Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky business brought its S-97 Raider compound helicopter to the 2025 Paris Air Show, held at Le Bourget from 16-22 June, and talked up its prospects in competing within Europe’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) project.
Derived from Sikorsky’s X2 technology demonstrator, the S-97 Raider design features rigid coaxial main rotors and a variable-pitch pusher propeller.
“We feel this X2 technology is actually the future of rotary-wing aviation going forward,” said Frank Crisafulli, Sikorsky’s director of international business development, in a Sikorsky briefing at Le Bourget on 17 June, asserting that “We’re the only ones that are flying the next generation of helicopter.”
The multinational NGRC initiative was initially launched by France, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK though a letter of intent signed in November 2020. In June 2022, when those nations launched the concept stage of the project through the signature of a memorandum of understanding (MoU), the Netherlands joined as the sixth nation participating in the NGRC effort, while Canada subsequently joined in March 2024. The United States and Spain are currently acting as observers on the NGRC effort.
In July 2024 the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) awarded contracts to Airbus, Leonardo and Sikorsky for a 13-month study into the future concepts for the NGRC, also known as Concept Study Five. The three companies’ responses to this are to be delivered in October 2025, enabling the NSPA to prepare a subsequent report to the participating nations.
After October 2025 the participating nations will then identify their preferred solutions from those concepts presented before then writing the requirements for the NGRC programme in earnest.
Meanwhile, in December 2023 Lockheed Martin also secured an NSPA study contract focused on determining what the NGRC’s open-systems architecture might look like.
Crisafulli said of the NGRC effort, “It’s a great capability for us to be involved in, but also it’s really great to see that within the context of NATO and Europe that there’s this structure going forward.
“In the fall of 2025 we’re actually going to deliver our proposal for what we think should be the next-generation rotorcraft for Europe going forward. After that, in the 2026 timeframe, the concept design phase is going to go on, and in 2028 they’re actually looking through NGRC to do the prep for the development and the production concept.”
The NGRC effort is intended to facilitate the recapitalisation of up to 1,000 NATO medium-lift rotary aircraft by 2050. Assuming the programme proceeds into a full programme effort, it therefore represents the greatest prize on the horizon of European rotary-wing procurement.
Crisafulli said of the future multi-domain operations (MDO) environment where the NGRC is intended to operate, “Where it’s congested, it’s contested, and if you’re not being targeted you have to wonder why because of the surveillance and everything that goes around in this environment, so it is a very complicated environment. What happens here in the way that we’ve looked at this is that the nodes that are in MDO are represented by platforms or people, and that everything that works within this ecosystem of the MDO environment has to talk to each other. It has to do things to shorten the kill chain.
“So how do you rely on the technology? And how do you develop a platform that basically executes this mission?” said Crisafulli. “The rotary-wing platform is a means to an end, so no longer are you focused on just the platform – on the bright, shiny object: the cool stuff that we get to fly – it’s actually about a platform that’s commoditised, and what it does, and what mission systems you can put on it, and there’s no better company in the world than Lockheed Martin Sikorsky that’s able to put those mission systems on an aircraft, whether it’s rotary wing or fixed wing or anything else.”
Crisafulli asserted that key enabling technologies within the X2, such as its open systems architecture and digital thread (the framework that connects data across the platform’s entire lifecycle), will facilitate an automated logistics and diagnostics system that will lead to higher availability and higher effectiveness. He also noted that crewed-uncrewed teaming would also be a future requirement, as would the need to do more with fewer personnel: both areas where Sikorsky’s Matrix aircraft autonomy system brings capability.
Crisafulli additionally noted that X2 technology is scalable from 2,700 kg up to
13,000 kg and explained the advantages of designing an aircraft digitally.
“When you start with a digital design, you don’t do ‘Fix, fly, fix’. It’s because of the modelling and the digital twin you do ‘Sim, fix, sim; sim, fix, sim’ and then put it on an aircraft and go test it, so it’s cheaper, it’s faster,” he explained, “and all those things that cost money, when you talk about building helicopters, like configuration management and obsolescence, are that much easier and that much more manageable when you talk about a helicopter like X2.”
In the 17 June briefing Sikorsky pilot Bill Fell then outlined the flight capabilities that in Sikorsky’s estimation make the S-97 Raider a winning platform, including level-body acceleration and deceleration, a high turn rate, the ability to dive on target or maintain a nose-down hover, the capacity for confined area operations and the aircraft’s precision low-speed handling.
While the Raider, which is currently being test flown around once a week, has a maximum cruise speed of 220 kts (407 km/h), Fell pointed out that the aircraft can also fly sideways at more than 50 kts (93 km/h). Previous X2 demonstrators that Sikorsky has flown have even reached 250 kts (463 km/h)
Fell suggested that the ability to operate low and fast is what is going to allow rotary-wing aircraft to survive over the future battlefield.
Crisafulli confirmed that, if ultimately selected to provide the NGRC platform, the aircraft would be manufactured in Europe. “We’re ready to do that and we’re looking for partners to be able to help us realise that vision,” he said.
