HAI Convention News 03-01-16

HAI

MARCH 1, 2016

Convention News

®

AINONLINE.COM

HAI chief upbeat; ‘We’re survivors’

by Curt Epstein On the eve of the start of Heli-Expo 2016 in Louisville, Helicopter Association International president Matt Zuccaro remains bullish about the status of the industry, despite the definite headwinds faced by some sectors.

“One thing I think we all realize and acknowledge is the offshore industry right now is not performing the way we would like it to,” Zuccaro

told AIN on Sunday at the Kentucky Exposition Center, noting the recent slump in rotorcraft usage and postponed orders due to depressed energy prices. “I’ve been doing this long enough that, in effect, this has happened previously and the good news to this story is we’ve always recovered and come back stronger.”

While that specific segment has encountered a sustained slowdown, Zuccaro noted increases in sectors such as air medical and air tours among others, which have helped buoy the industry somewhat on the aggregate and allowed operators to seek new opportunities. “They’ve moved into other areas of business in order to keep those aircraft active and to keep their personnel employed, flying and maintaining,” he said. “They’re doing what we do best; we’re survivors and we take advantage of the versatility of the aircraft to do other missions while waiting for their main segments to recover.”

With regards to the current debate on FAA reauthorization and user fees, Zuccaro has strong views on the

LOUISVILLE

HAI president Matt Zuccaro is bullish on the helicopter industry. To hear him in his own words, go to AINtv.com to watch a pre-show video interview.

Continued on page 4 u

Bell showcasing new products

MARIANO ROSALES

by Mark Huber

Flying examples of Bell Helicopter’s super-medium twin 525 Relentess (shown here) and light turbine single 505 Jet Ranger X are making their public and Heli-Expo debuts. A mockup of the Bell V-280 Valor is also being displayed at the show for the first time.

Bell Helicopter is showcasing its new 525 super-medium twin and 505 light single helicopters this year here at Heli-Expo (Booth 317), flying in flighttest vehicles for these two aircraft to display here at the show for the first time.

Bell holds 80 letters of intent (LOIs) for the 525 and 350 for the 505. Today Bell will announce a deal for an LOI for ten 525s from Guangxi Diwang Group of China. Guangxi plans to use them for tourism and search-and-rescue missions.

Two 525 flight-test vehicles have accumulated 140 hours (see page 24) while three 505 test ships have amassed more than 500. Bell also is displaying a full-scale mockup of its third-generation tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor. Other Bell aircraft on display at Heli-Expo this year include the 429, 407GXP, 412EPI and 407GX. Bell CEO Mitch Snyder characterized the current market as “tough” in the

Continued on page 4 u

Financing

OEMs

Defense

Regulations

Technology

Bristow To Lease AW139s

R66 Drives Robinson Deliveries

Malaysia Opts for MD 530G

NYC Slashes Helitour Ops

Sikorsky Advances Autonomous Helo

Waypoint Leasing is announcing a deal this morning with Bristow Group to purchase three AW139s from Bristow and lease them back to the helicopter operator. page 3

Last year, the Torrance, Calif.-based helicopter manufacturer delivered 347 aircraft, up 18 units. The turbine R66 accounted for all but one of these gains. page 12

The Malaysia Ministry of Defense is now the launch customer for the MD Helicopters 530G, placing an order for six of the attack scout helicopters. page 28

City will halve the number of helitour operations from downtown Manhattan Heliport by Jan. 1, 2017. HAI said the move was an ultimatum, with no room to negotiate. page 30

Company’s Innovations group continues progress on autonomous technologies as it works on a third optionally piloted helicopter: a retrofited 1979 UH-60A Black Hawk. page 45

MARIANO ROSALES

TUESDAY

Ready to experience

THE ADVANTAGE? HELI-EXPO 2016 Visit us at booth 317 at 11:30 a.m. to learn more.

HAI

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Bristow to lease back AW139s from Waypoint

by Charles Alcock Bristow Group (Booth 1827) is to lease three AgustaWestland AW139s from Waypoint Leasing in a deal to be announced at the Heli-Expo show this morning. Bristow is already using the medium twins fitted out in crew-change configuration for a long-term offshore support contract in Guyana.

In this instance, Bristow already owns the aircraft and will be selling them to Waypoint and then leasing them back.

The operator had leased them from a U.S. bank but needed to revise that arrangement, as the original lessor could not allow it to operate the aircraft outside the U.S. since it was under a U.S.-based tax-driven lease.

Bristow now operates a total of five helicopters under lease from Waypoint.

According to Waypoint CEO Ed Washecka, his company, which offers other types of leases too, is well placed to offer the flexibility that operators like Bristow require. He told AIN that lately lease terms have been increasing in duration and now average around five years. “Rents and rates are also going up, meaning higher lease costs, but better terms are still available for the best customers,” he commented.

Waypoint (Booth 10751) has a lease portfolio of more than 120 helicopters, collectively worth in excess of $1.5

ENTRANCE SOUTH WING B CONFERENCE CENTER

is located in rooms B107/B108 in Hall B in the South Wing B Conference Center Editor: Matt Thurber 310-753-6288 • mthurber@ainonline.com

Waypoint Leasing CEO Ed Washecka said that some helicopter lease rates are increasing.

billion. The fleet operates in 27 countries for 16 customers, including Bristow, which now will have five of its aircraft. Over the next five years, the leasing group is due to take delivery of more than 125 more aircraft (covered by a mix of firm orders and options) that are valued at around $1.7 billion.

According to Washecka, Waypoint is planning to have relatively modest deliveries of new aircraft over the next 18 to 24 months. There has been some adjustment in response to weakening demand from the offshore energy sector, and more of its leasing activity is now focused on emergency medical and parapublic operations.

In fact, Waypoint is increasing the delivery rate of the 10 Airbus H135s it has on order from three to four during 2016 in response to stronger demand from these others sectors. “We have the flexibility to anticipate slowdowns or changing

situations for our customers and can move aircraft deliveries forward or back,” said Washecka. “We can be very creative and we understand what the operators are dealing with [in terms of fluctuating market conditions]. This is my fourth cycle in the oil-and-gas industry. We’ve been there before and understand what it’s like for operators when their customers say they don’t want their aircraft or expect a cut in rates.”

According to Washecka, difficult trading conditions in the offshore sector will not necessarily result in declining values for helicopter assets. “It depends on what assets you have, and there will be stronger demand for newer aircraft,” he told AIN. “There could be declining values for older equipment that has to find a new home. For instance, the value of AS332s [Super Pumas] could now decline and maybe these should have gone earlier but were kept in service when demand was tight.”

