[thunderbird120]

Wasn't really very surprising when this happened. The V-280 demonstrator was running laps around the competing program (the SB-1 Defiant) in pretty much every category the army really cared about. Tiltrotors let you fly dramatically further, dramatically faster than conventional helicopters, and on top of all of that the actual technical maturity of Bell's prototype was light years beyond what Sikorsky managed with the SB-1, getting eventually retired only because they basically ran out of things to test.

The SB-1 had constant issues due to the requirements of the program. Making a helicopter go that fast introduces a lot of complexity, to the point that the SB-1 was really not any less complex than the V-280. Essentially its only winning points were in better hover performance and a slightly smaller footprint but those weren't enough to justify having dramatically slower speed and half the range for an aircraft whose main purpose is to act as a transport.

[dralley]

Also the thing was tall as f** and therefore likely just as difficult if not more difficult to service.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPmihf_WUAICL4y?format=jpg&name=...

[wolverine876]

FWIW, I read stories about it at the time (interested in the technology, not Pentagon contracting competitions). What I read before the announcement thought the outcome was unknown, and nobody before or after presented it as lopsided. Certainly I didn't read everything, so YMMV.