The helicopter that you see today can travel a maximum of 150 miles an hour with today’s technology. With X2 technology, Sikorsky, a chopper manufacturing company, hopes to fly helicopters nearly twice the speed of today’s speed. That target is 290 miles an hour and that is nearly 40 miles faster than a helicopter has ever flown before. Currently this is still in a test phase with a demonstrator aircraft. The conventional aircraft uses only a single rotor with the tail rotor needed for the balance. The X2 prototype uses two main rotors that spin in opposite directions. This eliminates the need of the tail rotor and instead the use of a high-speed prop possible. This pushes the chopper from behind and this can still stay level while speeding up. The company is looking into achieving other goals like low vibration, low pilot workload and low noise. It will take atleast 10 years before this is commercially produced because of the amount of certifications that is required.
[Fastcompany]