Rotor Torque

Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace has confirmed it will bid in its own right as a prime contractor for the ADF’s Air 9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS) program with an offering based on the EC135 helicopter, while Boeing Defence Australia and Thales too will also offer the EC135 as the centrepiece of their own, separate, HATS bid.

“Australian Aerospace’s proposal will build on the company’s training systems design capability, its extensive Australian civil and military aircraft support infrastructure and the superiority of the EC135, the industry’s reference twin-engine training and light utility helicopter,” said Dr Jens Goennemann, CEO of Australian Aerospace. “Australian Aerospace has a proud history of developing and implementing Army and Navy aircrew and technical training solutions for the ARH Tiger and MRH 90 and has worked closely with Army to support the development of its pilot training framework. Our experience on these programs, coupled with the extensive training capabilities of the Eurocopter Group, allows us to provide the ADF with an optimised and effective training system.”

Interestingly, although Goennemann didn’t nominate any teaming partners at the announcement, he has left to door open to team with synthetic training device suppliers at a later stage.

Meanwhile, Boeing said the EC135 was a “proven, low-risk solution” that was already used in training systems in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Japan, as well as in Australia with the Victorian and New South Wales police forces.

“Thorough flight and ground assessments of the EC135 and its suitability for both ab initio training and as a lead-in trainer to more complex and larger helicopters made it clear the EC135 was the optimum platform to meet the ADF’s requirements,” said Boeing Defence Australia managing director Kim Gillis. “The aircraft’s support base, both locally and internationally, presents a significantly lower cost of operation than other aircraft in its class, reducing project-establishment and through-life-support risk.”

A teaming of KBR, Qantas Defence Services and Elbit is also understood to be offering the EC135. Other teamings bidding for the project include BAE, CAE and AgustaWestland with the AW109 GrandNew, Raytheon and Bell Helicopter with the Bell 429, and Lockheed Martin and Bristow Helicopters, which has not publicly revealed details of its bid.

Air 9000 Phase 7, with an expected value approaching $1 billion, is intended to procure a training system for all Army and RAN helicopter pilot. A request for tender for the project was released in January.

Bell Delivers 4000th Canadian Built Helo

Bell Helicopter has announced the delivery of the 4000th commercial helicopter built at its Mirabel, Ontario, facility in Canada.
The aircraft – a 206L4 – was delivered to Air Medical Group Holdings (AMGH) which operates 155 Bell products, and the milestone was realised 25 years after production commenced at Mirabel.

“This is a significant milestone for Bell Helicopter,” said John Garrison, president & CEO for Bell Helicopter. “Today we celebrate the historic delivery of a highly successful product – the Bell 206 – as well as our outstanding partnership with AMGH.”

More than 6300 Bell 206s have been built since production commenced in 1967.

He Says, She Says

Rival firms Eurocopter and Bell Helicopter have both claimed victory over a Federal Court of Canada ruling on a patent dispute over helicopter landing gear.

The case centred on the sleigh type landing gear for the Bell 429, which Eurocopter claimed was a “slavish copy” of the landing gear for its EC120 and EC130 helicopters. In court filings, Eurocopter alleged that Bell leased an EC120, copied the landing gear, then hastily changed the design after Eurocopter filed suit.

The court agreed, in part, finding that Bell “misled and continues to mislead the public into believing that the Bell Model 429 is the first helicopter to use a sleigh type landing gear.” The court ordered Bell to pay punitive damages and destroy any landing gears that infringe on Eurocopter’s patent.

However, the court dismissed 15 other claims brought by Eurocopter, including allegations that the redesigned production landing gear for the Bell 429 also infringes Eurocopter’s patent, a decision hailed by US based Bell. “Integrity is at the core of who we are as a company and what we believe,” Bell CEO John Garrison said in a statement. “Bell Helicopter would never knowingly violate the intellectual property of others.”

Eurocopter has filed separate cases in the US and France alleging that Bell’s redesigned landing gear violates its patents. The company said it was “evaluating its options” with regard to the Canadian court ruling.

Additional Ch-47ds Delivered, Ch-47fs Ordered

The two additional CH-47Ds for the Australian Army – an order for which was announced in December – were delivered to 5 Aviation Regiment in Townsville on February 1.

The two ex-US Army helicopters were acquired after the loss of Chinook A15-102 in Afghanistan in May 2011, which resulted in the death of Army UAV pilot LT Marcus Case. The machines will enter a period of deep maintenance and modification before entering service with the Army by the middle of 2012.

The two additional helicopters brings the total CH-47D fleet to seven.

Meanwhile, Boeing has announced a US$370 million contract to produce 14 CH-47F Chinook helicopters for the US Army, including seven destined for the ADF under a previously announced Foreign Military Sales agreement. Australia expects to begin replacing its fleet of seven CH-47D Chinooks with the newer model in 2014, with all seven CH-47Fs in service by 2017.

Of the 14 machines in the contract announcement, the six will be sold to the United Arab Emirates, while one will be kept by the US.

The contract brings Boeing’s Chinook backlog to more than 200 aircraft, but the company said it was well positioned to meet the demand.

Boeing is at the midpoint of a multiyear US$4.3 billion contract from the US military for 191 CH-47Fs and MH-47Gs, and last year submitted a follow-on proposal for an additional 147 aircraft.

Eurocopter Posts Healthy 2011

Driven by growth in its support and services business, Eurocopter posted a 12.5 per cent rise in revenues in 2011 to 5.4 billion euros (A$6.7bn).

The growth came despite a slight decrease in deliveries from 527 helicopters in 2010, to 503 machines last year. Net orders, however, bounced back from 346 to 457, reflecting modest market recovery.

