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Old 26th Apr 2009, 02:26
  #423 (permalink)  
riff_raff
 
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It's too bad they're going to cover the X2 rotor hub with a fairing. That rigid rotor hub structure is a real pretty piece of design work. I wonder if most people really appreciate how difficult it is to design a lightweight hub structure and pitch bearing mechanism capable of handling the huge moment forces produced by a rigid rotor. It was likely a difficult design problem at the small scale X2 demonstrator. One can only imagine how hard the problem will be to solve with the exponentially larger moments imposed by a larger diameter rigid rotor.

Don't know what's in store for the X2's future though. It was dropped from consideration in the JHL/JFTL program. Apparently it didn't fare too well against conventional tiltrotors in the JHL trade studies. To make up for it though, it looks like the program management threw Sikorsky a bone by suggesting they dust off their VDTR concept.
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