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……
CC,
I concur your analysis, but I believe Sikorsky had dual path to winning in their strategy.
One path, was as you stated, hope that you can work out the X-2 technology for a Defiant size aircraft adequately enough to compete. Also, Sikorsky’s and Boeing’s combined corporate ego believed Bell could not succeed in producing a viable demonstrator aircraft.
The second path, was ensuring that the FLRAA program would be either canceled, or so underfunded, it would fail to succeed. This would allow Sikorsky and Boeing to continue building their legacy aircraft as long as possible.
Following Sikorsky’s lack of success of the first path, this second path of insuring FLRAA fails is now Sikorsky’s main strategy . This is best illustrated by the following video of Connecticut senator Chris Murphy questioning the Secretary of the Army.