Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. on Friday flew for the first time its next-generation light-attack helicopter, the S-97 Raider. The test flight took place at the company’s developmental flight center in West Palm Beach, Florida. It comes as its parent company, United Technologies Corp., mulls a possible sale of the 90-year-old rotorcraft manufacturer. The chopper’s coaxial design features counter-rotating rotor blades and a push propeller, among other innovations, that will allow it to fly much faster and farther than today’s choppers. The Raider was initially designed to target a potentially $16 billion U.S. Army weapons acquisition program called the Armed Aerial Scout...
