Originally Posted by
SplineDrive
My point is that the point of the aircraft is more about the aero-elastic, mechanical, and performance characteristics of a wing and flapping rotor rather than a hybrid power system. They’re 50+ years behind the competition.
Tilt wing technology died in the 1960s, mostly for good reason IMO, and while a hybrid power system opens up a few new options, I don’t think that is enough to bring tilt wings back from the dead. This is an odd design choice.
One other negative about tilt wings not yet mentioned in this thread is that it’s hard to make the tilting hinge stiff enough in torsion such that it doesn’t strongly limit the whirl flutter speed (and therefore the maximum speed) of the aircraft. Having large rotors on the wing only makes that problem worse. I wonder if Sikorsky didn’t choose a tilt rotor because they don’t want to give tacit approval to Bell that tilt rotors are decent sometimes (only half joking here…)