This week, Sikorsky is expected to start the assembly of the S-97 Raider helicopter prototype, Defense News reports.
The helicopter, among the choppers pitched for the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout program, to replace the Army’s aging fleet of OH-58 Kiowa Warriors, in use since the late 1960s, features a futuristic shape (compared to that of current helos) and is based on Sikorsky’s X-2 technology.
The S-97 will be a high-speed helicopter with coaxial main rotors and pusher propeller with a capability to either accomodate six troops or sensor in addition to the two pilots in the typical side-by-side cockpit.
The image of the first fuselage, released by Sikorsky, brings to light some interesting details about the Raider and a loose similarity with the MH-X Stealth Black Hawk helicopter exposed by the Osama Bin Laden raid.
Not only the Raider’s nose section is compatible with the concept I developed with AviationGraphic’s Ugo Crisponi in 2011 but the new chopper features a retractable landing gear is a feature that we thought was among the things that could keep the MH-X stealth and silent.
Most probably the MH-X (whose shape remains unknown) is different from the S-97, however it is safe to believe tha Sikorsky has embedded some of the features developed for the secret, radar evading U.S. Army Stealth Black Hawk used by the Navy SEALs at Abbottabad in May 2011, in the new chopper pitched to the Army.
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ever wonder where the funding went to for the comanche? see money is always paid up front to do the work so it had to go somewhere. this is more real than you know.
I still believe the so-called “stealth blackhawk” isn’t a blackhawk at all but something nobody’s really seen yet.
That’s what I was going to say. lol Could be some sort of new VTOL. No one has actually seen a whirly bird…just a piece of fuselage with a rotor.
I initially thought the same thing, but after hearing the retired Army officer talk about it actually being a retrofit to an existing Blackhawk, I would tend to agree with him. Now there IS another “Ghost Hawk” stealth helo which is a generation or more beyond the one used in the Bin Laden raid, and it’s a known fact that we chose not to employ that bird due to the loss of technology. My guess is that it’s a purpose-built machine, very low production, maybe only a handful of them exist.
Remember the BLUE THUNDER: Popular science, Novemebr, Tech update 1998
sure i remember
bullxxit story..crashed helicopter and all Team of 6 added in one helicopter with Bins dead body /wifes ..How many people can fit in this wonder. lol conspiracy rules Raid was a LIE
You’re a embarrassment to millions of years of mankind evolution. Go read the account again. The back up Chinook arrived to pick them up. C’mon, human brain is a gift, use it sometime, ok?
When you actually can buy hobby drones with much of this technology, you can be sure it has been secretly swarming around us for a couple of decades already and probably looked through your bedroom window too, provided you are interesting enough to look at, though.