What do you mean by “high gain” maneuvers?
To be fair from an escort perspective, you guys are considerably slower on short final than a Huey. In terms of getting to the deck, dropping ramps, and inserting Marines - I’ve seen Yankees do it considerably faster than any Osprey. That’s a function of cabin design with open doors, less pax, and ability to decelerate without doing the conversion on final. That being said, Huey’s are not doing battalion and company sized inserts. I’ve also noticed a significantly faster acceleration out of an objective area from Ospreys than other rotary winged aircraft, but I’ve also seen a decent amount of wave offs more so than 53s and Yankees in some environments due to that high disk loading.
I would imagine most attack platforms replacing Cobras and Apaches will be some version of a tiltrotor in the future. Mainly for loiter time, payload, speed, range, sensor performance, and the ability for increased vertical and horizontal standoff. I wouldn’t knock a hover hold for weapons employment though, there are certain situations that it is pretty effective. The Karbala situation had as much to do with poor planning as it did tactical employment of the aircraft. There are more details to that better not discussed here. It is nice to have the size and ability to maneuver in terrain and accel/decel rapidly from 0-60 kias in elevated threat environments for obvious reasons. I am not sure current tilt rotor technology can do rapid in and out of HOGE/HIGE transitions during contour and NOE flight. Atleast not with an aircraft the size of an Osprey in the terrain that helicopters like to use to their advantage. Not to say that it won’t in the future either.
You have some good points as far as the Osprey. It is, however, operating at around 50K lbs in combat. An FVL platform is likely half that. I'd also say that being able to maneuver like an airplane with the option of going slower is more survivable than being a helicopter that can occasionally go fast.
That was just a jab. 100% agree with capability >> nomenclature.
Conversion is what makes tiltrotors more than just a helicopter or a turboprop, but if it breaks (I guess this never happens?), you either can't land in VTOL place or you can't fly very fast. If the pusher prop breaks on a coax, you can still do all the things a helicopter does, just not with those extra 50 kt at the top end. I meant it from an equipment failure perspective, not combat
I'm not talking about maneuvering limits, but things like direction changes, altitude changes without flying forward, back of a DDG at night off Western Australia kind of maneuvering.
The S-97 can hold 15°-ish nose-up in a hover. I'd think the Apache & Cobra crowd would be quite interested in that. The pusher prop also has beta, so you can hold high pitch down w/o accelerating (also useful for attack). For us Navy types, the coax is clearly better for vertrep, dipping sonar ops (not just the hovering, but the repositioning), etc.
Being able to accelerate and decelerate and change one's velocity vector quickly is what maneuverability is. Outside the 0-20 knot arena, a tiltrotor is probably going to blow the doors off of any compound design. I'm assuming you meant compound as the distinguishing characteristic and not coax. The pusher prop makes it a compound--coax is just the stacked rotors--I'd definitely put a V-22 or a V-280 against a Helix or Ka-50 if we're debating the merits of coaxial rotorcraft.
The conversion actuators in a V-22 aren't prone to failure, seeing as they are triple-redundant. I wouldn't think the compound would fail either, barring pure material failure. That said, I don't think you'll be continuing on your mission either way. You're talking a high-rpm shaft broken and flailing around inside the tail, at least in the compound case.
Why would you want to be nose up in a hover? Nose down, maybe. I've held 10 up and 10 down in a V-22 at twice the gross weight of an S-97. It's a cool parlor trick but not something to hang an acquisition program on.
I think you're making conclusions based on video and promotional materials of an experimental aircraft with hardly any flight time behind it.
Remember that the S-97 is a scout sized (Cap Set I) aircraft. The Navy needs a Cap Set III aircraft (medium lift). The technology of the S-97 has to be scaled up, and Sikorsky is over a year behind timeline and counting in proving it's even possible.
Also, in terms of remaining relevant, long range and high speed are going to be a greater advantage than being great in a hover. A tiltrotor is always going to have a decisive advantage there. Besides, the compound S-97 hasn't demonstrated anything in a hover that the tiltrotor V-280 hasn't.