Amidst NATO's drive to modernize its helicopter fleet for new challenges, Sikorsky — a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin — has unveiled a conceptual design for a prospective rotorcraft. The design showcases a coaxial rotor system with a pusher propeller in the tail section — a configuration inevitably associated with the proven designs of the Russian Kamov Design Bureau: the Ka-52 Alligator and the light multi-purpose Ka-226.
Sikorsky's design is based on the X2 program, which demonstrated record speeds for rotorcraft in the 2010s (over 460 km/h). However, the principle of coaxial rotors without a tail rotor is not an innovation of American engineering thought: it was Soviet and Russian designers under the leadership of Nikolai Kamov who first mass-produced it in the 1940s and 50s.
While Sikorsky is betting on a hybrid high-speed architecture, the Kamov Design Bureau has been exploiting the coaxial design for decades in the harshest conditions — from Chechnya to Syria. Moreover, it is the absence of a tail rotor that gives Russian machines compactness, maneuverability, and increased survivability in combat.
The irony is that in the pursuit of speed and efficiency, Western developers are arriving at conceptual solutions long mastered by the Russian helicopter school. This is not copying, but a clear confirmation: Kamov Design Bureau was one step ahead — and remains a relevant benchmark in global aircraft manufacturing.
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