The Kentucky International Convention Center is gearing up for the arrival of thousands of visitors to this year’s Heli-Expo, which begins tomorrow with Helicopter Association International professional education courses. Exhibit hallsopen on Tuesday.

The theme of this year’s Heli-Expo, which will conclude next Thursday, is celebrating the champions of vertical aviation. New technology is also a key focus for this year’s Heli-Expo, not just helicopter upgrades, avionics, engines and components, but also the burgeoning unmanned aerial systems (UAS) industry.

In addition to the typical education and technical programs, HAI’s free Rotor Safety Challenge this year features 63 challenge education events, most just an hour long but also some longer in-depth sessions. Those who attend at least six challenge events will receive a certificate of recognition. 

Also on the safety front is HAI’s new accreditation program, the accredited program of safety. HAI worked with the International Business Aviation Council to build an overlay suited to the helicopter industry on top of the International Standard for Business Aviation Operations (IS-BAO).

AIN will be publishing daily issues of HAI Convention News on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as well as live news on AINonline, special Heli-Expo issues of AINalerts on Monday and Wednesday and video coverage on AINtv.

Marenco Swisshelicopter’s second flight-test SKYe SH09 prototype, dubbed P2, made its maiden flight today from the company’s headquarters at Mollis Airport in Switzerland. The helicopter took off at 5:24 p.m. local time with chief test pilot Richard Trueman at the controls and flight-test engineer Peter Wittwer analyzing real-time data.

“This first flight of the second prototype of the SKYe SH09 was a total success, all the test objectives were easily achieved and the aircraft performed extremely well,” Trueman said shortly after the flight. “The crisp handling qualities combined with the ergonomic and intuitive cockpit features made [it] a pleasure to operate.”

P2, which is now the main test vehicle, has been fitted with a new rotor head and blades intended to reduce vibration and complexity on the rotor head, while enhancing “tolerance to future upgrades.” The initial flight verified the lower vibration and noise levels, Marenco said.

The first phase of test flights for P2 is now under way, with the initial trials covering hover flights at low altitudes before moving on to hover flights outside ground effect. This will be followed by trials confirming systems behavior and avionics accuracy, flying limited autorotations and initial performance and stability trials. After that, testing will move on to handling, load survey and exploring the helicopter’s full height velocity curves, to confirm the safe combinations of altitude and airspeed during autorotating landings.

Meanwhile, the company is building P3, the first conforming prototype, and expects to set up its production line for the SKYe later this year. EASA certification of the all-composite helicopter, initially planned for the second half of this year, has slipped to next year, with FAA validation to follow in 2018.

Test flying of the new super-medium Bell 525 twin is “ahead of plan,” according to Larry Thimmesch, vice president of the 525 program. A second 525 flight test vehicle (FTV2) joined the program late last year and the program remains on track for certification in 2017, Thimmesch said, with five test aircraft eventually comprising the program. Through the end of the year Bell held 75 letters of intent from customers, the majority coming from the offshore energy services industry. Bell has yet to formally release a price for the aircraft.

“Getting into a production cadence is where we are focused right now,” Thimmesch said. “The good news about flight test is we spent a lot of time in the systems integration lab validating components integration, throwing faults in the system and seeing how the aircraft reacts. That has paid off. The things that you do in flight test are the things you want to do in flight test: aerodynamics and performance. It’s not systems integration and reliability issues. It’s the things you can only do in the air. You can only go so far with analytical predictions and then you have to go up there and do true flight test, and that is exactly what we are doing in terms of the test points we want to fly. In terms of July to now, we are way ahead of our plan so it has been a very efficient flight test plan so far. These other aircraft coming on board are going to dramatically increase the amount of learning. It is where we want to be in the flight test program. The aircraft has proven to be a solid platform that is hitting or exceeding all of our expectations, so it is extremely good news for us.”

FTV1 had flown 65 hours through the beginning of December and had validated the never-exceed speed of 165 knots, ceiling of 12,000 feet, much of the hover performance testing in and out of ground effect and initial autorotation testing. “We did a lot of hover performance testing and that came in extremely well, better than our predictions, so our performance guys were happy about that,” said Thimmesch said. “It gives us good margins on gross weight and Category A capabilities when we get to that testing. That aircraft, in the first part of 2016, will go up to Canada or Alaska to do cold weather testing. We are characterizing the damper so we want to get into some cold weather so we can get our production configuration pinned down for those dampers.”

He added, “Ship 1 is doing a lot of envelope expansion and gross weight configuration, different density altitudes and filling the corners of the [flight] envelope. The systems [in the lab are] very close to what we are seeing on the aircraft. Bell invested a lot in new design and analytical tools at the beginning of this program and it is paying off. We are not seeing anything that is a big surprise, and when we do see something like hover performance it is on the good side.

“The aircraft continues to be very stable and flies very well,” Thimmesch said, and that includes the aircraft's fly-by-wire flight control system. “The control laws are exceeding expectations and [we do not anticipate any] further tuning for the inner loops. [On] the outer loops, the fly-by-wire enhancements, we’ll do a fine-tuning tweak to that after we get through all our aerodynamic envelope expansion. But out of the box, it has been flying very well–really no surprises on the performance side. The aircraft has been very reliable in flight test, and they have been able to turn the aircraft very quickly. The things that typically keep us down are weather and instrumentation. The aircraft itself has typically been ready to go.”

FTV3 is in final build and Bell hopes to fly it in the first quarter of this year; FTV4 and FTV5 will be added to the program in August and September. With FTV1 off for cold weather testing, FTV2 will be used for development and envelop expansion and FTV3 will do low level survey work. FTV1 and FTV2 will begin certification flight testing in the second quarter, with FTV2 slated for artificial icing testing toward the end off the year and aircraft 3, 4 and 5 coming on line to fly certification testing. Full icing certification testing and function and reliability flight testing will continue into 2017.

Build began on the first customer production aircraft last November. Thimmesch sees customer aircraft coming on line at the rate of one a month. “We’re getting into the production phase of the build, working with early production customers to spec their aircraft, installing a lot of kits in the build, very integrated more than we have done in the past. We’re working with our customers to get those aircraft configured and get into the production flow,” he said.

For Chris Emerson “everything starts now.” Emerson was appointed president and CEO of Airbus Helicopters, Inc. and head of Airbus Helicopters North America on June 1, 2015. He joined the helicopter side from parent company Airbus, where he was senior v-p and head of marketing. Before that he worked for Mercedes Benz and EADS (today the Airbus Group). He is a graduate of the University of Alabama.

Emerson joined Airbus Helicopters as it embarked on an ambitious program of global regionalization while here in the U.S. it benefits from the large and challenging Lakota primary training contract with the U.S. Army. The company has also seen dramatically improved product support as measured by AIN’s Product Support Survey, leapfrogging into second place behind perennial winner Bell Helicopter.

Emerson understands that keeping 200 UH-72A Lakotas flying in the Army’s primary aviation training program is a challenge and described the steps Airbus is taking to meet it. “We are at the end of the first 10-year program support contract with the Lakota, and we are having to modify it [for the training mission]. We are in negotiations with the Army to look at the next five years.”

He added, “For me the environment has changed from when we initially fielded Lakotas. We fielded them as active military components in the [U.S. Army National] Guard for air medevac and VIP transport between Army posts. Now we will have 200 Lakotas at Fort Rucker doing initial pilot training. This is a game changer on how we have to think about supporting the aircraft. The Army will be looking at putting upwards of 600 hours [per year] on each aircraft. When I went to Fort Rucker and met with General Lundy, his comment was, ‘My job is to train these kids to be ready for combat. Your job is to make sure your helicopters are available.’”

Airbus Helicopters established a program office in Fort Rucker and placed parts in a warehouse provided by the Army, as well as on-site technical representatives. “The Army has an existing ACLC [aviation center logistics command] contract with L-3 Vertex,” Emerson said, “which is doing all the wrench turning, so it is our technical reps helping out L-3 when they are doing the actual work on the aircraft.