The world’s largest civil helicopter manufacturer, Eurocopter said it expects to receive around 500 orders this year. ‘If you look at the order intake, clearly the market is coming back,” Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling told a Paris press conference, according to Reuters.

“Cancellations are back to a very low level.”

Eurocopter said civil helicopters accounted for 68 per cent of sales, while Military aircraft such as the Tiger attack helicopter and NH90 making up 32 per cent. Exports accounted for 77 per cent of sales, and the company said it expects continued weak demand from Europe even as demand elsewhere is predicted to rebound.

Support and services grew to 38 per cent of company revenue while deliveries made up 51 per cent.

Rnzaf Iroquois Crash Could Have Been Avoided – Report

The New Zealand Defence Force has admitted that the loss of a Royal New Zealand Air Force UH-1H Iroquois along with the lives of three crewmen on Anzac Day 2010 could have been avoided.

A report into the crash found that ‘Black 2’ was flying in formation with two other machines on night vision goggles from Ohakea to Wellington when they encountered bad weather at Paekakariki. The report says the crash occurred as a result of a chain of events rather than from a single cause, including the failure to comply with, and deficiencies in NZDF orders, and instructions and flying supervision procedures that resulted in the crew not being fully qualified, competent or current.

It added that the RNZAF had not effectively identified or mitigated the risk associated with night vision goggle operations; that an operating culture in No 3 Squadron – of which the three crews were members – led them to believe they were allowed to carry out tasks even if they were not suitably qualified, if they were “comfortable to do so”; that the RNZAF was not adequately preparing the crews for the situation they encountered; that the crew of Black 2 lost situational awareness after entering an “inadvertent instrument meteorological” situation; and that their equipment was not optimised to give effective awareness of how close they were to terrain.

It also found that the pilot – Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen – had a “relatively high” number of flight safety events from past flights, but attributed this to him being proactive in reporting events “rather than a particular flight safety trend.”

“Since the accident, there has been a major review of the command and control of NZDF flying operations resulting in significant organisational change,” Chief of Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Peter Stockwell said in response to the report. “Specifically, the Air Force has reorganised command and control at Ohakea by establishing a new high-level headquarters… to improve oversight and ensure safer flying practice. This includes a strong focus on standards and evaluation, and appropriate staff support to improve the supervision of flying activities.”

Ec175 Performance Enhanced

Eurocopter has released enhanced performance specifications for its EC175 medium utility helicopter, due to begin deliveries later this year.

Under the revised specs, Eurocopter upped the baseline payload/radius of action capacity to 16 passengers at 135nm, a 30 per cent increase over the initial performance baseline. For longer range missions, the EC175 will be able to carry 12 passengers to a radius of 190nm. The company said it has also launched an 18 passenger configuration rated to a radius of 100 nautical miles.

The seven tonne class EC175 was launched in early December 2005 to fill the gap between Eurocopter’s AS365 Dauphin and AS332/EC225 Super Puma, and is aimed at the oil and gas industry for offshore platform transfer work. Development work is split equally between Eurocopter and China’s Aeronautics Industries Group Corporation (AVIC), with Eurocopter to manufacture it as the EC175 at Marignane, and AVIC to build it as the Z15. The European version is powered by twin Pratt & Whitney PT6C-67E engines with dual-channel FADEC.

Eurocopter hopes to sell 800 EC175s over 20 years, with deliveries due to begin in late 2012.

Sikorsky Announces S-97 Team

Sikorsky has announced its suppliers for the development of the S-97 Raider helicopter which will be evaluated by the US military.
Based on the successful X2 composite testbed which broke several helicopter speed records in 2010, the S-97 will feature coaxial main rotors and a pusher propeller, and is designed to outperform conventional helicopters while retaining their utility and flexibility.

While the supplier list includes notable companies like PPG, BAE Systems, Garmin, Goodrich, Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Electric.

Sikorsky plans to offer the S-97 for the US Army’s Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) competition to replace the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior later this decade.

Briefs

* Local Eurocopter subsidiary Australian Aerospace has become the first civil helicopter maintenance training organisation to receive approval under CASA’s revamped safety regulations. The new Part 147 regulations are meant to more closely align Australia’s airworthiness standards with those of EASA. The regulations came into force in June 2011.

* The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has purchased four helicopter-mountable, laser mine detection systems to help protect its coastline and the daily maritime traffic coming in and out of the country’s ports. The systems will be carried by JMSDF EH101 helicopters. It is the first direct commercial sale of Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) to an international navy.

* The US Army has awarded EADS North America a US$212.7 million contract to deliver 39 UH-72A Lakota Light Utility Helicopters (LUH). Based on the EC145, EADS North America has already delivered 198 UH-72As to the US Army, as well as five H-72A versions to the US Navy for test pilot training.

* The US Marine Corps commenced operations in Afghanistan on December 17 with the K-MAX unmanned helicopter. The K-MAX is designed to deliver cargo to units in the field, and on the first mission, delivered about 1700kg of food and supplies to troops at a forward operating base.

* The US Army’s fleet of OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance helicopters recently surpassed the two million flight hour mark, 750,000 of which has been in combat.

* Robinson Helicopters more than doubled its production numbers in 2011, building 356 helicopters compared to 162 machines in 2010. A breakdown of these numbers saw 214 R44s, 56 R22s and 88 of the new turbine powered R66s delivered, still well down on the heady days on 2009 when it delivered 893 machines. Robinson currently has a backlog of more than 400 orders.

* Bell Helicopter has received approval from Transport Canada to increase the weight limit of its twin engine Bell 429 helicopter by 227kg to to 3405kg. The company said it will petition the FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency for concurrence. The weight limit increase will be available to existing users of the aircraft through the installation of a “minimal kit”, and will allow the machine to operate with greater range and loiter times.