Author: Eric AdamsEric Adams
The Pirouetting S-97 Raider Makes Your Helicopter Look Lazy
Even at seven in the morning, the south Florida heat and humidity is stifling. It steams up eyeglasses and feels like an iron on your skin. An alligator lurks in a stagnant pond water between the taxiway and the runway. Perhaps a spy sent by Bell, Sikorsky’s chief competitor for the contract to build the Department of Defense’s next generation of vertical-lift aircraft.
But any resentment about Sikorsky’s decision to test its radical new S-97 Raider prototype at its facility in West Palm Beach vanishes as the helicopter’s 2,600 horsepower turbine engine spooled up on the runway and the dual, counterrotating rotors above the fuselage start spinning, out-blowing any ocean breeze.
https://www.wired.com/story/sikorsky-s-97-raider/