During the first quarter of 2016, Waypoint plans to open new regional offices in Australia and South Africa.

In addition its Ireland headquarters, it already has offices in London, the U.S, Singapore and Brazil.

The company serves various industries, including the oil-and-gas sector, emergency medical services, search-andrescue, firefighting and governmental support. It is backed by a group of some 25 investors and collectively has access to around $550 million in revolving credit. o

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PHOTOS: MARIANO ROSALES

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LET’S NOT MEET BY ACCIDENT Jeff Guzzetti, the manager of the FAA’s accident investigation division, shares data about the helicopter accident rate and fatality causes yesterday during a safety directors forum here at Heli-Expo 2016. While the helicopter accident rate has declined slightly over the past 10 years, the fatal accident rate has remained steady, he told attendees. Most fatalities were attributed to blunt force trauma, Guzzetti noted.

www.ainonline.com • March 1, 2016 • HAI Convention News 3

AUX FUEL TANK NOW AVAILABLE FOR R66 An auxiliary fuel tank is now available for the Robinson (Booth 3501) R66 turbine. The 43-gallon tank extends the helicopter’s range by up to 200 nm and mounts on a fiberglass tray that installs in the forward section of the baggage compartment. The tank occupies two-thirds of the compartment, leaving space for up to 100 pounds of cargo. Both the tank and the tray are easily removable.

The 37-pound system includes a

crash-resistant fuel bladder that fits inside an aluminum and fiberglass enclosure with an internal fuel pump that pumps fuel to the helicopter’s main tank at a rate of approximately 40 gph. The controls are located in the upper avionics console and feature an on/off switch, a no-flow annunciator light and a fuel quantity button. The system costs $32,000 and will be an available option for R66s ordered after Jan. 15, 2016 –M.H.

R.Randall Padfield

MARIANO ROSALES

PADFIELD SELECTED FOR LIGHTSPEED COMMUNICATIONS AWARD

The Bell 505 Jet Ranger X is on track to obtain FAA certification later this year. Three flight-test 505s, one of which is on display here at Heli-Expo 2016, have logged more than 500 hours to date.

Bell’s new products uContinued from page 1

wake of depressed global energy prices and a strong U.S. dollar, noting that Bell made 175 commercial helicopter deliveries last year and that orders were down 50 percent over the last two years. Nevertheless he said Bell had a “great” 2015, launching the more powerful 407GXP large single and logging sales of 200 of them (over 10 years) to helicopter EMS provider Air Methods, and winning a 150-aircraft order with Fuji Industries for the UH-X for the Japan Defense Forces.

Snyder said that overall Bell made “great strides” on the commercial side of the business and “big wins” on the military side of the house “that will pay dividends in the future.” These included the UH-X contract as well as 17 V-22 tiltrotors to Japan, 33 H-1s to Pakistan and 44 V-22s for the U.S. Navy to fly carrier onboard delivery missions.

Snyder said he is committed to continuing Bell on a path of innovation that includes delivering the V-280 for half the price of the V-22, building on the fly-bywire technology in the 525 and adapting that helicopter for a variety of segments, not only oil-and-gas, but also VVIP and search-and-rescue. Snyder called it a “perfect” platform for the latter.

The 525 has achieved a speed of 200 knots during gradual descent in flight test, Snyder said, and the 505 has shown “incredible performance” for an entrylevel aircraft. The 505 remains on track for certification and deliveries this year.

Snyder said that the team at Bell has

taken on the challenge of safety in the 525 when it comes to single-engine performance, in-flight diagnostics and HUMS and displays, and he added that the company will continue to work across its product line to improve safety and mitigate noise. While he expects R&D spending to remain flat, he noted that Bell currently had three clean-sheet design programs underway and that future spending will be divided between product refreshes and clean-sheet designs with an emphasis on innovation, both short and long-term.

“I’m excited about pushing the technology where we need to be,” he said. “We’re going to lean out our processes and make our products very affordable.” o

AT THE BOOTHS Chuck Aaron, the only pilot licensed by the FAA to perform aerobatics in a helicopter in the U.S., will be available to meet and greet Heli-Expo attendees during an autograph session that Aspen Avionics is hosting from 1-2 p.m. on Wednesday March 2. The session will be held at the Aspen Avionics booth (9235).

Aaron has entertained helicopter aerobatics fans in a modified MBB Bo 105, performing acrobatic moves that included loops, rolls, vertical climbs, Split S’s, Cuban Eights, Immelmans and his version of a Lomcavak (a “Cuckcevak”).

A retired Red Bull pilot, he was the first helicopter pilot honored with the Art Scholl Showmanship Award presented by the International Council of Air Shows in 2009. “HAI is like a family reunion for me,” he said, adding, “I’m looking forward to seeing all my old friends and making new ones.” v

4 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

R. Randall Padfield, who spent 22 years as an editor with AIN Publications, was selected by the Helicopter Association International as the 2016 winner of the Lightspeed Aviation Excellence in Communications Award, which is being presented here at Heli-Expo 2016.

Padfield retired from AIN at the end of 2014 as editor-in-chief and COO. While with AIN, he had overall responsibility for the editorial content of Aviation International News and Business Jet Traveler magazines. He has authored four books on aviation–including the well-regarded Learning to Fly Helicopters–and was the 1998 winner of NBAA’s Gold Wing aviation journalism award.

Before joining AIN, he wrote articles for several other aviation publications and worked full-time as a pilot. An airline transport pilot in helicopters and airplanes, Padfield has logged more than 9,000 hours of flight time. Padfield trained and flew missions as a U.S. Air Force HH-3E rescue pilot–credited with seven saves–and piloted Sikorsky S-61s, Bell 212s and Aerospatiale AS332Ls for Helikopter Service of Norway and served as a pilot with Trump Air of New Jersey.

–K.L.

HAI chief upbeat uContinued from page 1

prospect of the air traffic control system being placed in the hands of an airlinedominated corporation and how the funding for the whole industry might be affected.

“A classic example of this is there’s funds that we’re able to get from the federal government to do such wonderful projects such as NextGen and the ADS-B system in the Gulf of Mexico,” Zuccaro noted. “Does anyone really think that the scheduled airlines are going to allocate money for a project like that for helicopters?” Like many opposed to the proposed plan, he believes that if something is not broke, why fix it? “I find it quite odd that the air traffic control system is acknowledged by everybody no matter who you ask as the safest and most efficient in the world,” he said. “If that’s the case then why are we doing this?

