X2/XH-59
Dave, you posted:
"John, you are correct. The continuum of hyperbole from the marketing department and the frivolous patents from the legal department do not impress me. They appear to be little more than attempts to maintain image and stock value. Any serious buyer will want to 'look under the hood and kick the tires'."
Your construction implies that my assessment of the SA marketing and legal departments matches yours. I worked with both groups for 39 years and my opinion of both groups is 180 degrees from yours.
Secondly, although I have far from perfect recall, I think that we decided not to continue with the XH-59 after a decision by the supporting US Gov't agencies in 1980-81 not to continue with financial support of that program. A few years later the Army decided that the LHX was to be a conventional helicopter. That was around 84-85. Remember, at the time Sikorsky had a new production program with the UH-60, a new production program with the CH-53E, a new production program with the S-76A, (the 76B was on the boards) the development/qualification testing program on the SH-60B Seahawk, and I am certain we did not have enough people to try an ABC development toward a production model.
By the way all of those concurrent models were the product of that non-innovative engineering department to which you referred. Nowadays, they are working on some other "non-innovative" new models in addition to the X2, so as to be sure to keep the marketing guys and girls awash in hyperbole.
Thanks,
John Dixson