Helierez, many thanks for your thoughts - i'd be interested to learn more about the concept work for X2.
Chasing a world speed record, Sikorsky Aircraft's chief test pilot finally got the opportunity Tuesday to open up the Stratford company's latest helicopter, flying the X2 at 181 knots.
I am just starting to hold my breath a little now. This is getting exciting!
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Dave, nobody would fault your enthusiasm and efforts to stimulate development in the helicopter industry. As designers & engineers we both know that to take an idea forward requires many stages of investigation: evaluation, optimisation, validation, development, costing, & fabrication. This requires everyone involved to buy in to the numbers, which means that ideas tend to get driven towards the conservative. In helicopters, which among other things save lives, this is a good thing. I am quite sure your questions will have been considered at great depth during the early stages of X2.
One of the reasons i am developing my own helicopter performance calculation methodology is to allow me to ask exactly these sorts of questions and then produce the numbers. Good engineering relies on accurate numbers, without which any answer given cannot be complete.