(US) In 2004, the US Military realised that their helicopter fleet then in use in Afghanistan and Iraq were no different from the craft that had flown during the Vietnam war and that due to the high tempo of operations with less aircraft, they were wearing out. They decided that the Helicopter fleet had to move into the present day utilising new technologies and materials . So they instigated the Future Vertical Lift in 2004 and 16 years later we are down to two contenders:
The tilt rotor Bell V-280 Valor and Sikorsky /Boeing's Coaxial rotors. SB-1 Defiant . Now I previously knocked out a few posts on the subject and and the former and they can be found here.
This post is about the SB-1 Defiant which was shown off last month to the US top brass in West Palm Beach Florida.
Its good to see how the US is moving forward revolutionary rather than evolutionary regards its vertical aircraft fleet for example one of the remits for the aircraft was it has to be able to cruise at 260 MPH, the Blackhawk flies at around 180 MPH meaning that these when taken into service will be around 80 MPH faster than the rest of the worlds helicopters But hey why listen to me, here's the promotion video which tells it a lot better than I:
