oldgrubber;
Thank you for your experienced insight as a Seaking engineer. Lt. Col. Hawthorne (now a full colonel in the latest journo blurb) who said he had never seen anything like it before, has probably never had a spot of hydraulic fluid on his uniform since being commissioned.
If the Seaking did, in fact, lose all its main rotor blades due to ground impact, what would be the effect of that impulse load on all the mechanical gubbins between them and the main airframe? Would the cost of structural integrity assessment and replacement, if necessary, be worth returning the craft to operational duty?
Thanks,
P.s. I think Boeing/Sikorsky has too much on their plate now to spend the resources to convince anyone that the Cyclone is airworthy for military operations.