CTR makes several valid points on post #155 and to add to this, Sikorsky is now wholly owned by LM, whose share price has risen impressively these past few years in-spite of major US defense spending cut-backs and is a very different beast from UTC (whose share price took a major hit following the decision to sell or spin-off Sikorsky, and has yet to recover).
What makes me smile is that for the current FVL JMR-TD Medium/Utility program, the SB-1 is a 50/50 JV with Boing (
) and Sikorsky (a company wholly owned by LM) and the Bell V-280 Valor has LM as a major partner.
Were it a 50/50 JV on both programs, then one would think the DoD would raise competitive pricing concerns, as one company could be seen as a win/win bidder whatever the outcome, but not knowing what value share there is on the Valor program (but likely less than 50%), then one could question whether this bidder has a preferred platform solution
.
As for the S-97 Raider, I still don’t see anything else to compete with it on the JMR-Light option, so I don’t suppose either Sikorsky or LM is that worried about any lack of Raider press releases just now and logically any of the data coming out of the Raider program is being fast tracked to the Defiant platform.