“There’s a little bit of looking into the crystal ball here. This is the first time the Army is operating a twin-engine [helicopter] as its trainer for initial pilots. It’s a new curriculum. This is the first time we are going to have 200 training aircraft with one customer. There are a lot of nuances that I don’t want to miss so I might be building up a little of a protective barrier. I don’t want to be the guy sitting at the table when we can’t deliver to the Army.”

Training Improvements

Emerson said Airbus, concurrent with its challenge from the Army, is looking to revamp its training offerings for all of its customers. This includes plans to install a Level D H135/H145 roll-on/roll-off simulator at its campus near Dallas in Grand Prairie, Texas.

“Globally at Airbus Helicopters we are launching a regional strategy, which is why I am also head of [Airbus Helicopters] North America. Part of that strategy is to develop a regional strategy here in Dallas. The training center will be more than North America; it will be a training center for all the Americas. The plan will be to bring in a Level D H135/H145 because we can do roll-on/roll-off of the cabin. When the market for oil and gas is back we will have the Level D H175. If the H160 really gets market penetration in North America we’ll also look at Dallas being the H160 simulator location for the Americas. We'll still have a few simulators for the oil and gas market based in Brazil, but we’re trying to migrate everything back to Dallas.”

Emerson expects more news on those simulators to be announced here at Heli-Expo. Airbus Helicopters already has a Level B flight training device (FTD) for the H125 at Grand Prairie, and Emerson is hoping to improve its value proposition for customers.

“Right now we are improving the level of service we deliver with the Level B simulator. Our target is to keep the cost the same because you are competing with flying the actual helicopter. To make the sim work we have to offer more services in the sim.”

As an example, Emerson pointed to a recent contract with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for technical flight officer training in the simulator. “We’re offering the customer more training for that same hourly rate. You don’t need a Level D for that. You don’t need to make that same investment that is going to drive my cost up and make me raise the price for that work.

“What we are doing is improving the software in our Level B with all the video, compression and clarity that you can have without being a Level D. Remember, we are more than a simulator training facility. We have four to five aircraft that pilots train in. We are developing a program that complements flying time with simulator time.” The benefits of this become evident with learning how to hover, he explained. “You can’t learn from scratch how to hover in a sim. You need to be in a real aircraft. But then there is inadvertent IMC. You can’t do that in a real aircraft because you can't control the weather. But you can train that in a sim. We are developing those courses.”

Customer-support Initiatives

While Emerson is gratified that customers recognize the company’s improved customer support, initiatives toward further improvement are continuing. “We’ve done quite a few in the last six months. First we went to a seven-day workweek in the DFW warehouse. Our operators don’t take the weekend off and it is not acceptable that they have to wait until Monday for a part. Following our regional strategy, we have made Dallas the regional distribution center for the Americas. That’s costing us millions of dollars because we’re increasing the stock levels here in Dallas, but it is going to make us much more responsive to our local market in addition to supporting the Latin America market.

“We’re also working on succession planning, beefing up our field service rep teams in a way that may be a little redundant. The way I look at it is that I need to have bench depth out in the field. We’ve got some great tech reps here but they could retire in the next five years. I don’t want to have a learning curve when they retire. I want it to be like you flip a switch and the next tech rep is there. The customer should not see a degradation in the level of service, so we are building a bench depth in the sphere of support.”

Emerson said work is continuing on developing a lightweight onboard health usage and monitoring system for Airbus Helicopters. “On HUMS we've done all the ground monitoring and flight testing on using the sensors and they are working out quite well on the intermediate gearboxes and the aerostructures. We’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at algorithms; we tend to know our parts better. We’re committed to keeping the system light, and now it is seven or eight pounds. You will see some actual movement on this this year.”

Perhaps more important, Emerson said, Airbus has taken aggressive moves to support “sustainment engineering” in the U.S.“Customers tell me that they are not going to buy a new helicopter until we take care of the one they already bought. So we’re going to be spending much more effort in North America sustaining the existing fleet. Last year I appointed Jeff Trang as the head of technology engineering and flight operations. He previously worked at the FAA and was an Army test pilot. The reason is that with all of the development programs that we have undertaken–the H145, the H135T3P3, the H160, the H215, the 225 replacement, who is concentrating on sustainment engineering on the Dauphin and the light helicopters? I have the agreement from Europe that I am going to take on more sustainment engineering.

“This is a big deal for us. It is the first time for us since being in the U.S. that we are now operating under the EASADOA to design under the type certificate of the AS365 [Dauphin]. Baby steps but necessary baby steps to get us where we need to be. The U.S. Coast Guard is a very complex customer that has done a lot of modifications to [its AS365s], and we are just catching up to that. They want those aircraft to fly until 2035.”

With all this activity, Emerson does not think he will need to expand the Airbus Helicopters physical plants in Texas or Mississippi, at least not in the near term. “I’ve got capacity here [in Grand Prairie]. We were sized for 150 deliveries per year and we are under 100. Mississippi was sized for 55 Lakotas. We did 27 last year and will ramp up to 35 next year. The only investment I need to make is on the training center where I need to build the building for the simulators.” o

FAA veteran Lance Gant was named manager of the Rotorcraft Directorate Aircraft Certification Service in 2015. Under Gant’s administration the Fort Worth aircraft certification service was reorganized, and the Rotorcraft Directorate began to tackle the large, and sometimes seemingly vexing issues, confronting rotorcraft certification modernization.

“The reorganization worked out really well,” Gant said. “We previously had three aircraft certification offices co-located here in Fort Worth. One handled strictly rotorcraft certification efforts in the region; another handled airplane certification efforts in the region; and the third was a special projects office that did just about everything else, including business jet interiors, balloons, engines, that kind of stuff. So we currently have 12 or 13 organization designation authorizations or ODAs spread among those three offices. When we reorganized into two offices we created one full-service aircraft certification office now referred to as the Fort Worth ACO and a second delegation systems certifications office, and all the ODAs in the region are being managed by that one group. That is where we have gotten the most positive feedback. Those ODAs now get a lot more direct attention, and the engineers and staff that work with them can concentrate solely on ODA activities and not be stretched out doing other certification activities as handled by the ACO now.

“It’s helped the [helicopter] OEMs here in the region get the attention they need and it has helped to make sure the ODAs are doing what we want,” Gant said. “[That is] when they show they have a good culture of compliance, that we delegate to them and get out of their way so they can get product to market in a timely fashion.”

Gant said the industry effort to rewrite Part 27, the FAA regulations that govern helicopters weighing 7,000 pounds or less or with nine or less passenger seats, should continue to be led by the industry, and that the FAA will examine industry work product at the appropriate time. That effort was spawned after the FAA denied a gross weight increase to 7,500 pounds for the Bell 429 light twin under Part 27.

“We put in public notice that if there were an industry need for weight limits for Part 27 and Part 29 we would be happy to have the industry embark on that effort and we would be supportive,” he said. “With that [the General Aviation Manufacturers Association] has taken the lead on this and is working on a proposal to get to the FAA. Our direct involvement is a little different than what we did [in the rewrite efforts for] Part 23. In Part 23 the FAA was hand-in-hand with the industry. The better way for this to work is for industry to decide how it wants to go forward. I don’t know if we will see a wholesale rewrite like we did on Part 23.”

Potential Rulemaking Efforts

Gant said he expects any rulemaking that might come from the work of the Occupant Protection Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) to advance swiftly. That ARAC had its first meeting January 21 and is charged with plotting survivability solutions for blunt-force injuries and post-impact fires in current production and legacy helicopters certified under older type certificates. Gant said pressure from the NTSB and Congress likely would keep the issue on the front burner.

“Staff here worked with the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute [CAMI] in Oklahoma City and actually did a study of helicopter accidents looking at autopsy data. We were able to parse the percentage of [deaths] due to blunt-force trauma and post-crash fire. The reality is that blunt-force trauma is a much larger contributor to fatalities in helicopters than post-crash fire, although–and rightfully so–the post-crash fire scenario is what really got the ball rolling due to some horrific accidents.

