Sikorsky X2 family

[yasotay]

Very expensive PR move. It is a good idea to switch all the funds to S-97. And besides, this vehicle is not a helicopter, so it cant set the official record for the helicopters (what matters from the PR point of view). Even if the achieved speed is official, we still need to say, that the fastest helicopter in all relevant categories is Westland Lnyx.

So any rotorcraft that derives thrust from other than the primary lifting device which remains fixed atop the primary structure of the aircraft is not a helicopter?

 

[Stargazer]

So any rotorcraft that derives thrust from other than the primary lifting device which remains fixed atop the primary structure of the aircraft is not a helicopter?

OF COURSE it still is, otherwise one wouldn't be talking of "compound helicopters"...

 

[Matej]

So any rotorcraft that derives thrust from other than the primary lifting device which remains fixed atop the primary structure of the aircraft is not a helicopter?

As much as any vehicle, capable of the atmospheric flight, can be named aircraft.

/end of senseless playing with the words/

It seems, that I need to be much specific: What I am saying is that the X2 and X3 are not listed in the "main" helicopter category (lift and forward flight done solely by one or more rotors, powered by the piston or turbine engine). If I remember correctly the closest class, where they can all meet is the E-1. Thus if Sikorsky invest their own money to make their speed achievement official, they will be listed in some class, subclass and group, together with dozens of other types (even the archaic Mi-2 holds some records there), and the people will keep saying, that the Lynx is the fastest helicopter, because it is mass produced, relatively widely used and this is how the "helicopter" look like in the eyes of the general public. Because of that - from the Sikorsky's PR point of view - to invest significant amount of money just to say that we have one piece of some experimental prototype listed in this specific class, subclass and group as the fastest vehicle in one of the dozens of categories is not worth the money and they made a good move to focus solely on the (likely to be) final product S-97.

 

[yasotay]

So any rotorcraft that derives thrust from other than the primary lifting device which remains fixed atop the primary structure of the aircraft is not a helicopter?

As much as any vehicle, capable of the atmospheric flight, can be named aircraft.

/end of senseless playing with the words/

It seems, that I need to be much specific: What I am saying is that the X2 and X3 are not listed in the "main" helicopter category (lift and forward flight done solely by one or more rotors, powered by the piston or turbine engine). If I remember correctly the closest class, where they can all meet is the E-1. Thus if Sikorsky invest their own money to make their speed achievement official, they will be listed in some class, subclass and group, together with dozens of other types (even the archaic Mi-2 holds some records there), and the people will keep saying, that the Lynx is the fastest helicopter, because it is mass produced, relatively widely used and this is how the "helicopter" look like in the eyes of the general public. Because of that - from the Sikorsky's PR point of view - to invest significant amount of money just to say that we have one piece of some experimental prototype listed in this specific class, subclass and group as the fastest vehicle in one of the dozens of categories is not worth the money and they made a good move to focus solely on the (likely to be) final product S-97.

I agree with you completely. In fact Sikorsky does not have to worry about the dictionary definitions because their primary customer for the technology already has it in their mind that the X2 is the fastest helicopter, unconcerned with the niceties of FAI rules.
My point was (just to stir up some mischief) that if the FAI rules preclude use of auxiliary propulsion within the definition of pure helicopter, that a helicopter-like rotorcraft that derived 7% propulsion from the engines is perhaps not strictly within the limits of the definition.

 

[Triton]

Uploaded by thedewline on Jul 25, 2011

Sikorsky test pilot Keven Bredenbeck describes the vehicles that may follow the X2, the company's newly-retired high-speed, coaxial-pusher combo that achieved a record-breaking speed of 250kt.

http://youtu.be/1lyIkxq-dnI

Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/07/osh11-sikorsky-talks-about-lif.html

 

[mz]

Don't think it's software. The commercial world produces lots of incredibly complex software comparable to or more sophisticated than what's being developed for the military. The don't take 14 years. These factors are why things cost so much and take so long, IMO.

Actually developing software that has some complexity AND is very reliable takes quite long. And then the original requirements changed and the software changed and you must go back. (Since "software is so quick and easy to change!!")
You can look at hospital monitors for example. Many are from the eighties and run just fine while they can only show a few digits like old calculators. More modern things have been slowly developed and perhaps in the eighties it took a few years from architecture decisions to market, in the nineties five years, in the noughties it was already over a decade.
When software has to be more versatile and when more complex things are calculated, it takes a disproportionate amount of time to ensure that it actually works. Also one monitor that has the processing power of an old PC costs as much as an automobile (okay, there's some sensor hardware that's very expensive etc so the pricing is hard to see) so the market tends to be conservative.