“I’m very comfortable with the fact that I can [today] go to Congress and go to the FAA and have a conversation

with them about the concerns of the helicopter industry and I know that I am talking to an impartial person with no conflict of interest.”

New this year, HAI in partnership with ICAO has introduced a new IS-BAObased voluntary safety accreditation program for rotorcraft operators. “On top of that foundation, HAI itself developed individual mission-specific standards,” added Zuccaro, who said they will eventually address all the types of missions the association’s members perform. Since its launch at the beginning of the year, four of the association’s members have certified and will be formally recognized here at the show, while others are currently in the audit process. “It’s been accepted initially, which we’re thrilled with, and we hope it raises the standard of safety within the industry,” said Zuccaro, adding that the association does not view the standard as a new revenue source. Rather, it is administering it at cost. “That is our sole purpose as an aggregate program.” o

Heli-Expo Off to the Races in Louisville Heli-Expo has grown significantly over the past seven years, according to Matt Zuccaro, becoming too big for at least two popular locations, and it threatens to outgrow others in the coming years, thus leading HAI to search for new alternatives. The HAI president had nothing but praise for the Louisville venue and the city leaders’ eagerness to work with the association to conduct a successful show. “When we go to cities one of the elements that we look for is what’s the partnership relationship, how much is the city going to support us and our attendees and exhibitors,” Zuccaro said.

“The level that we’ve received in the venue here has been phenomenal, one of the best I’ve ever experienced.” Among the appreciated efforts from the Kentucky Exposition Center was the construction of a fully approved permanent heliport behind the center, which was used to land the 55 rotorcraft on display here in this year’s show.

–C.E.

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Please Visit Us at Heli-Expo Booth # 2617

Finmeccanica stressing lighter product offerings Finmeccanica Helicopters is stressing the lighter portion of its portfolio of AW models here at Heli-Expo in the wake of continuing softness in the offshore energy market. “We want to show the versatility of our product portfolio and have invested in new products at the right time that have come to market in a timely fashion. There is a general worry about the oil-and-gas downturn. We started deliveries of the AW169 [medium twin] in 2015 [and that model is] intended to address different market segments, mostly EMS, VIP and other light utilities,” said Stefano Bortoli, Finmeccanica Helicopters senior vice president for sales and strategic sourcing.

Bortoli said he expects the AW169 to receive FAA certification in mid-2016 and noted that the manufacturer already holds orders from 50 customers in 20 countries. Work is proceeding on developing a search-and-rescue variant with Swiss operator Rega,

and it will feature a full icing protection system (FIPS). Of the AW169s on order, most have been ordered by helicopter EMS operators; the second largest group of orders is for VIP configurations.

Deliveries of the AW169 began in 2015 after it received EASA approval. Plans call for the model to be manufactured in Italy and at Finmeccanica’s plant in Philadelphia, with deliveries beginning from the latter in 2017.

Finmeccanica will be displaying its new AW Trekker light twin this year. The Trekker is a skidded version of the company’s AW109S Grand. Deliveries of the Trekker are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of this year. More than 20 Trekkers were sold in 2015. The aircraft features the same cabin as the Grand and advanced single-pilot-IFR Genesys avionics, but costs less. Bortoli called the price difference “meaningful” and said it “will be appreciated by our customers.

MARIANO ROSALES

by Mark Huber

Finmeccanica Helicopters has rebranded the former PZL-Swidnik SW-4 light helicopter as the AW009 here at Heli-Expo 2016. With the rebranding, the helicopter also received new Genesys avioncs, improved hydraulics system and vibration dampening.

The Trekker is powered by a pair of Fadec-equipped Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207C 815-shp engines that deliver a maximum cruise speed of 154 knots. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 7,000 pounds and will have an endurance of four hours, 20 minutes or a 445-nm maximum range with a modular five-cell fuel system. It will be assembled at Finmeccanica’s plant in Philadelphia.

Bortoli said the company

Marenco Swisshelicopter (Booth 3006) announced several new letters of intent for its SKYe SH09 single-engine model here at Heli-Expo. These recent LOIs boost customer commitments to 84 helicopters.

The latest orders include an LOI for 10 units from Helisul Taxi Aereo of Brazil, one from Horizon Helicopters of Canada and a second LOI from Rotor World of Florida. Helisul operates a fleet of 40 helicopters with fixed bases in the cities of Curitiba, Foz do Iguaçu, Florianopolis and Rio de Janeiro, providing services including aeromedical transport, charter, sightseeing, external load, aerial photography, aerial inspecOn the opening day of Heli-Expo 2016, Marenco Swisshelicopter tion and fire-fighting. announced three new LOIs for its all-composite SKYe SH09. It now Horizon Helicopters specializes in environ- has commitments for 84 of the light turbine helicopters. mentally sensitive work, vertical reference and mountain operations and the unique flight conditions ground effect. This will be followed by trials confirmof the North. Rotor World plans to position the air- ing systems behavior and avionics accuracy, flying limcraft for operations in Costa Rica. The company spe- ited autorotations and initial performance and stability cializes in the sales of new and pre-owned helicopters trials. After that, testing will move on to handling, load and jets. survey and exploring the helicopter’s full height velocThe second flight-test SKYe SH09 prototype, ity curves, to confirm the safe combinations of altitude dubbed P2, made its maiden flight February 26 and airspeed during autorotating landings. from the company’s headquarters at Mollis Airport Meanwhile, the company is building P3, the first in Switzerland. conforming prototype, and expects to set up its proP2, which is now the main test vehicle, has been duction line for the SKYe later this year. EASA certififitted with a new rotor head and blades intended to cation of the all-composite helicopter, initially planned reduce vibration and complexity on the rotor head, for the second half of this year, has slipped to next while enhancing “tolerance to future upgrades.” The year, with FAA validation to follow in 2018. initial flight verified the lower vibration and noise levThe SKYe SH09 has a maximum takeoff weight of els, Marenco said.

5,842 pounds with seating for up to seven passenThe first phase of test flights for P2 is now under gers, a maximum speed of 140 knots, a maximum way, with the initial trials covering hover flights at low range of 430 nm, and an augmented sling load capaaltitudes before moving on to hover flights outside bility of 3,300 pounds.

–M.H.

6 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

MARIANO ROSALES

SWISSHELICOPTER RACKS UP ORDERS FOR SKYE SH09

planned to announce news regarding the company’s AW119Kx single at the show.

