for the U.S. Army's armed aerial scout (AAS) program: The company announced today that it will build two prototypes outfitted with its X2 technologies to the Army's specifications.

One of the new "Raider" helicopters will be crammed with diagnostic and evaluative equipment, or "orange boxes and orange wire," as Sikorsky's president Jeff Pino put it in a teleconference this morning. "But we're building a second one to let our customers experience what we believe is eye-watering new performance with very typical helicopter flight characteristics," Pino said.

The X2 demonstrated that new performance again today in a friendly race against a Bell 407. With its coaxial system, which earned Sikorsky one of our 2009 Breakthrough Awards, the X2 flew 220 knots in today's demonstration. That incredible speed for a helicopter was slow for the demonstrator: It flew 250 knots last month and its engineers believe they can eke an extra 10 knots out of it with improved aerodynamic faring.

As heir to the ill-fated Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program, cancelled in 2008, the AAS will replace the aging fleet of OH-58 Kiowa Warriors, due to retire by 2020. The new helicopters will continue the Kiowa's day and night scouting and attack missions—things like over-watching troop transport, discovering targets and attacking gunships.

With its sights on that multi-billion-dollar contract, Sikorsky plans to complete its prototypes in little more than four years. But Pino was careful to point out that the X2 suite of technologies should not be pigeonholed into the AAS program.

"The Army has the most focused requirement that we can see, but we've seen lots of interest in this technology from the Special Operations Command, the Navy and the Marine Corps are thinking there could be some application here, the Air Force and commercial customers," Pino said.

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