It's maybe not "aerospace slow" but still in total contrast to the buggy cellphone apps that are all the rage nowadays and that people perhaps consider benchmarks of technology.


I think that when it has become easier to write complex software, it hasn't become that much easier to verify it for critical applications. Somehow like code writing effort is complexity to the power of two but verification effort is complexity to the power of four.


I don't know if the US government paperwork also tries to somehow go into that, but it probably doesn't help, you have to have the right people, a working culture and organization to produce complex things that work.

 

[mz]

Another way to look at it (this is not a perfect analogy by all means).


Every time your mail application hangs or quits unexpectedly or just works wrong, your chopper just crashed killing everyone on board, and the whole fleet is grounded for investigations that will last for months.


It's a different world of software.


My mail client (Mail) crashes maybe only once a month or two and I consider it pretty good quality software, it's made by Apple for Apple computers so they can control the environment and they also have a lot of money and have had time to fit it together with the whole system, which are all reasons I assume it is so good for desktop software.

 

[F-14D]

There are actually two issues here, complexity and reliability or fail-soft. In the civil world, there is a number of software applications that are at least as complex,if not more so, than what the military needs. Communications and routing for example. Go back a few years to when landline phones were overwhelmingly predominant (in the last decade or so we've come to accept less sound quality and reliability in return for convenience and lower cost). The complexity of the software required to make that work was staggering, and the lines of code were unbelievable, for jobs far more sophisticated that what we're asking of our military software today. Yet, there was almost never a connection to a wrong number when properly dialed or a dropped call, barring physical damage en-route. There are other examples.

It's not that all that software was perfect, there were always glitches. However, enough redundancy was built in to the code that a failure or just a programming error didn't cause a catastrophic failure or even something noticeable to the customer. Granted this is nowhere near as important as an aircraft crashing, but that's a factor of the consequences of the code, not the code itself. The code itself is or isn't good in and of itself. If a software failure causes a crash or a cascading series of failures that leads to a crash, then that's bad design. Yes, the military by its nature accepts a lower level of safety than the civilian world but that's still inexcusable.

Government rules and paperwork are a big part of it, but it shouldn't take as long as it does. in military/aerospace. We may be making it more complicated than it has to be.

 

[yasotay]

So I'm on my way to lunch and look what shows up at the parking lot. Had a chance to talk with the test pilot some as well. Reminds me of a Shelby GT... except with rotors. Interesting tidbit; the pirate flag (one of the pics) was the emblem of the program because of all the equipment stole... barrowed from other efforts. Side stick controller and engine RAH-66_01, tail strut from UH-60, controllers S-76. Hats off to Sikorsky for doing some old fashioned ingenuity

 

[Grey Havoc]

Interesting tidbit; the pirate flag (one of the pics) was the emblem of the program because of all the equipment stole... barrowed from other efforts.

Ah, the ancient art of the scrounger lives on.

 

[Orionblamblam]

the pirate flag (one of the pics) was the emblem of the program because of all the equipment stole... barrowed from other efforts.

Approves.

 

[vstol]

Interesting tidbit; the pirate flag (one of the pics) was the emblem of the program because of all the equipment stole... barrowed from other efforts.

I thought it was added after they unveiled the X2 S-97 Raider. Is that what Kevin Bredenbeck said? Guess I was wrong.

 

[yasotay]

Interesting tidbit; the pirate flag (one of the pics) was the emblem of the program because of all the equipment stole... barrowed from other efforts.

I thought it was added after they unveiled the X2 S-97 Raider. Is that what Kevin Bredenbeck said? Guess I was wrong.

Yeah Kevin was rather proud of how well the equipment went together.

 

[Evil Flower]

Another way to look at it (this is not a perfect analogy by all means).


Every time your mail application hangs or quits unexpectedly or just works wrong, your chopper just crashed killing everyone on board, and the whole fleet is grounded for investigations that will last for months.


It's a different world of software.


My mail client (Mail) crashes maybe only once a month or two and I consider it pretty good quality software, it's made by Apple for Apple computers so they can control the environment and they also have a lot of money and have had time to fit it together with the whole system, which are all reasons I assume it is so good for desktop software.

There's also the fact that most software engineers who work on defense/medical/you name it software simply aren't very good programmers. In the games industry where I work software engineers usually keep a much higher standard - not just because games development is more difficult but because we actually need to meet our deadlines. Contrast the US Government with any publisher who will simply outright cancel a project or even close the entire studio if they aren't happy with the development process.

