PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Sikorsky X2 coaxial heli developments.
View Single Post
Old 3rd Jun 2005, 19:53
  #11 (permalink)  
Dave_Jackson
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Posts: 1,635
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
IMHO

Sikorsky's move back to the coaxial configuration is a belated one, but it is well timed. The largest portion of their business in the near future appears to be the upgrading existing military craft. Their new craft sales will probably be low and therefor this announcement of a radically different helicopter will not be too detrimental.

Bell right now is probably doing some nail biting. It appears that an advanced coaxial ABC will outperform the tiltrotor in all significant respects, with the exception of top speed.

Sikorsky's nail biting is a few years off. Its commitment to, and implementation of, the coaxial will clearly show the advantages of twin main-rotor craft. Some other company in America, Europe, or perhaps the Far East will take advantage of this and bring out helicopters with lateral displaced twin main-rotors.

I predict that the functional superiority of the intermeshing/interleaving configurations will do to Sikorsky's coaxials what Sikorsky's coaxials will do to Bell's tiltrotors.


Dave
Dave_Jackson is offline