“The process is in three parts. In the first six months [the ARAC does] a cost-benefit analysis. The second six months is to have the advisory committee come back to the FAA with recommendations on how to get occupant protection into current-production helicopters. And the third tasking is to use months 12 to 18 to look at retrofit into the current fleet. These would come as recommendations to the FAA that would then balance them against the cost-benefit analysis and make a determination if we go into rulemaking. If we go into rulemaking it is not fast but, like I said, we’ve had pressures to do something. We’re driving the ARAC to get us something fairly quickly. And once that happens, the FAA will go forward with its normal processes but, with the impetus from some external stakeholders, maybe in an expedited fashion.”

Gant is looking at forming another ARAC, this to consider bird-strike risks to Part 27 helicopters. “Part 27 does not have any bird-strike requirements for the canopy, and we are looking at that. Our data shows that bird strikes on helicopters have markedly increased in the last handful of years. I don’t know if it is because there has been more reporting and more close calls.” An ARAC could be charged with exploring this as early as March.

Separate from revisions to Part 27, the FAA is considering an industry white paper that suggests more cost-effective ways of adding IFR equipment to Part 27 single-engine helicopters.

“We’ve been in discussion with industry for two years now on this concept,” Gant said. “On the certification side, industry took the position that if we lower the certification burden of getting autopilots and advanced avionics into helicopters, then IFR would be pursued more often from the certification side. They did send us their final white paper around the end of November of last year, and we made a commitment to get a response to that paper in the first calendar quarter of this year. It is outside of rulemaking because industry is asking us to make a policy change and not a rule change. I don’t have a good timeline on that, yet I would hope sooner rather than later. I don’t want to have to commit my guys to having had something done this year. We’re kind of looking at a little broader effort that would address equipage in Part 27 overall and not just concentrating on IFR. Generally we are favorable to the effort.”

Gant did mention a concern, however. “We can do our end to help streamline certification of IFR equipment and getting the aircraft equipped, but the other side is operations. You have to be able to train and maintain proficiency if you are going to be utilizing those aircraft IFR.”

Orders and deliveries at Airbus Helicopters (Booth 9651) last year fell far below expectations, at a net 333 and 393, respectively, compared to 402 orders and 471 deliveries in 2014. Smaller revenues, although not disclosed, came equally from civil and military activities. CEO Guillaume Faury blamed the reductions on low oil prices and “delays in the key military campaigns.” The company received just two orders for the H225 family, which traditionally sells in the oil-and-gas and defense segments. Against the backdrop of globally dwindling sales, Airbus Helicopters’s claimed share in the civil and parapublic market increased slightly, to 45 percent of deliveries in those segments.

This year Airbus Helicopters will open the orderbook for the H160 medium twin, the second prototype of which has recently flown powered by Turbomeca Arrano engines. An all-new final assembly line with a greater level of automation will be inaugurated for the H160 in the second half of this year. Faury has long been advocating the use of production processes inspired from the automotive sector. Its Marignane Development Centre opens this year, as does a new blade production center of excellence at Paris Le Bourget.

The numbers Airbus released lump together the civil and military versions of its products. But for some models, AIN assumes most (if not all) orders were civil. These include the H120, H125 and H130 light singles (163 orders), the H135 light twin (49) and the H175 super medium twin (36). The H175, however, is currently operated by only one operator–NHV–13 months after its entry into service.

Faury in late January 2015 predicted this would be a year of steady deliveries and brisker orders, while heavy helicopters would keep their increased importance in the mix. Despite the opposite outcome, he stated that the company is “now harvesting the fruit of our strategic transformation plan that puts us in the best position to operate successfully despite a challenging market environment; our focus on customer satisfaction, quality and safety as well as competitiveness has produced tangible results on our journey to go from the biggest to the best.”

For 2015, 53 percent of revenues came from sales of products, with 47 percent generated by services. Improved customer support efforts include the launch of HCare at last year’s Heli-Expo show, which emphasizes “the company’s commitment to keep its customers flying, anytime, anywhere.” Airbus Helicopters also expanded technical support operations with a 24/7/365 hotline for all customers.

Bell Helicopter is now aiming to have its new short light single Model 505 Jet Ranger X certified in the first half of 2016 and plans a fast production ramp up that could grow to 200 helicopters per year by 2018, according to program manager David Smith. Through the first week in December, Bell held 354 letters of intent for 505s, and three test aircraft had completed 485 flight test hours and another 115 on the ground.

“We feel very confident that we will be able to sustain 200 aircraft a year [production] for a considerable period of time even in this market,” Smith told AIN. “Many of the 200 that we will build in any given year will go to these large [parapublic] fleet sales where they are heavily customized aircraft with significant missionization. Bell Piney Flats [in Tennessee] does major customization for law enforcement, EMS, and VIP, and we expect a decent number of that production will go to a facility like Piney Flats for missionization. We have a number of police departments that are very interested in the 505 to help replace some aging aircraft in their fleet, and we expect their product to need special turrets and special interior monitoring stations, so a lot of these aircraft will go to Piney Flats for these extensive mods.”

Smith said some kits for the aircraft already are in flight test. “We’ve got the first round of kits mostly mature and in certification testing, many are installed on the third test aircraft and include HTAWS, night vision, a second VHF com, ELT and standby altimeter. Those are very close to being certified. There are a slew of kits just behind that including HF antennas and a second integrated navcoms, and we are working with the makers of autopilot systems and emergency floats. Our corporate customers really like to fly over water, and many of them are used to flying with autopilots that make flying cross country more comfortable and manageable,” he said. “Those are areas we are really focused, on and our follow-on kits will meet the customers’ needs coming right out of the factory at Lafayette; every one of these kits will be field installable and every one will be installable in Lafayette right off the line. Air-conditioning will be available on all factory deliveries or retrofittable.”

Smith said an increased color and striping patterns selection will be announced here at Heli-Expo as will be a new “ride quality mechanism.”

The new 505 factory is gearing up for production, Smith said. “Lafayette is building parts and moderate levels of assemblies right now. And they are building in quantities to support the 2016 deliveries.

“Lafayette has gone through several major milestones. It received its certificate of occupancy in 2015 and has been building production parts for the Bell 206 family including the main rotor hub, the tailrotor gearbox, and the main rotor gearbox. They have been building them up to a level that will make production next year much easier. They’ve also started work on a handful of parts that are truly 505 new parts. We expect the bulk of their assembly to start in January. They will receive key components that will allow the engine to be built up; components like the starter generators, wire harnesses, drain lines, and inlet filters. Production will be a very quick ramp up. We’ve worked very closely with our suppliers to ensure their production capabilities can meet an aggressive ramp rate so we will be delivering aircraft faster than we’ve ever delivered,” Smith said.

As to the three-ship test fleet, flight test vehicle 1 (FTV1) finished flying in November and was being prepared for an endurance ground run in late December before being turned over to the Bell Academy as a maintenance trainer in February.

FTV2, Smith said, is being outfitted with design changes that improve “certification produce-ability” and fatigue life of the structure. It resumes test flight early in the year and then will continue flying as a long-term research and development aircraft. It will also be used for follow-on kit development and product improvement.

FTV3, he said, “is really the one that on a continuing basis is doing the flying right now and will be doing the certification for the last several months primarily on handling qualities and some follow-on performance testing.” FTV3 was scheduled for more testing in the second half of February into March. This included emergency egress, avionics certification and avionics thermal testing.

“The rest of the program will be centered around structural fatigue testing of the aircraft,” Smith said. “It's a very comprehensive test regime that covers all major items on the aircraft; a test for tailboom, landing gear, main fuselage structure, several tests for the areas affected by rotor loads and high-cycle areas like where our control actuators are. So we probably have nine or ten tests that will be conducted during the first part of 2016 that will be finished up that will decide when we certify. We feel confident in the outcome of these tests. It’s more a function of how fast we can execute them, produce the data and provide that to the regulators. It will certainly be after the first quarter of 2016.”

Bell is seeking initial certification approval of the 505 from Transport Canada.

Turbomeca is feeling the effects of the helicopter industry’s downturn but is pressing on with the development of several new engine versions. Some programs, however, have been delayed or even shelved. For the longer term, the Bordes, France-based company is working on a 2,000- to 3,000-shp demonstrator and is conducting research on innovative ways to cut fuel burn.

