Aero-TV: Sikorsky X2 Update — Progress On An Advanced Rotorcraft The Coolest Rotorcraft EVER??? Possibly the most avidly anticipated briefing of Heli-Expo 2009, was the official Sikorsky update of the truly innovative X2 program. Just last year, Sikorsky proved that it’s one incredibly cool -- and equally unusual -- flying machine... and, it works! Sikorsky successfully completed the first flight of its X2 Technology Demonstrator, in late August, maneuvering the prototype aircraft through hover, forward flight, and a hover turn, in a test flight that lasted approximately 30 minutes. Sikorsky Chief Test Pilot Kevin Bredenbeck conducted the test flight at Sikorsky’s Schweizer Aircraft Corp. rapid-prototyping facility in Horseheads, NY, and was a headliner at the HAI 2009 briefing before a packed house of rotornauts. The first-flight milestone culminated more than four years of design, development and testing of the Demonstrator aircraft’s suite of technologies that ...