 

[gtg947h]

There's also the fact that most software engineers who work on defense/medical/you name it software simply aren't very good programmers. In the games industry where I work software engineers usually keep a much higher standard - not just because games development is more difficult but because we actually need to meet our deadlines. Contrast the US Government with any publisher who will simply outright cancel a project or even close the entire studio if they aren't happy with the development process.

So your argument is essentially "game developers can get sacked at the drop of a hat if they don't push something out the door by a set date, so they therefore produce better, more reliable code"?
Excuse me for a moment; I almost passed out from laughing so hard.

I test fly-by-wire systems for a living, at a company that makes products for the private sector--in other words, we don't suck the government teat for our development funds, either. Our testing process is rigorous, time-consuming, and expensive, because when the hardware and software that goes on our airplanes has a bug, that's a problem--on the scale of people getting KILLED, not just pissing off some 12-year-old because his game froze up. And unlike the game industry, we don't have the luxury of pushing out a buggy product to make the Christmas deadline, and then patching it later. A graphics glitch in a game is an annoyance; a graphics glitch on avionics software at the wrong time can cause a deadly accident.
When we test our products, we don't just pay a bunch of kids to sit in front of computers and play games. We spend hundreds of hours testing every single software load on the ground (on a full-size test rig) just to clear it for flight--and then we go fly it on an airplane, at tens of thousands of dollars per hour, and with people potentially risking their lives. If we find a bug, the whole process starts over again, because you can't just retest the situation that caused the bug, but you have to test everything else to make sure your fix didn't break something else.
That's what takes so long with our development process. It's not the coding or design work that takes so long--that goes relatively quickly. It's the testing and documentation that you have to do. You have to test the hardware and software to make sure it works the way it's supposed to. You have to prove that your test procedure is testing everything it should. You have to document your process and prove that every item and every part you make (and its software) is actually what you say it is, and that your production process is consistent. Do game manufacturers run functional checks on every CD that comes out of the factory?
Our (the aerospace industry's) software has to work all the time. It has to work even when your sensors start giving erroneous readings, when the user does something stupid, when other components start failing. The hardware has to work in arctic cold, desert heat and dust, in tropical rain, or covered in hydraulic fluid, not just sitting in a living room at room temperature. And in order to meet redundancy requirements for safety, some items have to be independent of each other. For example, the hardware in each flight control computer might be designed independently by separate groups to the same specification. The software for both will be written to the same spec, but by different groups. That's twice the development and testing work, but it helps reduce the chance that a given bug will take down all of your most critical pieces of hardware at once.
Go read up on the development of the Space Shuttle's flight computer and its software. That's about as bug-free as software can be. Yes, it's slow and laborious. It's absolutely glacial compared to the game development process. But it simply cannot be allowed to fail.

 

[TomS]

It seems, that I need to be much specific: What I am saying is that the X2 and X3 are not listed in the "main" helicopter category (lift and forward flight done solely by one or more rotors, powered by the piston or turbine engine). If I remember correctly the closest class, where they can all meet is the E-1.

Looking at the FAI Sporting Code (Section 9), the category definitions concern themselves only with the source and direction of lift, not thrust, and with the type of engines used (piston, turbine, or other), not how those engines are used to create thrust.

Because they derive all or almost all of their lift from a rotor system, the X2 and X3 would both seem to qualify as rotorcraft (Category E).

Because that rotor system is powered and substantially perpendicular to their direction of travel, they are helicopters (E-1), rather than autogyros or tiltrotors.

They might fall into separate subcategories based on weight (E-1e for the X2 based on an MTOW of 3,600 kg; no idea for the X3 since no weights have been released), but that's all.

 

[Evil Flower]

Snip wall of text

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the root of all evil here is management. 9 times out of 10 when a game is released in a buggy state, incompetent project management is to blame. 10 times out of 10 when a dev team has to crunch for months on end, incompetent management is to blame. It's probably the same in the aviation industry. And you guys probably suffer much harder from losing institutional knowledge as the guys who knew stuff goes into retirement as the dev cycles span into decades upon decades.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Snip wall of text

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if the root of all evil here is management. 9 times out of 10 when a game is released in a buggy state, incompetent project management is to blame. 10 times out of 10 when a dev team has to crunch for months on end, incompetent management is to blame. It's probably the same in the aviation industry. And you guys probably suffer much harder from losing institutional knowledge as the guys who knew stuff goes into retirement as the dev cycles span into decades upon decades.

Let's not forget the horrors known as Agile development and Extreme Programming. [shudders]

 

[Evil Flower]

Agile development works really well if used the way it's supposed to. Waterfall development on the other hand is doomed to fail deadlines everytime. It looks good on excel sheets and powerpoint presentations but fails reality just as hard as plan economy models do.

