DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Sikorsky To Build Superfast, Military-Grade S-97 RAIDER™ Helicopter
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - October 26, 2012: In 2009 Sikorsky Aircraft built the world’s fastest helicopter, the X2, which clocked in at nearly 287 miles per hour and earned a PM Breakthrough Award to boot. Since then, the company has been incorporating the technology into designs for a new helo—the Raider S-97—which it plans to offer it to the U.S. Army in 2015.
Like the X2 Demonstrator, the S-97 will use a coaxial rotor system. Its two rotors spin in opposite directions to stabilize the helicopter at high speeds, allowing it travel twice as fast as conventional helos. The S-97 will be twice as large as the X2, weighing in at 11,000 pounds, and capable of climbing up to 10,000 feet.
Sikorsky spokesperson Frans Jurgens told PM the S-97 would be able to hover with its nose pointed high or low without sliding backward or forward. "So it will have the ability to pirouette while keeping guns on-target," Jurgens says. "These are the kinds of maneuvers that only the X2 aircraft can achieve." The company plans to build the first two S-97 prototypes next summer and expects to get them off the ground beginning in late 2014.
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