Sikorsky announces RAIDER X has completed the “Attack Aircraft of the Future”
The Sikorsky prototype for the US Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) is near completion, the Lockheed Martin company revealed.
One of the two finalists of the FARA prototype competition, the RAIDER X is “progressing 50 percent faster through production and assembly com07pared to legacy programs,” the company stated.
Moreover, the company’s second FARA fuselage is ready, which will be used for “Sikorsky’s structural test program to validate the flight and ground loads capability of the airframe.”
Test findings will be used for the RAIDER X critical point flight safety program “to optimize and accelerate the design for the full weapons system.”
Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft Program
The US Army selected RAIDER X and Bell’s Invictus out of five candidates to build FARA prototypes and fly them beginning in November 2022.
The FARA program was established to fill the gap left by the phased retirement of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance helicopter, which began in 2013. AH-64E Apache attack helicopters paired with Shadow drones have taken over the role of the OH-58D in the interim.
