Thanks KenV for the insightful discussion.
May I enquire:
What is the factor that limits the X2 configuration to only upto FVL-M? Is it due to the difficulty in having rigid rotors beyond this size?
Now that SB Defiant has been shortlisted for the JMR-TD, but it will have no way to go beyond FVL-M, this will mean the services will have to rely on another configuration for the bigger machines. That being the case, we'll see:
Upto the size of blackhawk - rigid conaxial rotors, ABC, X2 configuration.
Beyond that: a combination of tiltrotors if speed is needed, or tandem if speed is non critical.
Is the going to be the case? Will this approach lead to sub-optimality?