Originally Posted by
Commando Cody
To my mind Sikorsky was hoping the problems that had plagued X2 so far could be worked out and at a lower cost than a Tilt-Rotor. They may also have felt that if performance of the two competitors was close, Army's familiarity with them plus their political influence would pull them through. Keep in mind X2 was all they had and they had spent some significant money on it over the years. I don't think it can be said that Defiant proved X2 technology could be scaled up to this size. At best it would have to be a profound, "Maybe".
You know, one of Sikorsky's complaints in filing the protest was their claim that Army had always wanted a Tilt-Rotor and this was reflected in their original requirements which they said were later changed, to allow others to compete. I take this to be referring to the original anticipated speed requirement of 250 knots which in the final specs was lowered to 235 knots. Given that Sikorsky said that on Defiant they had lots more power they hadn't yet used, I don't believe more power would have gotten them any more speed or they would have claimed that. . The X2 demonstrator briefly hit 260 knots, but was grounded after that. I think that like Bell, it was the hot and high HOGE requirement that drove ultimate power required.
Vibration control undoubtedly would have been a big factor in higher speeds, but with what we've seen so far is it fair to say that the problem was solved? They came up short in a number of other areas as well.
Matching X2 performance just means achieving high speed for a short time. X2 never demonstrated anything else. It may have been shaking like a son of a gun. If vibration was the problem, then Sikorsky or Boeing solved the problem well enough to allow Defiant to nearly match the X2 demonstrator speed. We do know Defiant flew few hours, and as far as I know, never allowed Army pilots to fly the Defiant. The last Defiant video released appeared pretty impressive, which occurred after the final proposals were turned in.
Lol - Sikorsky whining the Army wanted a tiltrotor all along. Reply to Sikorsky: Is water wet? Of course dummy.