Rotor Torque

Costing around US$3. 3m (A$3. 8m), the eight-seat SH09 will have a maximum takeoff weight of 2,650kg, will cruise at 140kt over a 430nm (800km) range with standard fuel tanks fitted.

Prior to first flight Marenco said it had already received 50 orders for the SH09. A further two prototypes will soon enter the flight test program with the third prototype likely to have a configuration similar to a serial SH09. EASA and FAA certification is anticipated during the first half of 2015 with full production expected before the end of next year.

Bankstown Airport-based Heliflite is the exclusiveOceania distributor for Marenco Swisshelicopter and will introduce and support the SH09 in the region.

Bell 505 JRX first flight pending, 525 Relentless lags

Turbomeca’s first Arrius 2R turboshaft engine has been delivered to Bell Helicopter for installation into its 505 Jet Ranger X prototype currently being assembled at Bell’s Mirabel, Canada plant.

Developed exclusively for Bell’s new short light single, the 504shp (376kW), FADEC-equipped Arrius 2R was first ground-run on April 29 at the company’s test facility in Bordes, France. Production engines will be assembled at Turbomeca’s Dallas, Texas facility. Construction of a purpose-built Jet Ranger X production facility at Lafayette Regional Airport, Louisiana continues to take shape with the 7,646m2, US$26. 3 million (A$29. 1 million) hangar expected to meet a June 1 2015 deadline for certificate of occupancy. Fullscale 505 production is expected to start in early 2016.

Bell says it has already received over 220 letters of intent, with paid deposits, for the Jet Ranger X with the prototype on track for making first flight during November. However, the JRX’s bigger brother, the 525 Relentless, its first flight timeline is now likely to slip into early next year.

While visiting the African Aerospace and Defence airshow in late September, Bell CEO John Garrison told FlightGlobal while there is no a specific issue, a delay for the 525’s first flight is now more likely. “We’re lagging a little bit. It is just getting all the 6,000 parts all in the same place. ” Assuming a first flight in early 2015, Bell will still have a full year to complete its certification to meet the scheduled delivery to launch customer PHI in early 2016.

Bell has kept the progress of its 525 development closely under wraps with no images yet released of the helicopter or its major components in assembly.

The 525, Bell’s first commercial helicopter with fly-by-wire flight controls, will also be the first helicopter to integrate the Garmin G5000H cockpit, which Bell has adapted and rebranded the ARC Horizon system.

S-97 Raider prototype breaks cover

The first production prototype of Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider armed reconnaissance helicopter was officially revealed during a ceremony at its Stratford, Connecticut headquarters on October 2, ahead of its imminent first flight.

The Raider, featuring the coaxial counter-rotating main rotors and pusher propeller design pioneered on Sikorsky’s X2 demonstrator, will cruise at speeds up to 220kt while carrying six troops and external weapons.

The first flight of ‘Raider 1’, N971SK, will be in late 2014.

The airframe of ‘Raider 2’ is completed with final assembly to begin in January 2015. Both will carry out a four-phased flight test program with phases one and two focusing on speed with phases three and four on manoeuverability.

Four years in the planning, the privately-funded US$200 million (A$231 million) S-97 program will be offered as a replacement for the US Army’s OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter fleet.

Demonstration of the helicopter’s capabilities to the US Army is expected in the first half of 2015.

Marking 75 years of the helicopter

Sikorsky and the international helicopter community recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of chief designer and chief test pilot Igor Sikorsky’s first flight in an experimental helicopter on September 14 1939 at Stratford, Connecticut.

Pulling up on the collective control on his left side, Sikorsky ‘hopped’ rather than hovered the steel tube-framed Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 to the height of its short tether for just a few seconds.

Powered by a 75hp (56kW) engine, driving a three-blade main rotor and single-blade anti-torque wooden tail rotor, the ‘first flight’ of the tricycle undercarriage VS-300 began a four-year test program for Sikorsky to validate a main and tail rotor design concept, which ultimately led to the creation of today’s multi-billion dollar civil and military helicopter industries.

“Tens of thousands of helicopters today fly the world’s skies and the configuration almost all of them use is a single main rotor coupled to an anti-torque tail rotor … a configuration designed and perfected by Igor Sikorsky 75 years ago,” said Sikorsky president Mick Maurer. “We remain immensely proud of our founder, and we recall with deep respect the fulfillment of his lifelong dream to build an efficient vertical lift machine for the benefit of humankind. ” Although Sikorsky was not the first to conceive the concept of a vertical-lift rotorcraft, it was his design of integrating mature technologies available at the time in a way that enabled efficient vertical lift flight.

