Lockheed Martin’s high-tech Raider X Rotorcraft in final production stage

News, US April 12, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Lockheed Martin has announced that 80 percent of the production and assembly arrangements for Raider X have now been completed. The production arrangements for Sikorsky Raider X have been prepared at the Sikorsky Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The American defense contractor, Lockheed Martin has been working on its Raider X Rotorcraft project since 2019. The concept behind the Raider X has been derived from the Sikorsky S-97 Raider, which is a high-speed scout and attack compound helicopter produced by Sikorsky Aviation, a Lockheed Martin company.

The new Sikorsky Raider X has been defined as a pinnacle of the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program.

Sikorsky’s President Paul Lemmo announced the company’s plans by stating, “Our transformational RAIDER X will deliver broad benefits to the Army including the lowest schedule risk and greatest technical maturity of the FARA competitors.”

He further added, “With X2 Technology, RAIDER X has the ability to grow, unlike a single-main rotor configuration. We are looking to the future and we are committed to helping the Army deter threats and defend freedoms well into the 21st century.”

The FARA missions usually require extreme operational flexibility, which has also been one of the main inspirations of design innovations behind the Raider X. With the ability of its flexible operations, the Raider X would be able to join the league of Combat Rescue Helicopters such as Black Hawk and CH 53K.

*^{Sikorsky’s FARA Competitive Prototype, RAIDER X, is seen at the Sikorsky Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. in March 2022. (Image Credit: Lockheed Martin)}*

Sikorsky first presented its Raider X concept in October 2019 at the Association of United States Army meeting, where the company stated that its current S-97 helicopter worked as an 80% scale prototype for the actual Raider X Rotorcraft. The company also announced that a larger SB-1 Defiant version was being prepared through the joint cooperation of Sikorsky and Boeing aviation.

In March 2020, the U.S. army selected Raider X and Bell 360 Invictus concept designs for the final flight competition. As the flight competition test between the two selected prototypes has come close in 2023, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky aviation have hastened their efforts from production into the final phase.

The Raider X, as required by the FARA program regulations, works on a single General Electric T901 engine. The GE T901 engine can provide the helicopter with speeds of up to 460 km/h (290 mph) and a service ceiling greater than 9000 feet (2700 meters). Raider X is expected to weigh somewhere around 6400 kg and it can be operated with a team of two crew members. The fuselage and cockpit for Raider X have been designed by Swift Engineering. The cockpit uses the Side-by-Side seat configuration rather than a linear tandem configuration which shows that Raider X would be predominantly used for rescue, scouting, and logistics operations rather than attack and offense operations.