Capn Notarious
We will have an aircraft there, it will fly some demos for the companies who have ordered the machine. I will be there too, mostly because I love Texas barbeque!
handyandyuk,
I think there have been tail rotor bird strikes, I dimly recall one about 10 years ago. The bird strike rules are interesting, they require that we protect anything that is exposed to strike, at Vne. We actually had to redesign the tail rotor spars after the first set of tests, since the design requirements that we used to use were not adequate if you take into account the approximately 5 tons of shock the bird gives the tail blade on impact!
The "regular" Sikorsky military design rules were also met, including ballistics and object strikes, since we intend to use the whole drive train (engines, transmissions, rotors and blades) on the most advanced version of the Black Hawk in a few years. The gearboxes bolt right into the Hawk family.
Maxng,
We certainly set our sights on the North Sea environment, mission and ranges. This is also a natural fit for SAR. We think competition is healthy, you should have a choice, it makes us all work harder. This does not mean that we regret causing a few "merde"s in southern France, mind you! They make us do it a few times, too! I am friends with a few of the EC test pilots, and many of the Westland guys, and they are good fellows. The friendly rivalry is fun.
I recall the Boeing crew dropping off a box of bull**** onto our flight field at Stratford, CT with a few of our UTTAS marketing brochures back in 1975! We reciprocated with a funny coloring book ("See the mast moment indicator, it shows how much trouble you are already in... Color it red.") and some horse **** in a box dropped by parachute onto their test center ramp! I also remember at a Heli-Expo overtaking an AS 365 by 25+ knots and passing them in a climb, while they were on a demonstration flight with prospective customers. The demo pilot was Jim Brown, who had tears in his eyes at the bar that night telling me how he told the prospects that the helo blowing their doors in was an experimental French machine that he couldn't talk about!!!