Last year Turbomeca (Booth 10543) delivered 718 helicopter engines, a 15-percent reduction from the previous year’s 850 engines (these numbers include civil and military turboshafts). “The entire rotorcraft industry is impacted by a downturn; offshore oil-and-gas sales account for 20 percent of the market but are a major factor in its health,” CEO Bruno Even told AIN. Latin America is generating fewer orders than it used to (for all applications, not only oil-and-gas). In the U.S., Even sees overcapacity in the helicopter EMS segment, which is causing stagnation.

Overall, the Safran group company’s turboshaft deliveries are expected to be steady this year, compared to 2015.

Turbomeca has a number of programs in development. The Arrano 1A has been flying on the Airbus Helicopters second prototype H160 at the airframer’s headquarters in Marignane, France. The first flight took place in January. “We are hearing very good feedback,” Even said.

The Arrius 2R was certified in December 2015. Turbomeca has begun delivering production-standard engines to Bell, and the Arrius 2R is slated to enter into service on the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X in the coming months.

A pair of 1,800-shp Turbomeca/Avic Engine Ardiden 3C/WZ16s will power the AC352, in lieu of the H175’s Pratt & Whitney Canada turboshafts. Late in 2015, it emerged that a modified H175 is being used in France as a test bed for the Ardiden 3C. Neither Airbus nor Turbomeca would confirm this, but AIN understands that the tests had been planned for a long time.

Even expects the AC352 to fly, in China, by this summer. Asked whether he is worrying about the protracted program, Even said that developing a helicopter and an engine with Chinese partners normally takes more time. The way the program is proceeding, “looks consistent with what is at stake on this market, being positioned in China with Chinese partners,” he said.

The long-delayed Russian Helicopters Ka-62 program uses Ardiden 3Gs. The first aircraft, for which Turbomeca has delivered flightworthy engines, is now hoped to fly by this summer.

The Makila 2B program has been shelved. Airbus Helicopters eventually choose (in agreement with Turbomeca, according to Even) to keep the 2,100-shp Makila 2A1 on the upgraded H225 heavy twin. The Makila 2B has no other application but its development could be resumed, if needed, or the work could be reused elsewhere.

The 2B was to offer a new combustor design for increased temperature. The high-pressure turbine blades were thus to be made of a new material. Separately, the compressor would be better protected against erosion, and this particular improvement was to be retrofittable. Overall, the 2B was targeting improved performance in one-engine-inoperative and hot-and-high conditions.

The Tech 3000 demonstrator program, devised to prepare a next-generation 2,000- to 3,000-shp turboshaft for heavy helicopters, is slipping to the right. Component testing took place in 2015. But the first full engine is not expected to run until this year or early next year. “There will be an upturn in the offshore oil-and-gas market in the mid- to long-term,” Even predicted.

In the longer term, Turbomeca is still studying hybrid architectures to cut fuel burn on a twin-engine installation. One engine may be shut down in cruise, allowing the other one to run at a higher rpm, much closer to its best efficiency. The shut-down engine would be restarted in case of a problem with the running engine. On a testbed, Turbomeca has trialed a quick-restart process, Even said.

Erickson’s new CEO Jeff Roberts said his experience at the helm of the company has been an “eye-opening 10-month tenure.” Roberts had only been on the job a few months when the company posted a surprise quarterly loss of $75 million, $49.8 million of it related to an impairment-of-goodwill accounting charge and much of the remainder attributable to Erickson’s acquisition of Evergreen’s rotorcraft assets.

Roberts said he has spent a good part of the last year streamlining and strengthening Erickson so it is positioned for future growth and profitability. “Our transformation is 80 percent of the way there. Now we are trying to aggressively win new business. We are optimistic that this is a year we get things headed our way. We have positioned the business to stop the decline and start the growth pattern.”

The company had three maintenance organizations when he took over, but those have been consolidated into one. Multiple safety management systems are also down to one. “We had multiple facilities supporting operational tempo and content,” he said, “now we have consolidated all our stuff into Oregon at one location. We had four business units, now we’re down to three. We had some operations that were not profitable, so we’ve drawn down those and exited a couple of markets. Within the markets that we are going to continue to participate in, we find those areas that we are going to pursue. For example in oil-and-gas; the company made a big play to get into the [offshore] oil-and-gas space. There wasn't a whole lot of differentiation or value that we could bring there, so we stepped back and said the offshore oil-and-gas play is not for us. There’s nothing we can do there. However, for land-based remote-location exploration and production, where heavy lift and precision placement-support transportation services are required, that could be a nice play for us. So we still are going to participate in oil-and-gas, but just in that very specific opportunity.”

Rationalizing the fleet was a principal focus. “Now we have a strategic fleet plan,” he explained. “When I got here we had 85 aircraft and 12 different types and 25 to 30 different models. It was all over the map. We are in the process of focusing on three or four types and as few models as we can. We’ll dispose of aircraft selectively.”

One Stop for Service

Roberts said that Erickson plans to stress its ability to provide customers with what he called the “full bandwidth” of services, including MRO, manufacturing and operations–all vertically integrated, which can be invaluable when operating in austere environments. “We operate 70 to 80 aircraft, both rotorcraft and fixed-wing. We operate them all over the world. We have our own maintenance repair and overhaul capability. And we have a type certificate for both an airframe and an engine. So that manufacturing capability coupled with the MRO capability coupled with the operational capability by itself makes us unique. Then if you think about the legacy business that we have been in for the last 40 or 50 years, that has forced us to operate in very remote, very austere, difficult non-infrastructure-rich environments.

“A remote environment where a number of utility aircraft platforms are required, where a combination of transportation services, lift and precision placement are of value and where you can leverage your vertical integration, MRO and manufacturing and operations to give you best-in-class dispatch reliability” is where Erickson can provide unmatched service, Roberts said. And he sees plenty of growth in those areas.

“We believe based on the research that we have done, across defense and security, commercial and manufacturing and MRO markets, that there is probably a $3 to $4 billion market for those specialized services. And were at $300 to $400 million [in revenues now] so there’s a lot of upside,” he said.

Roberts described the markets and Erickson’s role in them. “In commercial markets we are in firefighting and timber harvesting, on land oil-and-gas and construction. We lead in two and are material participants in two, so we think there are opportunities for us. Because of the portfolio that was Evergreen, we now have a demonstrated [capability] in defense and security support around the world, and we believe there are opportunities for us to participate there, offering the operations piece and leveraging the MRO piece in that space. The final piece is doing MRO work for legacy assets as well as providing job shop, non-high-volume, technically difficult and complex manufacturing.”

Internally, Roberts has been fine-tuning Erickson. “You look at the front of the business. How good are we at identifying and uncovering opportunities and putting our value proposition forward? In the middle of the business how we are doing from an execution standpoint: are we meeting or exceeding customer expectations? What can we do to improve ourselves? And then a third area is the cross-functional and support areas on the back end of the business: are we as efficient as we should be?”

The company focused on all three areas during the past year. “I think we accomplished a number of things,” Roberts said, “in terms of efficiencies and driving effectiveness on the back of the business. We’ve consolidated some things and eliminated some non-winning propositions. We have introduced more accountability and rigor into the execution into how we do things and why we do them and what works and what doesn't, and to make sure the customer feels that improvement. And on the front end it has been a build scenario. We didn't have a lot of vigor or robustness from a marketing, sales and business development standpoint, so we brought in sales and business development leaders and marketing expertise, to go in the marketplace and uncover and capture additional work.”

Plummeting oil prices have taken a heavy toll on Sikorsky’s commercial helicopter sales. These peaked at $1.5 billion in 2014 but are expected to total about one quarter of that in 2016, at around $375 million. This was the recent outlook Bruce Tanner, CFO of Sikorsky parent company Lockheed Martin, gave to analysts.

Sikorsky (Booth 2617) does not release order and delivery numbers, according to commercial systems and services v-p Dana Fiatarone. He acknowledged that the company began to feel the effects of the oil price drop in the second half of 2014. “The oil-and-gas market has put a pressure on orders and deliveries for all OEMs,” he said, adding his company wants to be “prepared to take advantage of it when it rebounds.”