Last year Finmeccanica joined with the Bristow Group, Doss Aviation, and Rockwell Collins to develop a turnkey solution using the AW119Kx to address the rotary-wing pilot training needs of the U.S. military and other government customers. The AW119 is assembled in Philadelphia.

The AW119Kx features the Garmin G1000H flight deck system with synthetic vision, moving-map, highway-in-thesky and obstacle/terrain avoidance systems. U.S.-based Life Flight Network was the launch customer, initially acquiring 15 of the helicopters in EMS configuration.

Finmeccanica will also be displaying the AW009 light single, the rebranded SW-4 originally developed by Polish airframer PZL-Swidnik beginning in 1981. The design first flew in 1996 and has undergone several refinements since Finmeccanica acquired a majority stake in the company in 2009.

Bortoli said recent improvements include new Genesys avionics, an improved hydraulics system and a reduced level of vibration. Bortoli said he is confident Finmeccanica could keep the 009 priced less than $2 million. The 113-knot 009 is powered by the Rolls-Royce 250-C20R/2 and has an mtow of 3,968 pounds.

“The reason we are proposing it under this new name is that we have a business case we consider solid, and we are confident we can deliver a product in a price range that is palatable to the market based on a market survey we did in 2015. This is an attractive product and attractive price,” Bortoli said.

Even with the depressed oil-and-gas market, Finmeccanica’s larger helicopter offerings continue to do well.

Bortoli noted that the company already had delivered 30 of its AW189 super-medium helicopters, including one in VIP configuration to a Middle Eastern customer, and that it is working on additional VIP configurations for that model. He characterized early customer comments about the AW189 as “very positive.” Bortoli also said that the medium-twin AW139 continues to sell well, with nearly 800 delivered and 900 sold in a variety of configurations including commercial, military, law enforcement, EMS, VIP and oil-and-gas. Overall the AW139 fleet has amassed more than 1.4 million hours.

Work continues on the AW609 civil tiltrotor program in the wake of the fatal crash of the second prototype Oct. 30, 2015. Flight operations have been stood down on the remaining flyable prototype since the accident, but Bortoli said the company hopes to have it back in the air as early as this month and was continuing work on two additional prototypes, albeit at a slower pace. Its technology-sharing agreement with the Bristow Group, to develop an oil-andgas/search-and-rescue variant also remained in place. “We are continuing to work on the program,” Bortoli said. “We are very committed to its development.

We are continuing to work with the Bristow team. We are confident that once we restart it at full speed and start flying again, the 609 will be our flagship program going forward, but investigations are still ongoing and we have to be respectful of the work being undertaken by the various authorities involved.” o

At CAE, safe operations are our first priority, as demonstrated by our excellent helicopter flight training. But your other needs also deserve attention.

That’s why we offer convenient and enjoyable locations, unsurpassed service, and tailored programs and schedules that meet your needs.

So work with the people who work with you. CAE. Elevate your training.

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Visit us at Heli-Expo Booth 8133

Astronautics has easy glass upgrade

by Matt Thurber There are few options for replacing electromechanical attitude indicators and heading indicators on medium and heavy helicopters, but Astronautics has figured out a simple solution that takes advantage of existing wiring and panel architecture while adding modern glass cockpit capabilities. The Astronautics RoadRunner, announced today here at Heli-Expo 2016, is a simple upgrade for electromechanical instruments and even 5-ATI EFIS displays, with a rectangular flat display mounted onto a barrel that fits into the top hole occupied by the attitude indicator, with no modification required to the instrument panel.

For helicopter operators, the benefits are immediate, adding

helicopter terrain awareness (HTAWS), which is included in the $50,000 price for the unit.

Other features can be added by hooking up to safety sensors and with software upgrades and the addition of wiring to accommodate add-ons such as radar, traffic and synthetic vision.

Astronautics Corporation of America (Booth 8162) is the manufacturer of electromechanical instruments fitted to

two-thirds of military helicopters, according to Chad Cundiff, president of the Milwaukee, Wis. company. “We’ve sold about 120,000 instruments,” he said, “and a lot are still operating. Operators want to get EFIS and safety capability without big upgrades. In this time when people really can’t get big capital improvements in their budgets to do big changes, we really needed a different approach.”

Astronautics was founded in 1959 and manufactures flight instruments, displays, computers and components, including fully integrated glass cockpits such as the AB-212 retrofit for the Spanish navy, which includes four 6by 8-inch LCD panels.

The RoadRunner is ideally

Astronautics’ new RoadRunner glass panel upgrade uses existing wiring and panel architecture to replace electromechanical insruments or 5-ATI EFIS displays with newer LCD primary flight displays that also add HTAWS capability.

Safe Flight Instrument (Booth 6939), known for well-engineered safety products for fixed-wing aircraft since 1946, also offers three products for helicopters. Here at Heli-Expo 2016, the White Plains, N.Y.-based company is showing all of them.

The company’s Powerline Detection System (PDS) detects 50Hz/60HZ power line frequency emissions and is certified by the FAA ad EASA. The passive system alerts pilots when the aircraft is approaching an energized power line.

For the Collective Tactile Cueing (CTC) System, Safe Flight transferred its experience in developing stall-warning cueing for airplanes into a “tactile collective-shaker” alerting system for helicopters. The CTC provides cueing so that pilots can feel when the helicopter is reaching engine and drivetrain limits, as defined by its operating envelope.

Finally, the Icing Conditions Detector is able to detect icing conditions nearly the instant the aircraft encounters them, according to Safe Flight. ­­–R.R.P.

StandardAero solves plastic problem in R-R M250 engines

by Curt Epstein For operators of the Rolls-Royce M250 series II engine, commonly found on the Bell 407, the problem of crumbling or broken plastic coatings on the inside of the compressor case has existed for more than half a century. That will change after yesterday’s announcement

by StandardAero that it has created a new process–EnduroCoat–to combat the problem. The gas turbine engine, developed in the early 1960s, still employs a plastic lining on the inside of the compressor to protect the interior components from wear and corrosion. Despite several past attempts by the manufacturer and others to improve the plastic, it will still break, requiring regular replacement. The number of shops that can reapply this plastic coating at overhaul has declined from 10 to 15 to four worldwide, according to StandardAero.

Arizona-based StandardAero returned to U.S. hands last year after its purchase

by Veritas Capital and has applied for a

8 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

patent on its new process, which it claims will drastically improve the way the plastic coating bonds to the parent material. The process also provides increased

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suited for twin-turbine helicopters such as the Finmeccanica A109, Airbus AS330/332, Bell 212/412 and Sikorsky Black Hawk already equipped with Astronautics electromechanical instruments (and also the single-engine Bell UH-1).