 

[GeorgeA]

Let's not forget the horrors known as Agile development and Extreme Programming. [shudders]

Agile/scrum is unequivocally the work of the Antichrist. It's a dream for young and undisciplined code monkeys and SW engineering middle management that values lines of code produced as a metric. For everyone else, including the customer, its a nightmare.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Agile development works really well if used the way it's supposed to. Waterfall development on the other hand is doomed to fail deadlines everytime. It looks good on excel sheets and powerpoint presentations but fails reality just as hard as plan economy models do.

True, Waterfall development can have it's disadvantages for project teams when dealing with very large and/or complex projects.

However, Agile development is really only suitable for prototyping and small projects, but far too many people forget this and try using it as the basis for large software projects (including [shudder] mission critical applications). And using it with outsourced software projects is a recipe for disaster (at best!).
On the other hand, using it to develop prototypes for individual small components of a large project can be effective, but actual finished components will still require more traditional techniques, especially when it comes to documentation.

Extreme Programming is exactly what it says on the tin. It should only be used for rapid prototyping and proof of concept applications, and even then only by very good programmers.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Let's not forget the horrors known as Agile development and Extreme Programming. [shudders]

Agile/scrum is unequivocally the work of the Antichrist. It's a dream for young and undisciplined code monkeys and SW engineering middle management that values lines of code produced as a metric. For everyone else, including the customer, its a nightmare.

Just saw your post. I'd agree with you on most of it, except the Antichrist part. For a true product of that individual see Extreme Programming!

 

[Evil Flower]

Agile/scrum is unequivocally the work of the Antichrist. It's a dream for young and undisciplined code monkeys and SW engineering middle management that values lines of code produced as a metric. For everyone else, including the customer, its a nightmare.

Not quite. Used correctly agile works like a charm. The whole point of working against a list of usecases is so you don't end up with a bunch of unnecessary features which is quite often the case with waterfall methods. It's when managers and customers refuse to cut useless features (because they think in terms of linear waterfall development) coupled with the inability of most people to accurately time-estimate their own work that agile falls apart. And when it does, you still need to cut less content/features than you would when the linear model crashes and burns because with agile you only work on what is needed right now. Artists tend to love waterfall until they figure out that they spent months on content that has to be cut because the project just ran out of time, lol.

 

[amsci99]

I read this sometime back about the XH-59/S-69 squaring off against the XV-15. Seems the latter was a lot tougher than the XH-59/S-69, the XV-15 would just fly to the site whilst the ABC Demonstrator had to be shipped there by rail car.

http://defensetech.org/2009/01/09/sikorskys-x2-revealed/ (under 'Comments' from 'Watcher')

With the new hub fairing, 'reverse taper blade design', anti-vibration systems and digital FBW, how does the X2 design hold up?

 

[yasotay]

I read this sometime back about the XH-59/S-69 squaring off against the XV-15. Seems the latter was a lot tougher than the XH-59/S-69, the XV-15 would just fly to the site whilst the ABC Demonstrator had to be shipped there by rail car.

http://defensetech.org/2009/01/09/sikorskys-x2-revealed/ (under 'Comments' from 'Watcher')

With the new hub fairing, 'reverse taper blade design', anti-vibration systems and digital FBW, how does the X2 design hold up?

It holds up well enough that Sikorsky is willing to bet $$$ on two flying prototype; the S-97 Raider. Having had opportunity to talk with members of the team they are very excited and comfortable that they have overcome the tech challenges of the XH-59. That said, hard maneuvering of the concept has yet to take place other than in simulation. While I realize that simulation has come a long way (especially in the area of aero) I am still a "show me" kinda guy.

 

[sublight]

AOPA article. http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2011/october/feature_swamp_pirates.html?WT.mc_id=110922epspec&WT.mc_sect=tts#ooid=g2dXNyMjo2WhieNtx88obvX7r9LWUIN6

 

[fightingirish]

Sikorsky's X2 high-speed coaxial concept models at at AUSA

 

[AAAdrone]

I like how they are going with the contra-rotating blades with the main rotor. It looks pretty nice.

 

[MihoshiK]

I like how they are going with the contra-rotating blades with the main rotor. It looks pretty nice.

Didn't read the thread, did you? It's the X2's entire schtick. Counterrotating main blades and a push prop for high speed. it's what the entire thing is all about.

 

[AAAdrone]

Oops. I kind of jumped in and replied that time.

