at the X.." in the lower speed regime. BTW, the original FLRAA requirement was supposed to be for 250 knots but was lowered in the final RFP. that went out. Note also that S-97 never achieved its promised speed.
Regarding sling load, don't forget these were technology demonstrators, not even prototypes, whose purpose was to demonstrate that their technology was viable and could be counted on in a production version to achieve all FLRAA requirements. Given that, I wouldn't hold it against either of them that they didn't demonstrate all of the FLRAA requirements expected of a fully developed production model. For one thing, they didn't have definitive engines . They were just supposed to demonstrate that it was likely that they would be able to do so after EMD.