Installation should take very little time because it includes a wiring harness that integrates with the ship’s existing wiring, and it works with analog and digital interfaces. The RoadRunner has no noisy cooling fan or large vent holes and it doesn’t include AHRS sensors, because it taps existing sensors in the aircraft, both analog syncro and digital Arinc 429.

This avoids having to recertify the interface with an existing autopilot, Cundiff explained.

“You can’t put a MEMS-based AHRS in a helicopter and get the quality you want. And a lot of helicopters we go into, [the operators] want to retain their autopilot or their stability augmentation system. If you change the underlying sensor, then you get into recertification of the autopilot.”

The same is true with the existing radios, which don’t need to be changed when the RoadRunner is installed. “But later, if you want to go to digital radios, the interface is already in RoadRunner,” he said. Other future upgrades could include adding ADS-B out and in with traffic display, and adding landscape displays for additional

Brian Hughes, director of sales and marketing for StandardAero’s helicopter programs.

mission capability such as FLIR and other video feeds. “Over time, starting with this you could migrate to a full cockpit upgrade,” he said. “This is a way to step through to a full cockpit without doing it all at once.”

The RoadRunner will be IFR certified, NVG-compatible and also designed specifically for helicopter applications, including meeting stringent environmental testing standards and being able to withstand the direct sunlight typical in helicopter cockpits. “We don’t make disposable electronics,” he said.

“We want mission reliability and operational effectiveness, and when it goes in a helicopter we want it to work. What good is it to have HTAWS, etc., if [the display] doesn’t work?”

The electromechanical instruments that the RoadRunner replaces each weigh about eight pounds, and the RoadRunner itself weighs eight pounds, so a single installation will add eight pounds to the payload, and a dual-cockpit installation would reclaim 16 pounds of payload.

Astronautics plans to begin shipping the RoadRunner at the end of this year, then add more STCs in 2017. The initial version will likely not offer the optional synthetic vision, but this will be available in 2017, with 3-arc second resolution and powerlines in the obstacle database. The RoadRunner is on display at the Astronautics Heli-Expo booth. o

protection from corrosion of the compressor stator vanes.

“It’s an old engine,” said Brian Hughes, director of sales and marketing for StandardAero’s helicopter programs, referring to the M250. “We’re hoping there’s another 10 to 20 years of life and we’re hoping we can save people a lot of money on this.”

The process takes a week to complete, according to Hughes. “When we first get the case we put it in an oven and we melt the plastic out, and then those stators all have to be inspected, so the EnduroCoat now is putting some protection on the stator vanes as well as making the plastic adhere more.”

The procedure comes with a “lifetime” guarantee, according to the company. “If the plastic breaks out at 1,750 hours you are going to get your plastic replaced at 50 percent pro-rata; if it breaks out in the first 500 hours of operation its going to be free,” said Hughes, who expects the procedure to be adopted in the new engine manufacture process as well. o

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Part 27/29 rewrite committee under way

by Mark Huber 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 EASA CS27/29 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

Sikorsky’s commercial systems and services v-p Dana Fiatarone sees the EMS and search-andrescue markets as having the potential to offset the flagging oil market.

As oil-and-gas market slumps, Sikorsky eyes new segments

by Thierry Dubois 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

10 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

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.

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.” o

News Note Heli-One’s (Booth 5151) helicopter maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in Rzeszow, Poland is now approved to p ­ rovide base maintenance services on the Airbus Helicopters H225. Capabilities include all levels of checks, avionics upgrades and structural repairs. The hangar accommodates up to six large airframes. n

Here at Heli-Expo, Sikorsky is planning to unveil the new flight crew operations manual (FCOM) for the S-92 and S-76, 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.

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 work 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. o

RadAlt HTAWS ADS-B

Check. Check. And Check.

Better situational awareness can help make flying safer for all of us. That’s why the FAA recently enacted new rules for commercial adoption of both radar altimeters and HTAWS (Helicopter Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems). Radar altimeters will be required for all Part 135 operators – and air ambulance operators will also be required to equip with HTAWS – by April 24, 2017. What’s more, most aircraft flying in U.S. controlled airspace will also need ADS-B “Out” capability by year-end of 2019. All of these technologies are aimed at helping pilots keep their distance from flight path hazards: With visual and aural advisories. Crisp 5-color terrain shading displays. Real-time traffic alerts. And with voice callouts that announce height above terrain when descending below 500 feet. For all these must-have solutions, Garmin is your go-to source. So why wait? Call your dealer now to avoid that last-minute scheduling crunch.

For a firsthand look, stop by our exhibit (booth #1822) at HAI.

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RadAlt, HTAWS, ADS-B

Turbine R66 drives Robinson deliveries

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.

by Mark Huber 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 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.

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 R66 POH, 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

Why a Cadet?

G500H PFD/MFD, a Garmin

radar altitude information on

Robinson’s R66 recently completed snow trials leading to FAA and Transport Canada approval for flight in snow conditions. The manufacturer can eliminate the existing POH limitation prohibiting flight in falling or blowing snow.

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

Robinson unveiled the two-place R44 Cadet at last year’s Heli-Expo and is expected to release more details at this year’s event.

12 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

the G500H PFD; Technisonic TDFM-9000 radio in a variety of single- to four-band options; and an Aerocomputers movingmap 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.

Avionics Options

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

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 twoplace 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 airconditioning, 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 lowcost, 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.” o

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HAI 2016 AIN Convention News 1/2 Page (non bleed) 4.875” W x 12.5” H

Updated H225 to feature original Turbomeca engines

by Thierry Dubois Airbus Helicopters is planning to deliver the first upgraded H225 (formerly known as the EC225e) at the end of the year. The main changes include more automation for oil rig approaches, an increased mtow and a greater range. However, to minimize development costs, the company has opted to retain the current Turbomeca Makila 2A1 engine rather than replace it with the 2B model, which was supposed to enable a major payload increase.

In the cockpit, the optional Rig’N Fly GPS-navigation-assisted software program aims to make approaches to, and takeoffs from, platform-based helipads safer and simpler. “It reduces pilot workload,” Airbus Helicopters operational marketing director Régis Magnac told AIN. Once the crew has prepared the approach, only two pilot inputs are required. The first one is to engage the approach mode. The second one takes

Bell 505 Jet Ranger X

The optional extra fuel tank (removable) will be housed in the baggage compartment located in the aft cabin, beneath the tail boom. Reinforcements will be added in the area. It will take half of the compartment’s volume. However, the extra fuel tank will mean fewer passengers, who will have to store their baggage in the main cabin.

