Originally Posted by
The Sultan
Reported:
Lockheed does not appear confident in Sikorsky's ability to pull off the SB1 and is looking to acquire the V280.
This could be quite interesting. when United Technologies sought to divest itself of Sikorsky, there was some interest from Textron to acquire it. However, the US Gov't let it be known that it wouldn't let that happen for antitrust reasons, as owning both Bell and Sikorsky would give it too large a share of the US helicopter industry, in their opinion. Since foreign complanies would not be allowed to acquire this US strategic asset, Lockheed got it because no one else showed interest.
So one would think that this is the exact same scenario, but maybe with the cnbage in Administrations, opinions could change.
If this is true, I suspect it's not so much the SB-1 that disappointed Lockheed, as much as the entire technology it's based on since the record is not good in all its iterations so far .
Of course, keep in mind that Lockheed is already a partner with Bell on the V-280.