FIFTY YEARS OF SIKORSKY HIGH SPEED CONCEPTS

During its over 65 years of manufacturing helicopters, Sikorsky has also investigated numerous advanced aircraft configurations which could combine the helicopter’s efficient hovering capability with the higher speeds of fixed wing aircraft. This started soon after the basic helicopter evolved into a practical flying machine with convertiplanes, and continued with stowed rotors, compound helicopters, ABCs, telescoping rotors, and X-Wings, plus other designs which never got past the conceptual stage. Also, there was the Rotor Systems Research Aircraft (RSRA), a compound helicopter built for NASA and the US Army as a “flying wind tunnel” to test advanced high speed rotors. These concepts achieved varying degrees of success, and all contributed to the advancement of rotorcraft technology. A number of the technologies developed with these programs made their way into Sikorsky’s production aircraft designs.