A product range like Sikorsky’s, with only one medium twin (the S-76D) and one heavy twin (the S-92), is even more exposed to the oil-and-gas market’s ups and downs. Nevertheless, the company is targeting other segments for potential sales this year. “We see potential for an uptick in EMS and search-and-rescue, notably in emerging economies such as China and India, as local demand for more civil service programs grows,” Fiatarone said, adding that the VIP market has been “robust” in North America and Southeast Asia.

The first of Era Group’s S-92s with the gross weight expansion (GWE) option was delivered last August. One of these aircraft, operated in the Gulf of Mexico, is on display here at Heli-Expo. The GWE option adds 1,200 pounds to the payload.

An improved main gearbox for the S-92 has been in development since 2013, at least. Fiatarone could not give a target date for entry into service. The next evolutions to be seen in Sikorsky’s civil range may belong to the “more autonomy” category, he said, such as the in-service Rig Approach system, which reduces pilot workload.

Here at Heli-Expo, Sikorsky is planning to unveil the S-92’s new flight crew operations manual (FCOM), a first for the airframer. “The main benefit is it provides you with quicker access to information on how the aircraft was intended to be operated under certain circumstances,” Fiatarone explained. Next in line will be the S-76D’s FCOM.

The Schweizer product line of light singles is still being produced, but Sikorsky has stopped taking new orders. Delivery commitments extend into 2017, according to Fiatarone.

Asked how being part of Lockheed Martin has changed Sikorsky so far, Fiatarone answered that no significant change has been seen yet. But the management team is “committed to the integration process,” he said, referring to hoped-for synergies. “We are looking forward to working with Lockheed Martin to take advantage of value-creation opportunities,” he emphasized.

Commercial helicopters and support have generally accounted for 20 to 30 percent of Sikorsky’s sales, depending on the year. In June 2015, Sikorsky announced a restructuring “necessitated by the sustained decrease in global oil prices and continued softness in demand for certain international military products,” a spokesman said. The workforce was reduced by 810, and this resulted in total employment of about 14,450 by year-end 2015.

There is something truly special about being recognized for a lifetime of achievements. Dana Kerrick certainly felt that when he received the Bell Helicopter Lifetime Achievement Award here at Heli-Expo 2016.

Kerrick is recognized throughout the industry as one of the foremost experts in rotor blade maintenance. He has written extensively for maintenance and aviation publications and blogs, and his course on rotor blade preventive maintenance has been part of the Heli-Expo Rotor Safety Challenge since its inception in 2013 in Las Vegas.

Kerrick served the aviation industry both in the military and civilian arena. He’s been a maintenance specialist, civilian pilot, flight instructor, air-taxi operator, innovator in helicopter rotor blade composites and helicopter inspection authorization (IA) course instructor before retiring as vice president and cofounder of International Aviation Composites (IAC). In all it was a 56-year career in aviation.

The first aircraft Kerrick worked on were B-52s, in the U.S. Air Force in the late 1950s. While in the military he earned his private pilot certificate, which later allowed him to pick up his other pilot certificates, through flight instructor, under the GI Bill provisions of the time. He entered the civilian workforce in 1970, but didn’t discover helicopters until midlife. In 1981, after a successful sales career, he took over sales and management at Composite Technology in Stockton, Calif. He went in whole-hog at that point, becoming certified in rotor blade repair.

“I always tried to find the most talented people and learn from them everything they were willing to share,” Kerrick said at his retirement celebration last year.

During Kerrick’s tenure in the helicopter world he has seen rotor blades evolve from carefully matched wooden blades, to metal-skinned blades, to today’s composite blades.

He co-founded IAC in 1992 with Herman Bevelhimer and Randy Stevens. Originally the company was located in a small facility in Irving, Texas, later expanding to a 25,000-sq-ft state-of-the-art repair facility near Fort Worth Alliance Airport, where it is located today. With his partners and employees Kerrick pioneered innovative repairs for older rotor blades, many of which the OEM once considered unrepairable. Today the FAA-certified repair station keeps a 24/7 AOG team ready for customers, as well as offering a blade exchange program, among other services.

“We do all kinds of non-destructive testing,” said Kerrick, a certified Level IINDT radiologist who is considered an industry expert in all types of rotor blade construction, materials and repairs. Kerrick was instrumental in developing new balance procedures that are now standard practice in the U.S. Army. Bevelhimer said of Kerrick that he is most remembered for “his relentless dedication to the education of pilots and mechanics on the maintenance of their rotor blades.”

In the Los Angeles helicopter noise wars, 2,000 feet above ground level (agl) is the magic number, the nirvana of minimum helicopter cruising altitudes, various anti-helicopter groups aligned as the Los Angeles Area Helicopter Noise Coalition (LAAHNC or HNC) want to impose via regulation or statute. This despite the airspace chaos that move would create at the various airports throughout the Los Angeles Basin, including mixing helicopter and fixed-wing VFR traffic at the same altitude.

Last October the HNC announced that it was withdrawing from most voluntary collaborative efforts with area helicopter pilots and operators groups, including the Professional Helicopter Pilots Association (PHPA) and the Los Angeles Helicopter Operators Association (LAHOA) and would petition the FAA directly to establish a hard floor of 2,000 feet for helicopters in the L.A. Basin; restrict the number and length of time helicopters may hover in one place; require media helicopters to pool coverage; and establish a coastal shoreline route for helicopters.

The HNC believes the FAA must impose these regulations under language contained in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. This last-minute amendment added to a broader federal appropriations bill by select members of California’s congressional delegation, required the FAA to:

· Evaluate and adjust existing helicopter noise routes above Los Angeles to lessen noise impacts.

· Analyze whether helicopters could fly safely at higher altitudes.

· Develop and promote best practices for helicopter operators for limiting noise.

· Conduct outreach to helicopter operators on voluntary policies and increase awareness of noise-sensitive areas and events.

· Work with stakeholders to develop a more comprehensive noise complaint system.

· Continue to participate in collaborative engagement between community representatives and helicopter operators.

Most significantly, the legislation provided that within one year of enactment, the Secretary of Transportation “shall begin a regulatory process related to the impact of helicopter use on the quality of life and safety of the people of Los Angeles County unless the Secretary can demonstrate significant progress in undertaking the actions.”

On Jan. 16, 2015, the FAA’s Western Region issued a report that outlined the “significant progress” made to date. That report was later forwarded to Congress. Progress cataloged in 2014 included: development new beacon codes that distinguished helicopters from fixed-wing traffic; evaluation of numerous helicopter route adjustments, some with higher altitudes; identification of a new voluntary offshore route; promotion of camera pooling during major news events; issuance of advisory Notams for outdoor concert venues; identification of local noise hot spots and dissemination of handouts about them; promotion of best practices and implementation of a noise-reporting system; and continual collaboration with stakeholders.

The FAA went on to report, “The stakeholder steering group, with interaction from the FAA, has formulated a proposed set of over 20 voluntary measures for use by helicopter pilots and operators, ranging from voluntary helicopter routes to voluntary helicopter altitudes in specific areas that will reduce helicopter noise in noise-sensitive areas of Los Angeles County while maintaining adequate margins of safety. [The] FAA has participated in over 50 meetings with stakeholders and has been the primary provider of technical support, flight data and analysis to the stakeholders.”

Collaborative Efforts Continue

The HNC maintains that no progress has been made and has withdrawn from collaboration on any future measures. In a statement dated Oct. 20, 2015, HNC board member Richard Root said: “In the past few years our coalition has participated in 57 collaborative meetings and we proposed more than 30 voluntary practices to reduce noise. We are well past the Congressional deadline for progress and unfortunately we have still not reached any significant agreements.”

Morrie Zager, president of the Professional Helicopter Pilots Association and a sergeant with the Aero Bureau of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, maintains that the HNC will not accept anything less than a 2,000-foot floor on helicopter operations within the L.A. Basin.

“Our mantra is get educated, not regulated,” said Zager. “As pilots and operators we have spent thousands of hours of work in collaborating with these people and come up with several versions of best practices that were agreed upon. We were able to raise altitudes in certain particular [noise] hot spots as identified by the HNC. But every one of those things we’ve thrown out there and said that we would do, the HNC has come back and said, ‘Not good enough. That’s not going to make an impact.’ Essentially what they want is a minimum 2,000-foot agl [floor] in the entire L.A. Basin for helicopters to operate, and that includes police, fire and military unless actively engaged in an operation. They don’t care that 2,000 feet is often right in an IFR flight path or in an area of a lot of fixed-wing traffic. Their answer is to tell the FAA to reroute all IFR traffic. You need to change all the routing. The FAA can’t do that.”