No Engine Change

The helicopter manufacturer initially marketed the EC225e with a 1,200pound payload increase, which it planned to accomplish by replacing the original engine with the Makila 2B with a new combustor and new high-pressure turbine blades. Flight testing began in 2014.

However, the plummeting oil price and the resulting sharp fall in heavy helicopter sales–Airbus received orders for only two H225s in 2015–changed the game.

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An increased mtow will allow the new H225 to carry more fuel, pushing the radius of action to 300 nm with 10 passengers.

place at the missed-approach point. If the pilot can see the platform, he continues the approach; if not, he goes around.

The result is more standardized approach flightpaths. The trajectory will be parallel to a direct approach, thus making a go-around safer, as the path ahead will be obstacle-free. The manufacturer expects that as a result, operators will experience a reduction in the number of incidents such as wrong-deck landings.

Rig’N Fly uses dual radar altimeters, dual GPS receivers and weather radar. The pilot interface centers on an enhanced cursor-control device. The system, which is retrofittable, has just been EASA certified. “Oil companies have begun requesting such systems,” Magnac said.

The maximum takeoff weight will increase to 11,160 kg (24,581 pounds) from 11,000 kg (24,229 pounds), leaving room for an additional 352 pounds of fuel, according to Magnac. As a result, the radius of action can be pushed to 300 nm with 10 passengers.

ANTHONY PECCHI

M

“We are no longer integrating the Makila 2B into the H225,” Magnac said.

Development costs would have been longer to recoup in today’s sluggish market, while the higher price would have made the helicopter even harder to sell. The Makila 2A1 can accommodate the 352pound increase, deemed enough in current market conditions.

The decision not to pursue the development of the Makila 2B to power the H225 was made by Airbus Helicopters, in coordination with Turbomeca, according to the engine maker. “Our teams were informed that Airbus had difficulties in the offshore market and that they wanted to reassess the H225’s perimeter of evolution,” a spokesman said. The Makila 2B has no other application and its development has come to a stop.

After the certification of the Rig’N Fly system, Airbus engineers are now working on obtaining approvals for the higher mtow and the extra fuel tank. The final assembly of the first upgraded H225 will start in the coming months. o

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Industry seeks action on new regs for single-engine IFR under Part 27

by Mark huber A helicopter industry white paper originally released in June 2015 deals with making it easier

to facilitate IFR flight in singleengine 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, the American Helicopter Society, Aircraft Electronics Association and 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.

FOCUSED ON YOU

Weather-related Accidents

Conception/Réalisation :Free-Lance’s l’Agence - ©Getty Images.

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

WE KEEP YOU FLYING FocusTurbomeca_199x264_va.indd 1

16 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

05/02/16 14:11

UNC RECEIVES EMS BELL 429 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

Bell 206 LongRanger

almost all training rotorcraft, are not IFR certificated” as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft.

The study goes on to note that the “number of singleengine 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 confidenceinspiring 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.” o

United Rotorcraft recently delivered the first of two Bell 429s with emergency medical service interiors to the University of North Carolina. The first aircraft was delivered last month from the Denver, Colo. headquarters of United Rotorcraft (Booth 8951), which is a subsidiary of the Air Methods group. The second aircraft is due to enter service before the end of March.

The new Bell 429 has a redesigned aluminum floor and other new features. The modification work was covered by an STC. “Redesigning our floor and addressing product improvement reinforces our commitment to our customers by listening to their needs,” said Frank Graham, senior director of global sales and marketing. “The Bell 429 continues to be a popular twin platform for the helicopter air medical industry, and we are confident the new products will facilitate international opportunities, as well as augment our domestic business.”

United Rotorcraft specializes in aeromedical products and special modifications for military aircraft.

–S.C.

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6:28 PM www.ainonline.com • March 1, 2016 • HAI Convention2/18/16 News 17

Airbus reports ’15 orders, deliveries

by Thierry Dubois Orders and deliveries at AirSmaller revenues, al­ though bus Helicopters (Booth 9651) not disclosed, came equally last year fell far below expec- from civil and military activtations, at a net 333 and 393, ities. CEO Guillaume Faury respectively, compared to 402 blamed the reductions on low 2/6/2016 8:19:28 AM orders and robinson_r66_no_1_ad_jr_page_tab_ain_heliexpo_issue.pdf 471 deliveries in 2014. oil prices and1 “delays in the key

military campaigns.” The company received just two orders for the H225 family, which traditionally sells in the oiland-gas and defense ­segments.

Against the backdrop of

Airbus CEO Guillame Faury is focusing on the positives as the company reports fewer deliveries than expected for 2015.

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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 advocated the use of production processes inspired by the automotive sector. Its Marignane Development Centre opens this year, as does a new blade production center of excellence at Paris Le Bourget.

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* GAMA 2015 civil aircraft shipment report

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.”

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. o

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Noise activists seek higher helo base in LA

Helicopter noise in the Los Angeles Basin has been an ongoing issue for years. Operators have been working with neighbors and the FAA to address the issue, but it remains a contentious one.

by Mark Huber “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

FOTOLIA/ALEKSEY VOICHEK

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 lastminute 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

Sikorsky S76 at Van Nuys Airport

in 2014 included: development of 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 noisereporting 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

20 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

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.” o

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SALUTE TO EXCELLENCE​

Bell Helicopter Lifetime Achievement Award

by Amy Laboda There is something truly special about being recognized for a lifetime of achievements.

Dana Kerrick certainly felt that when he heard that he would be receiving 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

Come see us at Heli-Expo Booth 4151

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22 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

Dana Kerrick cofounded International Aviation Composites. He retired this past October.

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 metalskinned 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 an offering a blade exchange program, among other services.

“We do all kinds of nondestructive testing,” said Kerrick, a certified Level II NDT 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.” n

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The Bell 525 Relentless arrived at the Louisville Expo Center on Friday for its Heli-Expo debut. Two examples of the super-medium twin are now flying, and Bell reports that testing is “ahead of plan.”

Bell 525 is relentlessly on track

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24 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

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.”

Flight-test Progress

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. “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 flyby-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. The things that typically keep us down are weather and instrumentation.

The aircraft itself has typically been ready to go,” he added.

