MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) – European group Eurocopter showed off a ground-breaking winged helicopter on Monday, in a proposition to counter U.S. rival Sikorsky's efforts to break the speed barrier by rewriting rotorcraft design rules. The half-plane, half-helicopter design aims to overcome constant obstacles to high-speed helicopter flight by combining the advantages of fixed-wing aircraft with those of a standard helicopter -- allowing it to fly at 220 knots or 400 km/hour.
The move by the world's largest civil helicopter maker came less than two weeks after United Technologies unit Sikorsky claimed an unofficial speed record of 250 knots (460 km/hour) with its own avant-garde prototype called X2.
The X3 hybrid helicraft -- which combines forward-facing propellers astride two short aircraft wings with the familiar overhead rotor blades seen on any normal helicopter -- was exposed following months of secrecy.
Today's helicopters typically cruise around 130-40 knots.
Eurocopter, part of European aerospace group EADS, said its X3 hoverplane, sporting black-and-white striped propellers, had first flown on September 6 at a closely watched over military test base.
"We just wanted a place where we knew we were alone, no plane spotters," Eurocopter chief executive Lutz Bertling told Reuters, adding Eurocopter had paid the French defense ministry for the right to use army facilities even though the project was so far funded entirely out of the company's research budget.
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