Military

Sikorsky's S-97 Raider helicopter puts on a show for the US Army

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Sikorsky has been flying and testing X2 Technology for more than a decade, accumulating nearly 500 hours
Lockheed Martin
The Sikorsky S-97 RAIDER helicopter flew two flight demonstrations
Lockheed Martin
Sikorsky has been flying and testing X2 Technology for more than a decade, accumulating nearly 500 hours
Lockheed Martin
Future Vertical Lift aircraft like Sikorsky’s Raider are designed to provide US Army commanders with information to self-diagnose maintenance
Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky
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Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft's S-97 Raider advanced prototype helicopter has shown off its agility in two demonstration flights for the US Army at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. With Sikorsky pilots Christiaan Corry and Bill Fell at the controls, the Raider carried out low-level maneuvers and high-speed runs on April 13 and 15, 2021.

Sikorsky's candidate for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program under the US Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative, the S-97 Raider is a compound helicopter based on the company's X2 technology demonstrator. It uses variable speed rigid coaxial main rotors that can tilt independently of one another and a variable-pitch pusher propeller for improved horizontal speed, hovering, and low-speed maneuverability. It also uses a fly-by-wire system and dynamic anti-vibration actuators to reduce shaking.

In terms of specifications, the Raider can carry a crew of two in a side-by-side configuration, along with up to six passengers. Powered by the same General Electric YT706 turboshaft engine used in the MH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, it can put out 2,600 bhp (1,900 kW), giving it a cruising speed of 250 mph (410 km/h, 220 knots) and a range of 350 miles (570 km) with external weapons load. The standard armament will be a .50 caliber machine gun and seven-round rocket pods.

Future Vertical Lift aircraft like Sikorsky’s Raider are designed to provide US Army commanders with information to self-diagnose maintenance
Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky

The Raider is also designed to provide commanders with a flow of maintenance data and self-diagnosis that, working with Sikorsky's Fleet Decision Tool, allows the helicopter to provide solid information as to how many of the aircraft will be available for missions at any one time.

"Flying Raider continues to amaze me," says Corry, a former US Marine. "The combination of the coaxial rotors and the propulsor is really the enablers for this transformational technology. As we demonstrated today, in low-speed flight, we are as capable as a conventional helicopter, but when we engage the prop, we are able to operate in a whole new way – it's much more like flying an airplane."

The video below shows the S-97 Raider going through its paces at Redstone.

Source: Lockheed Martin

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5 comments
Daishi
This is what a demo looks like and they are probably still over a year away from production. Contrast this with the eVTOL companies with some renderings or vehicles that get a few feet off the pad with no occupants and land again saying they will create a brand new industry and have a commercial taxi fleet operational in 2-3 years to get some context for how disconnected from reality those predictions are.
Nelson Hyde Chick
The pilot's hatch looks too small for a regular sized human to get in and out of this war machine.
Jinpa
$200 mil to get two prototypes this far. $15,000,000 projected cost per copy, for two pilots and six other seats, so about $2 mil per seat. Does that beat the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey cost per seat? 400 Ospreys, with a crew of 4 and 24 seated troops, have been built at at total projected contract cost north of $54 Billion, so, no the Osprey still is the most expensive @ $110 mil per copy, at about $ 4 mil per seat, for a total of maybe 490 copies projected run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey
Tristan P
The Raider looks like an amazing bit of kit, but kinda underwealming looking video.
P51d007
Looks like they borrowed the idea of the pusher prop from the AH-56 Cheyenne project, that was up against the AH-64 Apache back in the day.