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 envelope 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. o

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NEWS CLIPS z Airbus Delivers First Luxury ‘Mercedes’ H145 Airbus Helicopters in February handed over the first H145 Mercedes Benz Style, a luxury version of the light twin, to Körfez Aviation in Turkey. The operator will receive a second one in March to expand its fleet, which is dedicated to business and private aviation. Part of Dogus Group, Körfez Aviation has its main operations center at Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Since Airbus introduced the H145 Mercedes Benz Style at Helitech last October, it has received five orders.

z Chinese Mx Firm Named Bell-authorized Facility Bell Helicopter (Booth 317) has named Chongqing General Aviation (CQGA), located in China’s Chongqing province, its newest authorized customer service facility. CQGA has a 43,700-sq-ft Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) Part 145-certified maintenance facility and offers non-specialized maintenance for the Bell 407. CQGA is an established operator. It has two Bell 407GXs and recently received the first certified Bell 412s to be operated in China and used for fire-fighting missions.

“Bringing on Chongqing General Aviation as an authorized [customer service facility] reinforces our commitment to enhancing the regional support customers need to continue their operations,” said Chris Jaran, Bell Helicopter’s vice president of China.

Established in April 2012 by the Chongqing General Aviation Group, CQGA offers aircraft maintenance, tourism, air ambulance, forestry support, aerial advertising, agriculture support, aerial photography, VIP flights, law enforcement support, firefighting and charters. CQGA is one of more than 100 Bell-authorized service facilities in 34 countries.

Chongqing General Aviation in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing is now a Bell Helicopter-authorized service center. The company also flies Bell 407GXs and fire-fighting-outfitted Bell 412s.

z Ornge Training AW139 Pilots on NVGs

Embry-Riddle celebrates 90 years

by Amy Laboda What began as an airmail company in 1926 in Ohio, with its roots in military training, and is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year? If you said Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), well, you probably matriculated there, as one of more than 120,000 alumni of the school. The little airmail company has progressively expanded into a worldwide university and research institution offering upwards of 80 degree programs on two residential campuses and more than 125 satellite locations around the globe. ERAU graduates are pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers, mechanics, meteorologists, military and industry leaders and astronauts.

The school delved into the helicopter flight training industry in 1978 when it branched out west, purchasing its Prescott, Ariz. campus.

“The university’s first president, Jack Hunt, knew we needed more room for training, and was looking out west,” ERAU Prescott campus chancellor Dr. Frank Ayers told AIN. “The ERAU campus had a minor in helicopters, but six years ago director of flight training Jerry Kidrick and I decided to make it a major. We thought that we’d bring in a contractor to do the training. In January 2010 we signed a contract with Universal Helicopters [UHI] to provide flight training to our helicopter majors,” he explained.

In the beginning ERAU trained plenty of U.S. military veterans. With the change in the way veterans benefits are handled for helicopter training, the school

Ontario’s provincial air ambulance service has begun training pilots and testing night-vision goggles on AgustaWestland AW139s from its base at Sudbury. Adopting NVGs was one of the recommendations made to Ornge after the fatal crash of one of the service’s Sikorsky S-76s in 2013 in what was described as a “black hole illusion” accident in Moosonee that killed all four crewmembers. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board has yet to issue its final report on that accident, but a separate report by Transport Canada was highly critical of Ornge for not providing pilots who operate in sparsely populated areas at night with a means of continually maintaining visual reference with the ground during the entire flight.

z Bell Donates Parts to Aeronautical Tech School Last month, Bell Helicopter donated more than 30,000 parts and other items from its Mirabel, Quebec, 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.”

26 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is partnering with Universal Helicopters to offer helicopter majors in Prescott, Ariz.

adapted, and now those with VA benefits are enrolled at Dodge City Community College, and do their training as “guest students” of ERAU, according to Ayers.

Veterans eligible for the Post-911 G.I. Bill, Yellow Ribbon program and the Montgomery G.I. Bill can enroll in a two-year associate’s degree program through Dodge City Community College and fly the helicopters through the ERAU partnership to earn their private, commercial, instrument, flight instructor and flight instructor instrument-helicopter certificates and ratings.

“We have really high placement rates, and this leads to great careers,” he said. “Most students graduate to become instructors for UHI, then do turbine transition and sightseeing, moving on to oil rig flying and aeromedical transport. Helicopters are the

AIRBUS DELIVERS SIX HELOS TO CALIFORNIA LAW ENFORCEMENT Four California law enforcement agencies have taken delivery of six new Airbus Helicopters H125 AStars–two each to the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, and one each to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Ontario Police Department.

The CHP took delivery of its fourth and fifth H125, part of a five-year contract to upgrade its entire helicopter fleet. It has been flying AS350series helicopters for 30 years, and its new H125s are equipped with hoists. Hangar One Avionics in Carlsbad, Calif., performed completion services for the CHP H125s.

Meanwhile, the LAPD recently took delivery of its second H125, part of a multi-year contract to upgrade the department’s fleet of AS350B2 helicopters to H125s. The LAPD Air Support Division has flown Airbus Helicopters for 25 years and operates its fleet of AStars some 17,000 to 18,000 hours per year.

The Ontario Police Department accepted its first H125, an addition to its fleet of two AS350B2s. Hangar One is performing completion services on the Ontario PD helicopter, which will enter service this spring.

The Ontario PD is also having an autopilot installed on its H125. –M.T.

only way to get you to the hospital in time to save your life out west, where distances are vast. It is often the only choice.”

Last year was filled with milestones, according to Ayers, with expansion at the university’s two residential campuses in Florida and Arizona as well as the groundbreaking for a high-tech research park at ERAU’s Daytona Beach campus. The school has a rapidly growing Singapore campus and new educational partnerships in South America and Australia as well. Ayers was proud to note that a return on investment PayScale ranking of more than 1,000 public and private colleges and universities in the U.S. put ERAU’s Prescott campus as No. 1 and the Daytona Beach campus at No. 2 in the category of Best Value Colleges.

Ayers was proud to host the start to the 90th anniversary for the university this past October, at the school’s OctoberWest homecoming event.

The celebration went on the road with the school’s restored 1928 Waco biplane used in the school’s early days for flight training and air mail delivery. It will culminate at Daytona Beach October 8-9 with Embry-Riddle’s Wings & Waves Air Show. Scheduled performers include the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, the U.S. Army Golden Knights, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds and several civilian performers. The show is free and open to the public. o

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MDHI scores customer for scout attack 530G

by Kerry Lynch capabilities and electro-optical/ infrared sensors to detect a range of threat environments.

The Malaysian contract is the second announced this year for MDHI’s scout helicopters. The company in January announced a follow-on contract to deliver 12 more of its 530F Cayuse Warrior scout attack helicopters with enhanced mission equipment to the Afghan air force.

