Sikorsky pitches canceled Raider-X helicopter to NATO after U.S. Army ends FARA program

FARNBOROUGH, England — Two years ago, the U.S. Army reversed its decision to acquire a new attack helicopter. Now, one of the finalists from that canceled program is pitching its technology to NATO.

“We called that Raider-X for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program for the U.S. Army. I ran that aircraft chained to the ground, getting ready to go do a flight test in that aircraft. Our competitor, Bell Helicopter, built the Invictus helicopter. And the Army canceled the program. So we never got to fly that aircraft,” said Bill Fell, test pilot for Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.

The S-97 Raider helicopter was prominently displayed in front of Lockheed Martin’s megachalet at the international airshow last week. The showcase comes as Europe expands its industrial base and NATO increases defense spending, challenging U.S. companies to make their bids more attractive to allies.

Sikorsky is evaluating a bid for NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) program, alongside European firms Airbus and Leonardo, as well as U.S.-based Bell, which were selected to develop prototype designs. Leonardo and Bell have expressed willingness to collaborate on the program.

Boeing is also considering a bid for NGRC, assessing “the competition as customer requirements and specifications are refined,” a company spokesperson told Defense One.

“We're looking for the right customer now,” Sikorsky’s Fell said. “We're looking at the requirements and evaluating that now. We're also considering a prospective program in South Korea.”

Sikorsky has stated it would produce the NGRC aircraft in Europe, following the trend of other aerospace companies seeking to expand operations on the continent.

The company flew a larger version of the aircraft, developed with Boeing and called the Defiant, in 2019. That helicopter lost its bid for the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program.

The stacked, or coaxial, rotors make the Raider—which can reach speeds of up to 240 knots—visually striking. Russia’s Kamov debuted a coaxial helicopter at Farnborough in the 1990s, and versions of it remain in service today.

The dual-rotor design enables fast, low-altitude flight and prevents retreating blade stall.

“There's a natural speed limit to helicopters,” Fell said. “The airflows end up being such that the outboard few feet of the retreating disc has to produce the same amount of lift as the advancing disc entire blade does—with much higher velocities over it as well. And so, in normal helicopters, you get in high-speed flight, and eventually you get to the point where you've gone so fast that that retreating half of the disc just can't keep up anymore. It can't produce the right amount of lift, and we call that retreating blade stall.”

Fell explained that Sikorsky’s X-2 technology addresses this by having an “advancing half on each side,” where the high-velocity airflow over the disc can be counterbalanced or somewhat offset on the retreating side.

“So, going fast isn’t a problem,” he added, “but the system…”