S-97

Wow...Comanche--Hokum--Cheyanne...three some...way cool...and what the army needs a fast armed scout...makes me want to grab my Cav hat and Stand To.
 
Are they gonna make you wear a two-piece flight suit to fly it ? Never understood why the Army went to such great lengths to reign in their Aviators ? Just let Aviators be Aviators don't try and make them be infantrymen !
 
Art VanDelay said:
Are they gonna make you wear a two-piece flight suit to fly it ? Never understood why the Army went to such great lengths to reign in their Aviators ? Just let Aviators be Aviators don't try and make them be infantrymen !
Click to expand...


I'll second that. Nothing more tacticool than being on a field training exercise and being forced to smear on that $#!++y brown and loam face paint stick (the one that tries to rip your face off in the application process -do they still have those things?) to ensure your face doesn't alert the enemy to your presence... just before firing up the turbine engine of a 5,200 pound aircraft from a staging sight capable of accommodating heavy refueling vehicles, AVIM level maintenance facilities, and weapons depots.


I spoke with the Raider guys at SOFIC last year and got a pretty good run down. It does seem like a capable aircraft, but I've seen plenty of capable aircraft that never made the line sitting on sticks outside the museum at Rucker; heck, some of them aren't remotely as unfortunate looking as this thing is.
 
Last edited:
So how does turning in a hover/low speed work with a setup like that. Watching on mobile so not clear if nozzle or what.
 
falconkidding said:
So how does turning in a hover/low speed work with a setup like that. Watching on mobile so not clear if nozzle or what.
Click to expand...
Increase torque to one shaft and decrease to the other.
 
falconkidding said:
So how does turning in a hover/low speed work with a setup like that. Watching on mobile so not clear if nozzle or what.
Click to expand...

At a hover, it's just a matter of varying collective pitch to each of the rotors. At a set pitch, they both cancel the torque of one another out. Vary it and you create yaw.

I imagine at some point the rudders take affect in forward flight though.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Are they gonna make you wear a two-piece flight suit to fly it ? Never understood why the Army went to such great lengths to reign in their Aviators ? Just let Aviators be Aviators don't try and make them be infantrymen !
Click to expand...

Individualism is frowned upon! Can't have the appearance of being different than the rest of the herd. :(

I wore one piece and two piece 50/50 when I was in. Now it's all two piece.
 
Back in the "good old days" (late 80s early 90s) ALL branches had the same nomex flight suits and the same woodland camouflage BDUs. Now every branch has got to have their own individual type of camo. Even the Navy ! What the hell do sailors on a boat need with camouflage ????
 
Art VanDelay said:
Back in the "good old days" (late 80s early 90s) ALL branches had the same nomex flight suits and the same woodland camouflage BDUs. Now every branch has got to have their own individual type of camo. Even the Navy ! What the hell do sailors on a boat need with camouflage ????
Click to expand...

During the post 9/11 years we've spent a ridiculous amount of money on uniforms in all the services. I started with OD green one piece, then went ABDU two piece, then got issued tan one piece, then got the digital two piece A2CUs. Just got out right before the woodland camo A2CUs got issued.

Amazing the money spent on all this crap. Not to mention the two full bags of left over gear sitting in my closet that CIF didn't want back. Got brand new hiking boots and tan 511 boots with the tags still on them.
 
Velocity173 said:
At a hover, it's just a matter of varying collective pitch to each of the rotors. At a set pitch, they both cancel the torque of one another out. Vary it and you create yaw.

I imagine at some point the rudders take affect in forward flight though.
Click to expand...
I wonder if that varies from a traditional setup in rotation speed or controllability. Seems having a tail rotor would be faster or more precise.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Are they gonna make you wear a two-piece flight suit to fly it ? Never understood why the Army went to such great lengths to reign in their Aviators ? Just let Aviators be Aviators don't try and make them be infantrymen !
Click to expand...

A fair amount of Army aviators started out as Infantrymen...
 
falconkidding said:
I wonder if that varies from a traditional setup in rotation speed or controllability. Seems having a tail rotor would be faster or more precise.
Click to expand...

They can turn quite quickly just with TRQ. Even with a traditional counter clockwise single rotor system, a right turn can be made quite rapidly using TRQ alone. A right pedal turn isn't really a right pedal turn. It's just reducing the thrust by decreasing left pedal.

What you eliminate is the complexity / weight of not having a tail rotor but also gain it back in the form of the coaxial/ pusher configuration. One thing as far as not having the tail rotor, you can't get into loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE). Some smaller RW aircraft are very susceptible to LTE. You should be able to operate this aircraft in a wide range of wind conditions without a loss of control.

The primary benefit of the coaxial/ pusher is you blow through the speed barrier that holds back traditional helicopters. The effect of retreating blade stall is the primary factor in limiting RW aircraft VNE. With coaxial, the blades cancel out one another so both sides will always be creating lift. Thus eliminating the dissymmetry of lift problems. Only thing I'm curious about is how they dampen the vibration from the blades that are in retreating blade stall. Also, at the speeds it's traveling, the advancing blades have got to be brushing up against the compressibility (transonic) regime. Another barrier that restricts VNE.
 