In 1942 the US Army placed America’s first helicopter production contract with Sikorsky for 131 of its R-4s. Two years later a YR-4A flew the first ever helicopter rescue mission under combat conditions in Burma in April 1944.

DSTO Eureka prize for helicopter buoyancy device

Engineer and ex Navy diver Tim Lyons was awarded the Australian Museum’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia, for his invention of a lightweight, bolt-on/bolt-off helicopter buoyancy device during a ceremony in Sydney on September 10.

The Western Australian inventor and managing director of One Atmosphere developed the Pegasus Aircraft Buoyancy System initially for application on Army’s Tiger ARH helicopters. With helicopter crews more at risk from drowning in a fastsinking aircraft than from injuries caused by the crash itself, Pegasus was designed to rapidly retrieve a 10 tonne helicopter from a depth of 10 metres and keeping it upright and afloat for four hours.

Pegasus puts Archimedes’s principle on displacement and buoyancy into action, activating autonomously to arrest a sinking aircraft and transforming it from negative to positively buoyant within seconds.

“It will quite rapidly inflate to full volume in under a second,” said Lyons. “The (air) bags will provide positive buoyancy to the sinking aircraft, arresting its descent and return it to the surface, keeping it there to allow the occupants to safely egress the aircraft. ” Compared to current helicopter emergency flotation systems, which are heavy, permanentlymounted and require manual pilot activation after impact, the removable system uses a new gas generation technology to reduce weight while providing sufficient and specifically placed buoyancy to keep helicopters afloat.

Assistant Minister for Defence, Stuart Robert said as Australia’s LHDs are commissioned in the coming years the operation of helicopters in maritime environments will further increase. “A capability that enables a helicopter to stay afloat after ditching at sea, such as the Pegasus system, is vital for the survival of the crew and its utility will only grow in the future. ” Pegasus will now be further developed over the coming 12 to 18 months to secure airworthiness certification under a new Defence Innovation Realisation Fund announced by Defence Minister David Johnston at the Defence and Industry conference in late July.

Becker recognised at Telstra Business Women’s Awards

Congratulations to Becker Helicopter’s Captain Jan Becker who won the Business Owner award at the 20th Telstra Queensland Business Women’s Awards on September 30.

As CEO of Becker Helicopters for the last 18 years and having recently helped to train midwives in Tanzania, Telstra Awards judges said Becker was an exemplar of a business owner and a model of lifelong learning. “She demonstrates a unique balance of leadership through innovation coupled with the desire to give back to the international community,” the judges said.

“I am saying to all you women, we need more women in helicopters, we need more women in the boardrooms,” said Becker. “I lead by example, in the helicopter, the boardroom and with the team. I refuel my own helicopter, clean toilets, wash dishes, take out garbage. I’m not precious, no matter the task. ” Becker will now join other state finalists at the national finals to be held in Melbourne on November 26.

AgustaWestland in court over further US Army Lakota buy

In a complaint filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims on September 19, AgustaWestland requested a temporary restraining order on the US Army’s US$800m (A$922m) procurement of a further 155 UH-72A Lakotas without undertaking a full and open tender competition.

Arguing that its own helicopters would be cheaper to buy and operate in the training role, AgustaWestland alleges the Army failed to provide a sufficient justification on its decision to acquire more of the Lakotas on a sole-source basis.

As a cost cutting, fleet rationalisation measure the US Army wants to retire its fleets of Bell TH-67 Creek and OH-58 Kiowa training helicopters and replace them with UH-72As, the military version of the EC145, transferred from other units and bolstered by a new purchase from Airbus Helicopters. The Army, National Guard and Navy have already taken delivery of 315 Lakotas since a contract was ‘competitively’ awarded to Airbus Helicopters (then Eurocopter) in 2006.

“Some of the basic flight characteristics of the UH-72A/EC145 raise doubt about the aircraft’s suitability as a primary flight trainer,” said AgustaWestland North America CEO Robert LaBelle in a declaration included with its complaint. “Among other things, the UH-72A/EC145 helicopter has a restricted flight manoeuvre envelope and other features that are likely to impede its training utility. ” In the complaint, AgustaWestland proposed its AW119Kx and AW109 types as possible alternatives, while comparing the EC145’s higher acquisition and operating costs. According to AgustaWestland, the US government could save more than US$330m (A$380m) on the purchase of 255 new AW119Kxs alone and save US$128m (A$148m) per annum on its operating costs.

At the time of publication, the federal judge assigned to the case had yet to rule on the request for a restraining order.