Why the SB-1 never had a chance as the new US Army helicopter?

Ironically, FARA was cancelled today by the US Army. 😂

The USAF and unlimited budget should never be mixed

I have this feeling that in 20 years. We're going to look at this helicopter like we looked at the YF-23

That's not only a coaxial but a compound helicopter. Now this terminology is confusing because some compound helicopters have wings.

As I heared FARA is dead. The army wants drones now instead of a manned helicopter

0:55 Turns out it's B, just another museum piece of a what-if world. So long FARA!

1:56 you forgot Anton Flettner's work on the Fl 282 Kolibri predating Kamov, he solved the reactional torque issue with intermeshing rotors back in 1941 and brought that solution to Kaman Aircraft when he joined them after World War II. Kaman made the HH-43 Huskie with Flettner's rotor design and the type went on to be operated by three branches of the US military (USAF, USMC, USN) and made its name as one of the most prominent SAR aircraft in the earlier years of the Vietnam War until its retirement in the early 70s.

A suggestion: look into the Sikorski S-72 "X-Wing" programme. The idea was to stop a four-bladed rotor in flight and use it as a wing. In theory this would have allowed much higher speeds. In practise it never flew.

You could have also mentioned the Lockheed ah56 Cheyenne since that predates the s69 in the 60s. They were in competition at the time but since they joined forces, they both would learned from their past mistakes and remedied them with the defiant

Note: This is a comment I made on another video regarding the FARA/FLV project, but fits for this video as well. I am highly concerned with this trend of over reliance on drones, while I do agree that the scout helicopter is kind of a dated concept and drones could better serve this role. However, we do need a more modern attack helicopter desperately as both our current platforms are quite long in the tooth, I mean the AH-64 has been in service for 38 years now and the AH-1 has been in service for 57 years, both of which are really starting to show their age quite badly. The Invictus would have been the perfect replacement for the AH-1's in USMC service given their extremely small proportions and would have easily fit on LPD's, LHD's, LSD's, CVN's and even the new ESB's all which could compensate for the Invictus individual lack of range. While I am a huge opponent of coaxial-rotor aircraft due to the larger vertical rotor profile they present, the Raider and arguably the Defiant would have likely served the Army's attack helicopter needs better than the Invictus would, since presumably they would operating from largely static as opposed to mobile "bases" like the USMC would likely operate from, plus the coaxial-rotor would afford the Raider/Defiant a larger payload capacity due to increased lift relative to its size. One of the other things I really dislike about that particular design aside from the coaxial-rotor is its unshrouded push propeller, I can foresee a lot of accidents be it from people or debris occurring because of that due to its height relative to the ground, thus shrouding it would greatly diminish those occurrences from happening and may (and I stress the may here) have a positive effect on noise production as well, much like how the Fenestron on the Dauphin reduces its noise profile. Suffice to say I think this was a really bad call on the part of the military, especially since I think our over reliance on drones is going to bite us in the ass in the near future in one way or another and especially since anti-drone tech is now rapidly developing as well and we have no idea where that is eventually going to go, in my opinion it is always good to have for lack of a better term a "analog" backup when the digital fails, hell its why we still train personnel on a compass despite GPS being virtually ubiquitous these days. So I'd say a smaller production run of the FARA options and not a 1:1 replacement of the Kiowa fleet with the rest of the fleet being taken up by drones would be the wisest decision. Note: In addition to those statements I think the SB-1 would be a good replacement for the AH-64, if they can get those engines they want on it, namely the Future Affordable Turbine Engine (FATE). The SB-1 design itself would be far more applicable than the Valor and or a derivative of the Valor for the attack role, I do not see a feasible method for mounting munitions on a tiltrotor without heavy risk to the aircraft and my stance on this is not without precedent, as they have struggled to mount even adequate self defense munitions on the Osprey already. Conversely I can see the SB-1 having a internal weapons bay (much like how they showed on the Raider models) and or stub wings affixed to the fuselage much like the AH-64 or AH-1 has, the SB-1 would have better better, speed, range, payload capacity, power to weight ratio and be more applicable for hot and high conditions something which was a issue in Afghanistan for example and would likely be a issue in the Pacific as well. Personally I think Sikorsky and Boeing (with the latter being the manufactures of the AH-64) should really push for the SB-1 being its replacement, as I am sure Boeing would not want to lose that market and I am also sure Sikorsky would likewise not want to have their only US military contract to be the CH-53 either, once the UH-60's are retired.

I would love to see more found and explained videos and keep these contents coming they’re entertaining to watch

Amazing. I saw this design a while back, and I loved it, despite it's obvious inefficiencies. It is a real shame it didn't go through.

Hey Nick, can you please do a video on the legendary Tornado?

I think this design would actually be great for small airport hops. Fast, capable of VTOL... I could totally see corporate execs using these.

And you cant forget the AH - 64 Cheyenne that was developed in the early 1960's by Lockheed Martin

can we get a civilian and ems version? i see potential with its speed and low noise and those new engines...

The XH-59 was unfortunate in that it came about just before the 1970s energy crisis which meant that the cost of flying it shot through the roof. If the Fairey Rotodyne had received the funding it needed the next planned stage would have seen the rotor being folded way and stowed in the roof once it was travelling fast enough and use the engines on the wings to fly it.

I'd like to point out that ain't no way that helicopter is nearly invisible to radar when it has not one, not two, but THREE spinning blades just out in the open. :D

They just canceled this project a couple of days ago. (At least the Invictus and Raider X parts of it)

10:58 I was expecting you to tell me they added a touch screen display😂