Last edited:
Sac Arrow said:
A fair amount of Army aviators started out as Infantrymen...
Click to expand...

When I was in, I knew a couple who were. But it seems that my memory recalls that the majority of warrants who' were former enlisted were aircraft mechanics.
 
It's a mix of people from pretty much any MOS. A lot of former infantrymen end up in attack or reconnaissance platforms, and there are a good many warrants who were former crew chiefs as well. At one point they were taking kids straight out of high school, running them through the warrant officer course and sending them directly to flight school (from my experience that program led to wildly varying degrees of success).
 
IMG_0277.PNG Here's an early attempt with a similar tail rotor configuration- the Advanced Attack Helicopter. I don't recall the full story on this (maybe Velocity173 remembers better than I?), but I believe a lot of the design elements were eventually incorporated into the Apache.
 
Blue Doughnut said:
View attachment 53173 Here's an early attempt with a similar tail rotor configuration- the Advanced Attack Helicopter. I don't recall the full story on this (maybe Velocity173 remembers better than I?), but I believe a lot of the design elements were eventually incorporated into the Apache.
Click to expand...

Not sure if Lockheed shared anything with Hughes in the development of the Apache. Possibly the optics or fire control systems. Definitely didn't get its NAV system. The Cheyenne actually used 18 ft of cassette paper maps that moved behind a glass screen. Literally a moving map display!

The Cheyenne was a troubled program from the get go. Stability problems, accidents, poor weapons performance, cost and politics did it in. I think canning it because they only needed a 145 kt (Apache) aircraft was a bunch of BS. Speed on the battlefield isn't all that important but a 220 kt aircraft is obviously going to be more survivable vs a 145 kt aircraft. That just common sense and a big reason why the other services went with the Ospreys. That and range.

I think what's interesting if you look at the AH-56 speeds (220 kts) and hover performance (6K OGE 95 degrees), they're the same as the S-97. It only took 50 years to get back to those numbers. :D
 
Last edited:
Sweet choppah. My cousin is in helicopter training with the USAF now. Maybe he'll get a shot at one of these at some point.
 
Well after going down the rabbit hole that is how helicopters fly and all the ways they can stop flying. I've concluded A: I want to fly one. B: Its just easier to say the earth repels them cause they ugly AF.
 
Salty said:
Increase torque to one shaft and decrease to the other.
Click to expand...

That's how my little RC helicopter worked. Two fixed pitch counter rotating rotors on top and no tail rotor. It was very maneuverable until I flew it into a lake.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Blue Doughnut said:
View attachment 53173 Here's an early attempt with a similar tail rotor configuration- the Advanced Attack Helicopter. I don't recall the full story on this (maybe Velocity173 remembers better than I?), but I believe a lot of the design elements were eventually incorporated into the Apache.
Click to expand...

I was branch Field Artillery and was selected to go to the first OBC class for the New Aviation Branch in 1983...from then on Aviation Officers followed that track and rated Aviators from the other Combat Arms branches were allowed to transfer to Aviation although many stayed.
My first instructor pilot in the TH-55 was a retired test pilot who was part of the Cheyenne project...it was a big airframe and although it had some growing pains the aircraft could have been viable but tactics had changed during its development. Nap of Earth was now the only defense to MANPAD weapons in proliferation...it was a sitting duck as night fighting capability was just being developed...He loved the aircraft even though he lost one of his best friends in a fatality crash. The Aircraft was more like a close air support role that fell under the Air Force preview and there was also friction between them and the Army...in the end they killed a capable aircraft...not sure how much technology transfer there was to the AH-64...don't remember much...Lockheed developed the AH-56 and Hughes the AH-64...
 
Interesting to hear feedback from someone who's actually flown it. Sounds like the acquisition folks failed to learn from the Cheyanne as your account reads just like the post mortem of the Comanche (minus the insane cost over runs).

As for the similarities to the 64, I read the two shared some common features, but thinking about it, that would make sense if both aircraft were developed to satisfy a common solicitation. They'd have used the same base requirements which likely would have driven a lot of the design elements.
 
Hopefully they'll get it back up and flying soon. I think that thing is pretty bad *ss!
 
Art VanDelay said:
Back in the "good old days" (late 80s early 90s) ALL branches had the same nomex flight suits and the same woodland camouflage BDUs. Now every branch has got to have their own individual type of camo. Even the Navy ! What the hell do sailors on a boat need with camouflage ????
Click to expand...

So they blend in with the fish?
 
I always laugh that on bases, especially AF bases, everyone's in cammo, and then gets in trouble if they don't wear their reflective safety belt so they're not run over by the General speeding. ;)

Of course that leads to a story from a friend's kid who was an MP and decided he didn't GAF anymore and pulled over the Admiral who was rather ticked at being delayed...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top