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“Stable at two-two-zero.”
“Roger.” Despite nineteen prior flights in the last seventeen day, Chief Warrant 3 Roberto Morales still couldn’t believe this bird.
Small helicopters just didn’t cruise at two hundred and twenty knots, two hundred and fifty miles per hour.
No helicopter did.
When it entered full service after this test, its Never Exceed speed of two-eighty would make it the fastest helicopter in the world by eighty miles per hour. It wasn’t much slower than the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor—when it was in airplane mode. Those guys at Sikorsky were superstars.
Normal cruise speed for his company’s usual MH-6M Little Birds was a hundred and thirty knots. Jumping from one-thirty to two-twenty was freaking awesome.
The S-97 Raider was better than any wet dream, than any woman—exce
