Piasecki Shows Off Speedhawk to Boeing

Piasecki Aircraft performed flight demonstrations of its X-49A Speedhawk for top Boeing Rotorcraft executives June 5. Boeing has partially bankrolled Piasecki's development of the vectored-thrust, ducted-fan aircraft by providing access to its flight test facility at Delaware's New Castle Airport, as well as flight instrumentation and engineering support. But Boeing executives had missed two previous flight demonstrations of the modified U.S. Navy/Sikorsky Aircraft SH-60F fly, including one May 29. So Piasecki set up one just for Chuck Allen, president of Boeing Rotorcraft, and his team. Boeing is proposing a plan to the Army to test the vectored-thrust ducted-fan propulsor on an AH-64 Apache. For related news