Originally Posted by
BLloydK
Too bad the original X2 team wasn’t left in charge because it would have continued on to develop the Y variant X2 with 2 engines they envisioned and designed. It was a S76 sized aircraft and would have proved a viable X2 platform for production. But the Army paper chase and government requirements got the program derailed and developing the wrong aircraft. So here we are today near 15 years later and no X2 aircraft flying. Got to love the lack of investment of Lockheed and its inability to invest in itself and be a Commerical company. They destroyed the S76D and the S92 platforms. As for the S92 they did finally field the VH92 and without now no Lockheed commercial S92 market just think the money it will cost to keep that not in production platform flying. Good one Lockheed your making the money and have no Commerical risk but a government contract to keep an VH92 aircraft flying for not millions but now billions.
Please sell Sikorsky to Raytheon and get a President of Sikorsky in place that knows how to build helicopters and innovate without the government seed money to chase BS requirements.
An S-76 sized platform would have definitely hit the vibration and ride quality problems that plagued Raider and Defiant. The X-2 Demonstrator was too small to really demonstrate solutions for the critical problems of the platform. Vibes scale egregiously with rotor diameter and gross weight, and missing yaw authority gets worse with scale and practical aircraft configurations. Certification of a civil fly by wire flight control system still hasn't been achieved (though the 525 is close) and the vibration control system would likely have been flight critical, a dubious industry first. DOC and maintenance would have been uncompetitive in the civil market. None of the X-2 aircraft flew in rough air, pilot count has been low, and flight rates have been very low. Frankly, if you go back and look at the problems/lessons learned on the S-69, the "X-2 configuration" only solved some of them and ignored the rest.
Issues with Innovations and management aside, it's the technology that was fundamentally flawed for a practically sized aircraft. The "X-2 Mafia" may have damn near crippled the company and Lockheed's abandonment of the civil market was just another body blow. Sad state for the company.