Thanks Inch,
I owe Chet a call so I will hit him up for some more details. I appreciate your perspective.
For the sake of comparison, I'll throw in a couple of shots of the EH-101 that I got to fly. She's marked up with orange because she was still involved in flight testing (icing trials) at the time.
Overall, a very nice machine with many attributes similar to the ones you noted about the S-92. Although she is more than 50% heavier than a SK (I think she was around 32K AUW and change the day I flew it), she handled like a smaller machine and was reasonably nimble for something that looks like it should handle like a Winnebago. Unfortunately, the bird I flew was an RN cab and they had a number of handling restrictions on it (like 30 degrees AOB) that were not airframe limits but rather designed to increase structural life.
The RN 101s have the Rolls Royce RTM-322 engines (our Cormorants have the CT7-8s, I believe) with the dual FADEC. Starting the engines was literally a matter of turning a rheostat from "off" to "GI" (Ground Idle) and the computers handled the rest. Like the SK, #1 was first started in ACC drive (using the APU) with #2 and #3 starting in Flight. #2 was used to engage the head and then #1 was switched to flight as well. Pretty similar to the SK... except it was almost all automatic.
The most unique system in the aircraft was the ACSR (Active Control of Structural Response). ACSR is basically a system of active hydraulic vibration dampeners that function in much the same way as Bose's Active Noise Reduction (ANR). Like ANR, ACSR uses high-speed processing to read the vibration being felt in the airframe and then counters it with powerful hydraulic rams that cancel (most of) the vibration using diametrically opposed inputs. In flight, the aircraft was quite smooth with the system on and surprisingly rough with the system off.
I wish that I had pictures from my Cougar ride: it was quite the sports car. Very fast, very agile, and disappointingly small for our needs. But what a ride!! When I asked the factory test pilot what the maneuvering limits were, he told me not to worry... that I would scare myself before I ran into any trouble. I was able to execute 80+ degree AOB turns (level) at 140-150 KIAS (bleeding speed quickly to 100-120) without him even raising an eyebrow. There is little doubt in my mind that the Cougar would loop and roll with little effort.
Cheers,
Sam