The SB>1 Defiant compound helicopter has only 11 hours of flight testing, versus over 160 for Bell’s V-280 Valor. But Sikorsky and Boeing say they have thousands of hours of other testing data to help the Army choose.
Only one contender for the Army's future scout is derived from an aircraft that's actually flown. Guess which?
The Sixth Domain is not defined by geography. It’s a new kind of conflict in which autonomy and networked systems allow thousand-dollar consumer electronics to destroy multi-million-dollar conventional weapons systems.
Mechanical fixes kept the SB>1 compound helicopter grounded for weeks this summer, but the Sikorsky-Boeing team insists they can catch up.