This is inevitably going to draw comparisons to the cancelled RAH66 Comanche. I thought the Comanche was a neat little bird, so much tech on board such a small helo. Very hard to hear, great radar/IR/Thermal low observable traits, good weapons loadout even when only using the stealthy bays (IIRC it could carry 6 Hellfire + cannon in low observe max mode, pretty impressive for something so small.)
Much of what I've read and been told about it being cancelled was due to budget as well as drone tech taking much of the recon, and even armed recon mission away.
The "Raider" is different in that it could help actually conduct "raids" by having a troop compartment, something the Comanche obviously didn't have.
Comparing it to the V22 Osprey - it's a bit slower, but not by a whole pile, carries fewer troops (6 vs whatever they can squish into a V22, probably double with full gear for a long patrol, and triple for lightly armed troops), but the V22 is very complex to maintain, is very, very large and hard to stow on the assault ships, and cost - they are claiming 15 million for the S97, which is a small fraction of what a V22 costs now.
Tough call, but I think the army would go with the S97 over a V22 variant any day, and I wouldn't blame them.
Small, low observable, very fast, easy to fly in all weather due to new tech avionics, very fast again (worth saying twice), and relatively cheap compared to other options. Plus it can be armed with some decent suppression firepower.
Interesting concept, I wouldn't mind seeing a version of something like this come along shortly, perhaps with more troop capacity, or more heavily armed. Sort of like the JSF concept, but not all screwed up - an attack/recon variant, a transport variant, and so on. My point is a pusher prop on whatever replaces the current observation Kiowas, Blackhawk variants, and so on. The recon/transport end of flying wing fliers.
