S-97™ Adaptive Survivability

The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is currently developing the S-97 Raider™ in anticipation of an Armed Aerial Scout helicopter need. The Raider provides speed, agility and flexibility that is unachievable in today's rotorcraft. It retains the unique capabilities of conventional helicopters but far exceeds the performance of current single rotor helicopters. Design performance attributes include increased hot-high hover performance, increased hover stability, and low acoustic signature, cruise speeds greater than 220 knots and a high speed turning radius as little as 1/3 that of current conventional helicopters. In a "Total Survivability" future threat environment, the Raider must consider complete survivability and address all capability needs for crashworthiness, susceptibility protection, vulnerability system integration and operational durability. A key challenge to overcome is how to design and demonstrate a valid prototype that is adaptive to those considerations. Furthermore, this is complicated by lack of defined requirements at this time as traditionally set by a United States Government Customer.