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The walk-around was guided by the Raider's chief test pilot Bill Fell, a former Army Kiowa scout pilot who has flown the aircraft for both of the test flights thus far. The Raider first flew in May of this year and again in September after reconfigurations based on the engineering data collected in the first flight.

The Raider is based on the research done with Sikorsky's X2 technology demonstrator, which in 2010 (unofficially) broke the speed record for rotary-wing aircraft by flying at 250 knots (287 miles per hour). It is also in many ways a development platform for the SB-1 Defiant, Sikorsky's joint proposal with Boeing for the Army's Future Vertical Lift program. But with the Army having retired its Kiowa scout helicopters, Sikorsky is hoping that the Raider will fill a hole in the Army's aviation capabilities that can't currently be filled by unmanned aircraft. "You need to have a human in the loop assessing the situation" on scout missions, Fell said.

The rigid rotors of the Raider give it a compact footprint compared to other helicopters of its size—while it fills up the same space as the two-seater Kiowa, the Raider has space for six troops in a passenger compartment. And when in level flight, the Raider flies more like a commercial jet than a helicopter—the collective control locks in at its most efficient position, and the pilot flies the helicopter exclusively with the cyclic stick. A control on the stick allows the pilot to control the pitch of the rear propeller to control speed in level flight—or to fly the aircraft backward with negative pitch. And the combination of rigid rotors and rear thrust makes the Raider much more nimble than other helicopters; the Raider is designed to withstand sustained forces of up to three times the earth's gravity in maneuvering.

Much work needs to be done still on the Raider—so far, the aircraft has only flown for a little over two hours, and there have only been about 40 hours of ground tests. But much of the up-front design work and testing for the Raider was done in a simulation environment, so Sikorsky's Vice President of Engineering, Mark Miller, said he believes that the company can press development forward at a "sporty" rate. By next year, the Raider's test flights will begin to push its performance envelope.