S-67
Kurt Cannon was the project pilot on the S-67, but circumstances prevented him from doing any substantial travel with it, hence I got to be the third S-67 pilot and travelled around the USA, Germany , the UK , Iran and Greece with Byron Graham. Also did most of the fenestron ( called fan-in-fin in those days at Sikorsky ) flying because Kurt went on vacation just when it started.
Anyhow, to answer a few questions that I've seen here:
1. Before going on the European Tour, we had installed an airconditioned interior with six troop seats along the fuselage wall. Completely soundproofed the area and it was therefore quite cool and reasonably quiet.
2. Really never ran up against the Apache as it was lost in the accident at Farnborough in 1974. Vh at design weight was 178 KIAS as 1-3000 ft so it was pretty quick, and in fact faster than any of the modern helo gunships.
3. While the interior was being installed, we also installed a 20 mm gun turret, the head up display from the F-111, a Litton inertial system, which drove a CDC map display (the map display from the A-7E), a Low Light Level Television system ( that projected on the head up display ). The inertial system computer also performed the computed aiming data for the gun, and this was projected on the head up display.
4. To clear up a small inaccuracy, the wing mounted speed brakes were manually controlled by a thumb switch on the collective stick.
5. When installed, the fenestron was transparent to the pilot, except for one flaw that we had noticed in flying a Gazelle prior to the initiation of our test program ( one of the younger DuPonts had his own Gazelle and allowed us to do a quickie evaluation ): it had a directional deadband around trim in forward flight. That is, it was quite happy to stay anywhere within about a 3 degree wide heading. Didn't wander about. You might notice some pictures of the fan in fin installation with a rudder and rudder trim installed and that is what this was all about. We talked about declutching the fan and flying rudder-only in forward flight, but the accident curtailed that development.
Happy to respond to further questions about this remarkable aircraft.
John Dixson