Zager said that despite the HNC’s withdrawal from active collaboration on most fronts, the PHPA and the LAHOA are continuing their voluntary efforts to fly neighborly. “We have not abandoned our signed pledges and voluntary measures despite the HNC’s withdrawal because we are concerned with the citizens living below us in the L.A. area and we want to be good stewards. The FAA appreciates all the hard work we do and continue to do. The FAA is very happy that the pilots and the operators are staying engaged, despite the fact that the HNC is stepping away from the negotiations,” Zager said.

Every other month LAHOA, the PHPA and the local FAA safety team hold regional pilot summits in the L.A. area to discuss safety and flying neighborly, Zager noted. “We just had one at the end of January. We discuss hot spots as defined by the HNC, tips on how to avoid blade slap, things like that. “Despite the fact the HNC doesn’t think we have done enough and has disengaged, that has not stopped us from being the good guys,” he said.

The PHPA and the HNC continue to collaborate on sorting through complaints filed on the new FAA-funded automated helicopter noise complaint system that went live in March. Monthly representatives from the pilots group and the homeowners lobby sit down and review the complaints. “If there are numerous complaints on the same incident or an egregious incident in and of itself, we try to identify the offending entity, determine why they were flying the way they were, then report back to the HNC and explain why the operator was flying in this manner and any corrective action taken. We still do that monthly,” Zager said.

But the nature of these complaints is often suspect, Zager explained. “Complainers can log in with a telephone call or electronically and register an anonymous complaint. They have logged 4,000 to 6,000 complaints per month since the system went on line. While the system is anonymous, it does track the complainer’s number. We have found people who have the time to submit a complaint every 30 seconds or every minute practically all day and are abusing the system. We have one complainer who is responsible for 40 percent of all the complaints. Thankfully the FAA is able to dissect the system and see that there are people trying to skew it.”

Metro Aviation’s Helicopter Flight Training Center (HFTC) in Shreveport, La., expanded its training options with the recent certification of a Frasca Bell 407 flight-training device (FTD). The simulator was certified to Level 7, the highest rating for an FTD.

The trainer is equipped with an IFR cockpit that can simulate normal and emergency operating conditions. It will be used for specific pilot training, as well as inadvertent IMC recovery procedures. The cockpit features a coupled autopilot capable of ILS, VOR and GPS/WAAS approaches.

Additionally, the device is approved for training with night-vision goggles (NVG). The training uses eight projector screens to depict low-, medium- and high- illumination NVG environments.

“The realistic cockpit and outstanding visuals make this simulator ideal for any operator’s training program,” said training center director Terry Palmer. “We are pleased that we can offer the highest quality flight training device in a cost-effective program that can be utilized by all operators, large and small.”

HFTC is the making the trainer available for dry lease, which permits operators to use their own instructors and training curriculum. The HFTC facility also is equipped with a Level D EC135 full-motion simulator and Level 7 AS350 flight-training device.

HFTC parent Metro Aviation (Booth 9337) began operating Bell 407s in late 2013 under an agreement with Tampa General Hospital’s Aeromed program. That marked Metro’s first operation of a Bell helicopter in 25 years.

Government and industry have come together to form an international aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) similar to the recently concluded Part 23 ARC to consider changes to the FAA Part 27/29 EASACS27/29 rules governing civil helicopters.

While similar in structure to the Part 23 ARC, the rotorcraft equivalent will be more targeted and limited in scope and therefore should proceed at a faster pace, according to Walter Desrosier, vice president of engineering and maintenance at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Stakeholders should get a preliminary view of the committee’s work within a year, and FAA/EASA proposed rulemaking could come within four years, he said.

“Right now it will not be what a lot of folks have seen in the CS23 and Part 23, a pretty significant rewrite and reorganization, because there were so many areas that were outdated and so many areas that would benefit from some change,” Desrosier said. “In 27 and 29 I don’t think it will be nearly as extensive as a proposed change. It will be very targeted in certain subparts and certain areas where we have seen a lot of technological development of rotorcraft, where the rules have not kept up.”

Equivalent Levels

Desrosier said the committee is looking at areas already granted exemptions or compliance through equivalent level of safety (ELOS) determinations. “The analysis that our working group is conducting is not mature enough to say that we’ve reached conclusions on anything specific. There are many areas [where] there is going to be a specific opportunity for potential improvements and enhancements.”

A fundamental objective, he explained, is addressing what have become detailed methods of compliance for a particular rule, which in turn spawn special conditions or exemptions because of the limiting and inefficient nature of complying with the rule in later applications. “So that is one of the first areas in the analysis,” he explained. “We are taking a look at where we see a lot of exemptions, special conditions, equivalent levels of safety in some of the existing designs. Where do we expect to see some of these in future designs and that indicate areas of the rules that just are not up to date with the current technology, methods and materials?”

The next step is to look at other prescriptive areas not involved exemptions, special conditions and ELOSes, but that could be subject to those later. “We want to make sure that the airworthiness design standards, the rules we have to meet, do not become overly prescriptive in a means of compliance,” Desrosier said. “Instead they should identify the safety objective. That allows for a lot more accommodating different methods of compliance for different features that we might get in for the future.”

Stakeholder Input

The committee will be seeking input from stakeholders, he said, and has already engaged in some industry forums. “We’re planning to take some of the more specific areas we’re planning to identify and initial recommendations to those same forums to make sure we can bring in the perspectives and the views of the broader rotorcraft industry. Not just the manufacturers but also the operators and the maintenance community, in terms of identifying how can we better improve the structure of the regulations to support our current needs, but more important our future needs, to be more efficient and effective in addressing the ability to address future technology and future products.”

Desrosier said the 27/29 committee is not a panacea, that there are areas that need more immediate and tactical attention from industry, particularly in the areas of avionics, ADS-B and mission equipment.

“We realize this is a long-term effort to get a major rulemaking,” he said. “There are many other areas today not related to the 27/29 review that are more tactical. There are issues we need to address as an industry and work with the authorities today. Avionics is a big area of attention.”

Key avionics issues include addressing a more efficient approach to certification of new avionics and retrofits, and the 2020 ADS-B out mandate. “We’ve identified unique challenges and obstacles with respect to equipage and approvals for rotorcraft,” Desrosier said. “A lot of that is progressing very well. It comes down to policies, procedures, training and awareness. [And] making sure we have the appropriate standards, methods of compliance and certification processes to do it in an efficient way. These are all short term. This is not rulemaking. This is all stuff that is needed now, and that is why this is such a focused effort. We are running out of time, and we have to make sure we can identify any obstacles and roadblocks now and remove those so that operators can equip and manufacturers can provide the equipment and the services necessary to support equipage by 2020.”

Robinson Helicopter delivered 347 aircraft in 2015, a modest increase from the 329 it delivered in 2014. Again deliveries of the turbine R66 led all models by dollar volume with 117 delivered, up from 101 in 2014. The remainder were divided among Robinson’s piston models: 152 R44 Raven IIs, 44 Raven Is and 34 R22s. Robinson continues to employ 1,200 at its plant in Torrance, Calif. Company president Kurt Robinson said a strong U.S. dollar coupled with a sluggish global economy continues to hamper further sales growth, noting that Robinson relied on the export market for more than 70 percent of its sales. Robinson noted a softness in the second half of 2015, which he sees continuing into 2016.

However, even within this soft market, there were some bright spots. Robinson’s 700th R66 rolled off the production line on December 18, five years after the five-place helicopter was FAA certified. “We’re very pleased with that,” he said. “All the feedback we’re getting from the operators in the field has been incredibly positive. It does what we say it will do, and that means a lot.”

Robinson recently added the Garmin G500H display system and the Genesys HeliSAS autopilot to the R66 options list. Currently in development are an R66 auxiliary fuel tank and an R66 cargo hook. The R66 auxiliary tank fits in the baggage hold and will give the R66 five hours’ range, according to Kurt Robinson. Both options are projected for release in 2016. To date, Robinson has approved 120 R66 service centers worldwide, of which 72 are dealers.

