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Defiant Helicopter Zigzags and Flies External Loads at 115 MPH, Taste of That Inside

History has given us a fair share of outside-the-box thinking when it comes to helicopter design. We've had over the years things like the Chinook, Bell 47, or Osprey, but we’ll probably have to invent a whole new category of strange for the Defiant.
Defiant helicopter 18 photos
Photo: Lockheed Martin
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That’s how Sikorsky and Boeing are calling their entry in the American military’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program. If chosen as winner (contract award is expected later this year), the Defiant will effectively become a replacement for the aging and highly successful Black Hawk.

The helicopter is shaped like no other before it, bringing into the world a design with counter-rotating blades fitted on top for balance, and a vertical propeller at the rear to push the aircraft.

In 2022, the two companies working on the Defiant seem to have stepped up the pace and announced last week Honeywell would be supplying the engines for the helicopter. At the same time, testing of the existing prototype continues.

The most recent video, released this week by Lockheed Martin (which owns Sikorsky), shows the Defiant being put through its paces during slaloms, external loads lift and flight, and even single-engine operation.

We’re told that during the tests, conducted at the end of January, the Defiant zigzagged and carried an external load of 3,400 lbs (1.5 tons) at speeds of up to 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph), and with a 20-degree angle of bank on top of that.

That’s about half of the claimed capabilities of the aircraft, which point to it being able to lift 5,300 pounds (2.4 tons), and buzzing through the air at 245 knots (282 mph/454 kph), making it “the fastest assault helicopter in history.”

The video below does not show the Defiant at full capacity during the tests, but does paint a pretty good picture of what American soldiers should expect if this thing goes into service in the 2030s.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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