Defiant High Speed Helicopter won't fly till 2019?

via Breaking Defense.

The SB>1 Defiant, a high-speed helicopter aimed at future Army missions in major wars, won’t make its first flight this year after all. Unspecified but “minor” issues discovered in ground tests will push first flight back “two or three weeks,” co-developers Sikorsky and Boeing said this morning.

Meanwhile, the other contender for the Future Vertical Lift aircraft, Bell’s V-280 Valor, will celebrate a year of flight tests next Tuesday. That reflects, at least in par, a fundamental difference in approach. While Bell’s V-280 uses tiltrotor technology, proven in widespread service on the V-22 Osprey since 2007, the Defiant uses Sikorsky’s revolutionary compound helicopter technology, which promises superior agility — but which has only actually flown in two experimental aircraft, the X2 and S-97 Raider, both of which are much smaller than Defiant.

Story here. 

I'm calling it.  

I like Boeing.  I like Sikorsky.  

But they're not executing.  You have to get it done within the timeframe given or you're a non-starting starter and need to step aside.

Budgets are gonna get iffy.

If these dudes can't meet time schedule and the competition is delayed then we're setting ourselves up for further problems (budget) down the road.

We have too many things that need to get stacked and packed.  Move forward with the tiltrotor.  Come back to this puppy when it comes to an attack or observation bird...IN THE SMALLER PACKAGE.

In short?

Nice try boys, but we got work to do.  See ya next time.