Snow Flight

Last November 13, in Spray Lakes, Canada, Robinson’s R66 finally passed the FAA’s and Transport Canada’s test to allow flight in snow conditions, after several years waiting to have a helicopter positioned in the proper conditions. Passing the test allows Robinson to eliminate the existing limitation in the R66POH, which prohibits flight in falling or blowing snow. “Sure enough they went and found it and chased it,” Robinson said. “They went up in the hills where this one helipad is and [the storm] came in spades. They flew in it for well over an hour. Before we were lucky to get [the snow storm] for 15 or 20 minutes and then it would move on.”

Working with Canada-based dealer Eric Gould of Aerial Recon, Robinson conducted the test during a heavy snow storm with low visibility at freezing temperatures, conditions that have been shown to produce worst-case snow accumulation at the helicopter’s turbine engine air intake. The test consisted of a 100-percent power engine ground run for 20 minutes, IGE hover for five minutes, and 60 minutes of cruise flight. Performance was monitored using pressure instruments and a live video feed from a camera mounted near the engine air filter. The test requires that snow build-up not block the engine air intake or adversely affect engine operation. Despite the extreme weather conditions, no snow build-up occurred in the engine intake area and no decrease in engine performance was detected.

Police Package

The R66 Police Helicopter has been reconfigured to include multiple upgrades. It now comes standard with the Garmin G500HPFD/MFD, a Garmin GTN 635 touchscreen navigator and a Garmin GTR 225A com radio. A new streamlined instrument panel houses the G500H along with traditional instruments and dual audio controllers. With the G500H, the aircraft can be flown from either seat, and dual audio controllers allow for independent radio monitoring and transmitting by the pilot or copilot.

To complete the package, Robinson expanded the R66 Police Helicopter options list. New options include Genesys HeliSAS autopilot; Garmin GTN 650/750 navigators; FreeFlight RA-4500 radar altimeter, which displays radar altitude information on the G500HPFD; Technisonic TDFM-9000 radio in a variety of single- to four-band options; and an Aerocomputers moving-map system with View Sync 3D capability. The police package also includes the FLIR Systems Ultra 8000 infrared camera and the Spectrolab SX-7 searchlight with 30-million candlepower and reconfigured to include a multitude of upgrades.

The same Genesys HeliSAS (helicopter stability augmentation system) and autopilot that was FAA approved on the R66 is now available on the R44. The autopilot option works the same in the R44 as in the R66 and offers the same workload-reducing features, including basic stability augmentation, heading hold, altitude hold, navigation signal tracking and approach guidance. The difference is the autopilot now works in conjunction with Aspen’s 1000H PFD, which fits in a standard eight-hole panel and is a lighter, less expensive display than Garmin’s G500H, which installs in a larger console.

The G500H is available only on the R66 while the Aspen PFD is available on either the R66 or the R44. With either installation, the autopilot controls are located in the avionics stack, with additional trim and off buttons installed on the cyclic. The price for an autopilot installation with an Aspen PFD is $60,200. A Garmin GTN navigator is also required and is not included in the above price (pricing for GTNs varies by model). Kurt Robinson said the G500H should be available on the R44 soon, likely within the first six months of 2016, and will eventually be available on the R44 Cadet.

Why a Cadet?

Robinson planned to unveil more details on its new two-place R44 Cadet, aimed at the training market, here at Heli-Expo 2016. “We’ve been bouncing around the idea of a two-place R44 for a long time,” Robinson said. “Part of it is you see how the Raven I is separated from the Raven II and how we have always focused on price on that aircraft.

“The idea really started to hit when you look at the R22. When you add the [fuel] bladder tanks and some of the safety enhancements, it really limits what else you can add to the aircraft. And if someone wants to move on and do IFR training and add additional equipment, everything weighs more and we're maxed out on the R22. Everything weighs more. If you just eliminate the back seats and are willing to limit the speed on the aircraft you suddenly open up a two-place helicopter that just has tons of margins and tons of things it can do. It can hold the biggest two people you can have. It can do IFR training, you can add air-conditioning, you can do all sorts of things. So we’ve been bouncing around with it quite a bit and on our to-do list it just came up.” Robinson said the company started working on the project 18 months ago and he is confident that he can keep the price lower than that of a Raven I (base price $379,000). “People said that we should just deduct the price of the rear two seats on the Raven I,” he joked.

“We are very focused a low-cost, reliable, economical helicopter that we think will make a good trainer and also for a variety of missions that only need two people,” he said. “There’s a lot of demand for that.”

A helicopter industry white paper originally released in June 2015 deals with making it easier to facilitate IFR flight in single-engine Part 27 rotorcraft. The paper was formally forwarded to the FAA for evaluation late last year. The industry has long maintained that the equipment required makes instrument flight uneconomical and impractical under Part 27 rules and that this has an adverse safety and economic impact on all operators, but particularly helicopter emergency medical services (EMS), which must either fly in marginal weather or refuse the mission.

The industry associations, including HAI, American Helicopter Society, Aircraft Electronics Association and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, believe that “it is the FAA’s duty to the rotorcraft industry to provide a practical option for IFR conditions other than 'don’t fly'–especially when that practical option previously existed. Once Part 27 single-engine IFR becomes viable, it will be demanded by hospital organizations as a condition of EMS contracts–much in the way IFR capability is demanded today for twin-engine [Part 29] rotorcraft in EMS.” The associations also note that adopting Part 23 fixed-wing avionics to Part 27 helicopters, designed as an economy move, can actually be exceedingly costly.

The associations noted that among civil single-engine Part 27 helicopter fleets worldwide, between 2001 and 2013 there were 194 accidents related to inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) or controlled flight into terrain (CFIT); 133 were fatal, killing 326, and 57 of those accidents were in the U.S. None of the accident helicopters was IFR equipped.

Conversely, during the same period for multi-engine Part 27 and Part 29 rotorcraft worldwide, there were 54 accidents related to IFR, IIMC or CFIT due to low-level flight into bad weather, and 46 were fatal. However, 40 involved rotorcraft attempting to fly under VFR; only seven were conducted under IFR. Twelve of these 54 accidents occurred in the U.S. The study reported, “In most cases the multi-engine rotorcraft were IFR equipped, but often either the pilot had no instrument rating, was not current or had minimal instrument experience and was not confident in IFR procedures. In addition, most of the rotorcraft involved were models with older 'steam gauge' style IFR instrumentation. These require a much greater degree of skill to interpret than modern displays, and therefore require a greater degree of practice in order to remain proficient.”

The associations maintain the problem is far worse than what the accident data suggests. “What is not captured in the accident data are the near misses of obstacles and terrain that occurred trying to avoid weather or the near losses of control that occurred attempting to exit IIMC. The erratic year-to-year data is indicative of a broader issue where a high-risk practice of ‘scud running’ is prevalent and what is captured in the data are the aircraft that failed in the gamble.” While the study noted recent FAA rule changes and higher VFR minimums primarily aimed at the helicopter EMS industry and Part 135 operators, it added, “A culture of IFR operation cannot be cultivated where the largest population of rotorcraft, and almost all training rotorcraft, are not IFR certificated” as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft.

The study goes on to note that the “number of single-engine rotorcraft IFR certifications has dropped from several in the 1980s and 1990s to virtually none since 1999. This is in spite of technology such as [GPS] area navigation and [WAAS] GPS approach procedures which make IFR flight more relevant to helicopter operations than in the 1980s and 1990s.”

The study pointed out that data from the FAA Capstone program in Alaska from 1999 to 2006 demonstrated a 38-percent fatal accident rate reduction when modern technology was adopted over traditional steam gauge displays when flying IFR. Therefore, the study surmised, “Certifying single-engine helicopters for IFR with systems that are ergonomic and confidence-inspiring will lead to increased use of the IFR system and improved situational awareness during VFR operations. It is reasonable to speculate that as pilots choose to conduct operations IFR instead of VFR, fatal IIMC, CFIT and certain accidents attributable to loss of control will be eliminated. Successful and safe completion of missions under IFR will have a snowball effect throughout the industry.”

