Sikorsky makes its bid for Army’s next scout copter

Enlarge / An artist's rendering of Sikorsky's proposed Raider X attack-scout helicopter. (credit: Sikorsky)

As the Association of the US Army (AUSA) kicks off its annual Washington, DC meeting-a combination of Army conference and land-warfare trade show-Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky unit has unveiled the company's entry into the Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) design shoot-out. As predicted, the "Raider X" is based heavily on the S-97 Raider demonstrator that Sikorsky showed off at the 2015 AUSA conference.

But there are some significant differences in the proposed design, differences that echo an earlier attempt by the Army to build a light-attack helicopter. Much like Bell's Invictus design, the Raider X's stealthy design bears a passing resemblance to the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche.

Sikorsky's video introducing the Raider X design.

The Raider X has the same side-by-side crew configuration as the Raider demonstrator. But instead of additional crew and passenger seating, it has modular internal weapons and sensor mounts, reducing its potential radar cross-section. As with Bell's Invictus, the design included a "Modern Open Systems Architecture"-based avionics suite, theoretically allowing for rapid and low-cost upgrades over the life of the aircraft. And as with the S-97 before it, the Raider X is designed to be "optionally manned"-meaning that it can be flown remotely or operate autonomously for missions that either don't require an aircrew or would put aircrew at an unacceptable risk.

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