 

[TomS]

Bad news for X2/S97. Looks like the Army is trying to exclude any new designs from the AAS competition--if it isn't flying in the next six months, it's out *(and of course the S-97 can't possibly be ready before 2014).

http://www.shephard.co.uk/news/rotorhub/ausa-2011-flight-demonstration-plan-bad-news-for-sikorsky/10256/

Speaking to reporters at the AUSA exhibition in Washington DC on 10 October, Maj Gen Tim Crosby, PEO Aviation, said budget constraints had forced the service to ‘take an appetite suppressant’ in seeking a replacement for the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. While noting that the plan still needed approval at the higher level, Crosby said his intention was to carry out the demonstration at the beginning of April.
‘This is not a fly-off, it’s a demonstration,’ Crosby said ‘I have to have approval from the under secretary of defence to allow me to spend those additional dollars. We estimate that this is going to be about $8.7 million to execute this demo – that has a lot of assumptions in it – but it would be no more than that amount.‘
The requirement to have a flying prototype ready for flight tests in as little as six months’ time could well spell the end of Sikorsky’s ambitions to meet the AAS requirements with its S97 Raider coaxial compound helicopter.
While Sikorsky has gone a long way in validating the configuration through its X2 Technology Demonstrator, which flew 23 test flights and achieved a maximum cruise speed of 253 knots in level flight, the test aircraft has now been retired.
The first flight of the company-funded Raider is not expected until 2014.
When asked about the fate of companies who did not currently have a flying prototype, Crosby made it clear that this was a ‘deal breaker’ in terms of their involvement in the project.
‘I am a pretty simple guy – if you don’t have an airplane you don’t play. This is not Powerpoint, this is not bringing a picture – if it doesn’t fly, don’t bother showing up. We believe that there are COTS systems that meet, not all the requirements, but a substantial part of it.

I can kind of see the issue -- the Army has been burned badly on developmental scout helicopter programs -- but six months for a flight demo on which the whole rest of the program depends seems like a decision designed to favor a predetermined outcome (AAS-72X?)

 

[fightingirish]

Defensetech - Sikorsky’s Next Gen Helos

 

[flateric]

pre-final S-97 configuration patent

Rotary-wing aircraft with a common dynamic system/backbone structure Mark R. Alber et al

Patent number: D614559
Filing date: Sep 14, 2007
Issue date: Apr 27, 2010
Application number: 29/284,739

Inventors: Mark R. Alber, Benjamin Reed Hein, Alfred Russell Smiley, Timothy F. Lauder, William J. Eadie
Original Assignee: Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation
Current Assignee: Search USPTO Assignment Database
Primary Examiner: Lisa P Lichtenstein
Attorney: Carlson, Gaskey & Olds PC

 

[flateric]

AERODYNAMIC INTEGRATION OF A PAYLOAD CONTAINER WITH A VERTICAL TAKE-OFF AND ... Mark R. Alber et al

Application number: 12/373,537
Publication number: US 2010/0012769 A1
Filing date: Jul 19, 2007


A vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) rotary-wing air-craft is sized and configured to match a payload container such as a standardized Joint Modular Intermodal Container (JMIC). The aircraft may be an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) that is capable of autonomously engaging and disengaging the container so that the aircraft can pick up and drop off the JMIC with minimum human intervention.
Inventors: Mark R. Alber, Brandon L. Stille, Alfred Russell Smiley

 

[AeroFranz]

This looks suspiciously like something that I would offer for the Marine Cargo UAS competition that resulted in the (Lockheed) K-Max and (Boeing) A160 being currently tested. Maybe this was Sikorsky's entry? The date of filing for the patent is close enough.

 

[ouroboros]

The unmanned pod carrier design is interesting, from the standpoint of history. Common platform like the Huey/Cobra. Since the design is podded from the beginning, if push comes to shove you can dump the strike/recce pod and carry cargo pods (or have enough recessed hooks in the ceiling and having people snap themselves on, in an emergency), nevermind the easier maintenance for the strike pod by swapping out using a pallet loader or a flatbed truck (would that be a viable reload methodology?). This also has implications for UGV delivery and recovery too.

But I just can't help imaging a whale shark gobbling up containers.

 

[quellish]

This looks suspiciously like something that I would offer for the Marine Cargo UAS competition that resulted in the (Lockheed) K-Max and (Boeing) A160 being currently tested. Maybe this was Sikorsky's entry? The date of filing for the patent is close enough.

Reminds me somewhat of MUVR

 

[AeroFranz]

That too! I had forgotten about that...

 

[Triton]

Sikorsky's X2 high-speed coaxial concept models at at AUSA

 

[Triton]

Defensetech - Sikorsky’s Next Gen Helos