However, for this to occur, the associations argue that regulatory relief must be forthcoming in the form of decoupling the certification requirements for Part 23 fixed-wing avionics systems and those for Part 27 rotorcraft. “The relatively small rotorcraft market has traditionally relied on Part 23 airplane-derivative systems and equipment to achieve financial practicality. But, as certification requirements for Part 23 airplane systems and equipment are reduced (especially in terms of Design Assurance Levels and equipment qualification), adapting low-cost, Part 23 technology to the Part 27 helicopter market becomes impossible in some cases, and in others, impractically costly.”

Simulator manufacturer Frasca International (Booth 9256) has delivered more than 2,600 simulators since its founding in 1958, and its products are seeing growing use in the helicopter industry. Frasca recently booked an order for a Robinson R44 flight training device (FTD) from a customer in China, and recent contracts include a number of helicopter simulators, one of which is an AS350B that will be delivered to HNZ Group. Here at Heli-Expo, Frasca is sharing its booth with HNZ, and on display is the AS350BFTD and an S-92 cockpit procedures trainer (CPT).

Frasca is a vertically integrated simulator manufacturer, with in-house capabilities for “aerodynamics simulation, flight test, data acquisition, visual systems, night-vision goggles simulation, control loading, motion systems, fabrication, electronics design and more,” according to the company.

Recent wins for Frasca include China CAAC Level 5 approval for a TruFlite R44/Schweizer S300 convertible FTD, and this is the first Level 5 helicopter simulator delivered and approved in China, Frasca said. The FTD includes a helicopter-specific mission training visual database. The FTD is located at Xilin Fengteng GA’s Guanghang facility in Sichuan Province. The company operates 12 helicopters and provides flight training and business and aeromedical flight services.

The AS350BFTD is for HNZ Group of Montreal, Canada, and will be certified to Level 7 and convertible between the analog AS350B2 instrument panel and the AS350B2 and -B3e configuration with the VEMD instrumentation. “This will be the first Level 7 FTC certified in Canada,” according to Frasca, and it will be installed in the Edmonton airport terminal and available for pilot initial and recurrent training, for HNZ pilots and those flying for other Canadian operators.

The AS350BFTD is equipped with TruVision visual display, a database that includes the Edmonton area and other specialized training scenarios at locations in Canada, a vibration platform, Graphical Instructor Station and cargo mirror simulation.

Other recent simulator deliveries include a Bell 206L Level 7 FTD to Air Evac Lifeteam in O’Fallon, Missouri; a Bell 407 GX full flight simulator to the Bell Helicopter Training Academy in Fort Worth, Texas; and a Bell 407 Flight and Navigation Procedures Trainer II to Horizon International Flight Academy in the United Arab Emirates.

Oil-and-gas-producer (OGP) operator Bristow Group released its financial results for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2015, on February 9. Not surprisingly, Bristow reported an OGP revenue decline of $81.2 million, or 21.2 percent from the same quarter a year ago, and net income of $3.2 million from operating revenue of $395 million, a $35 million decline from the same period a year ago. Bristow lost $47.9 million during the last nine months of 2015. Significantly, Bristow reported that it had deferred $109 million of capital expenditures, in the form of new aircraft deliveries, through January 2016, borrowed $200 million and slashed its stock dividend to improve its liquidity.

Bristow also indicated that it is working with lessors to roll off select aircraft more quickly, a move that could save $80 million by 2020, and would continue to “rationalize” its helicopter fleet, mainly through the graduated disposal of its 48 Bell 412 and 212 medium helicopters. Bristow announced that it was temporarily standing down its fleet of 16 Sikorsky S-76s based in Nigeria following an emergency water landing of an S-76C++ there on February 3 in which all passengers and crew survived. This follows the fatal crash of another Bristow S-76 there in August that killed six.

Currently, Bristow’s owned and operated fleet of 360 aircraft is valued at $3.8 billion, with approximately $1.7 billion of that represented by 115 leased aircraft including 73 commercial rotorcraft, 25 training aircraft, and 17 fixed-wing aircraft. The entire fleet is distributed across Europe (48 percent), the Americas (18 percent), Asia-Pacific (17 percent) and Africa (16 percent). Affiliates and joint ventures operate another 124 aircraft. Bristow has orders for 29 helicopters from 2016 to 2020 and options for 16 more in 2017 and 2018. Most of these are large helicopters, with orders for 19 and options for nine.

Despite the financial carnage in the oil patch, Bristow CEO Jonathan Baliff said, “We really like” that part of Bristow’s business, which accounts for 79 percent of revenues. “Even with this downturn, and it might sound like heresy today, we like, we really like, our oil-and-gas rotary wing transportation business: it’s global, it’s focused on safety, it’s got secular growth and it is technologically dynamic.” However, he added that it is “best grown with other business lines like search-and-rescue, fixed-wing for our clients, and others that are commercially complementary to the transportation business.”

One new business Bristow is branching out to is unmanned aerial vehicles, announcing a $4.2 million investment in Sky-Futures, a provider of drone inspection data services for the oil-and-gas industry. The investment gives Bristow access to Sky-Futures UAV or drone inspection operational expertise, data capturing and analysis, and training capabilities. “Through our partnership, we will collaborate with Sky-Futures and its leading safety culture, operational integration, and analysis technology to capitalize beyond the growing need for global UAV inspection services in oil-and-gas to other industries, including search-and-rescue,” Baliff said.

Bristow’s aggressive cost cutting, begun last year, will continue, and Baliff expected further productivity increases from both the company’s unionized and non-unionized workforces. “Our global business development team continues to find innovative ways to modify our service offerings to maximize efficiency and cost savings for our clients. This helps to mitigate our top line declines while we continue to pursue company-wide cost reduction measures. Despite market challenges, operationally this was a successful quarter largely because of our progress in previously announced reductions, which are largely complete. We are largely on track to receive these cost savings for the remainder of the fiscal year,” he said, pointing out that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and rent margins increased 7.5 percent for the quarter in the face of declining operating revenues.

Baliff pointed to Bristow’s new Global Service Center (GSC), which launched in January, as an example of an effective cost-cutting measure. The GSC works to minimize AOG events and downtime. Baliff said the GSC“already proved itself” in the first few weeks of operation.

In the wake of the Nigerian crashes, Baliff said Bristow planned to refresh its “Target Zero” global safety programs. “We pride ourselves on safety, and these recent accidents have been humbling, but only strengthened our resolve.”

Baliff said the short-term view for the company remained challenging while the long-term one was positive. Through 2017, he said, “excess helicopter supply will continue as will the pressure on our clients to decrease costs and increase efficiencies.”

Last December, Turbomeca celebrated a milestone with one of its best customers, the U.S. Coast Guard. At the USCG Aviation Logistics Center in Elizabeth City, N.C., the company marked 1 million hours of operation for its Arriel 2C2-CG engine installed on the Coast Guard’s fleet of MH-65 Dolphin helicopters. In 2004, the USCG began re-engining its MH-65s with the Turbomeca turboshaft, ultimately taking delivery of 225 engines. The last one entered service in 2007.

The re-engining was part of the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program, in which the Dolphins are tasked with several diverse maritime missions. They include search-and-rescue; law enforcement; environmental response; and maritime surveillance. In all, Turbomeca has delivered more than 1,100 of the 700- to 1,000-shp Arriel engines to the U.S. military and other agencies. Assembled by subsidiary Turbomeca USA in Grand Prairie, Texas, the engines are supported by Turbomeca’s Service By the Hour (SBH) program, which provides predictable costs per hour of operation. Overall, the company has produced more than 12,000 Arriels, which have flown a collective 45 million hours, powering more than 40 different rotorcraft types, according to Turbomeca.

Last month, Bell Helicopter donated more than 30,000 parts and other items from its Mirabel, Quebec, Canada production facility to Canada’s national aerotechnical school the École nationale d’aérotechnique. The institution trains future aircraft technicians, and the donation will provide hands-on experience with actual aircraft parts and tooling. Bell Helicopter president Raymond Leduc said, “We are honored to provide these parts, which will greatly help prepare passionate students for a future career in the aerospace industry.”