MD Helicopters (Booth 8151) delivered the first 12 MD 530F Cayuse Warrior helicopters to the Afghan air force in support of the 2015 fighting season. Delivery of those helicopters began in March 2015. Also, five other MD 530Fs that were used as primary training aircraft have been upgraded to the Cayuse Warrior configuration.

“The MD 530F has played an integral role in building the capabilities of the Afghan air force and the Afghan national defense and security forces since the first aircraft arrived in Shindand in 2011,” said MDHI CEO Lynn Tilton. “In both training and combat configurations, the fleet has consistently maintained a mission launch rate of greater than 97 percent.”

MDHI also marked several

The Malaysia Ministry of Defense became the launch customer for the MD Helicopters MD 530G when it recently signed an order for six of the scout attack helicopters. They will be equipped with a custom weapons package, advanced communications capabilities and electro-optical infrared sensors, in addition to the standard .50 caliber machine guns.

smaller key wins for its 530F over the past year in other government and civilian sectors, including orders from police departments in Mesa, Ariz.; Las Vegas and Fresno County, Calif. Police departments in Gwinnett County, Ga., and Columbus, Ohio, took re-delivery of helicopters upgraded to the 530F configuration. Also taking delivery of a new 530F was Two Bear Air Rescue in Whitefish, Mont.

Those orders capped off a year that began with Tilton anticipating growth across its market segments, continuing the rebound of the company that faced shuttering a decade ago. o

EASA gives nod for auto rig approach

by Thierry Dubois Airbus Helicopters (Booth 9651) has received EASA certification for its Rig’N Fly GPS-navigation-assisted software program, which aims to make approaches and takeoffs safer and simple at platform-based helipads. Initially available on the H225 heavy twin as an option, it will also be offered on the H175 super-medium twin (late this year) and the in-development H160 medium twin (starting in 2018).

“Rig’N Fly reduces pilot workload,” Airbus Helicopters operational marketing director Régis Magnac told AIN. It allows the rotorcraft’s crew to focus on monitoring flight parameters and the outside environment. Once the approach is loaded, only two pilot inputs are required: the first is to engage the approach mode and the second is to choose to continue the approach once the missedapproach point is reached. If the pilot can see the platform, he chooses to continue the

approach. Otherwise, he decides to go around.

Approach flight paths will thus be much more standardized. In the offset-approach mode, the trajectory will be parallel to a direct approach. That makes a go-around safer, as the path ahead will be obstacle-free.

Thanks to the better preparation, the frequency of incidents such as wrong-deck landings is expected to be reduced.

Rig’N Fly uses a barometric altimeter, dual radar altimeters, dual GPS and weather radar. The interface centers on an enhanced cursor-control device and a digital map.

Thanks to the latter, the flightplan map can be merged with additional environmental factors, including weather radar and wind data, as well as platform location. It also includes the automatic information system, which alerts the pilot if a ship is in the path of the planned trajectory. o

MATT THURBER

MD Helicopters (MDHI) bolstered its military business with the signing of a launch customer for its MD 530G scout attack helicopter. The Malaysia Ministry of Defense signed a contract to take delivery of six of the upgraded model. Plans call for MDHI to begin delivery of the helicopters to Malaysian army aviation, Pasukan Udara Teneter Darat (PUDT), late this year with all six to be handed over by the end of the first quarter of 2017.

The MD 530G first flew in 2013 and MDHI formally announced the helicopter and completed livefire testing a year later. The next in line to the 530F that was certified more than 30 years ago, the 530G is fitted with more robust landing gear to support a 3,750-pound mtow that increases payload for range, endurance and weapons.

The helicopter has a top speed of 130 knots.

The aircraft is configured to accommodate an integrated onboard stores management system, FLIR, guided and unguided rockets and inboard .50 caliber machine guns. The Malaysian army’s fleet of MD 530G helicopters will be equipped with a custom weapons package, advanced communications

ROBINSONS AT THE READY Robinson Helicopter has a contingent of its products here at Heli-Expo 2016, including the new R44 Cadet trainer (left), R44 Raven II (center) and turbine-powered R66. These models are joined on the convention floor by a two-seat R22 Beta II, the current version of the helicopter that launched the company in 1973.

28 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

EASA has approved the Airbus Helicopters Rig’N Fly automated approach and takeoff system for platformbased helipads.

LIBERTY HELICOPTERS

Liberty Helicopters and four other operators offering helitours from Downtown Manhattan Heliport will have to halve the number of flights they conduct by January 2017.

NYC Helitour operators accept 50% flight cut

by Mark Huber city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Under the deal the number of flights allotted Saker into the heliport will be cut based on the tour operators’ 2015 flight data.

Chris Vellios, COO of air tour and charter company Liberty Helicopters, told AIN that he expects each operator to be allotted cuts based on its 2015 flight numbers. Liberty operates a mixed fleet of 10 Airbus AS355s and AS350s. Vellios said he expects the cuts will mean that Liberty will need 25 fewer employees during the busy summer/fall months and will reallocate some of its tour helicopters into its charter fleet. “We don’t plan on selling any of our helicopters,” Vellios said.

“This is a very unfortunate thing, but we were facing a total ban.”

“Nobody ever gets in this situation what they truly want. I’m at least encouraged that an agreement was reached and it shows a path for the future of air tours in New York, and the parties are working together,” HAI’s Zuccaro said.

Temporary Changes

However, the deal is expected to last for only two years, at which time further cuts could be imposed or a total ban resurrected.

“The interesting part I find is that even with that good faith effort and coming to this and everyone giving up to get a consensus, you still have opponents that are

ZIP AVIATION

On January 31 New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) office announced a deal that would force the city’s five existing helitour operators using Downtown Manhattan Heliport (JRB) to curtail flights by 50 percent by Jan. 1, 2017. The reduction begins in April with an elimination of all Sunday flights followed by further reductions of 20 percent each in June and October (the bookends of the busy summer/fall tourist season) from the baseline of the same months in 2015.

The remaining 10 percent cut will come in January. The operators had been facing a total ban from the New York City Council, and the industry essentially viewed de Blasio’s compromise as a way of keeping the air-tour industry viable in the face of growing community opposition to anecdotal helicopter noise complaints.

“It was just basically an ultimatum provided to the air-tour operators,” Helicopter Association International (HAI) president Matt Zuccaro told AIN. “The mayor runs the city of New York and he decided, ‘This is it. This is basically what I am offering you and I expect you to comply.’”

“I’m very happy with the mayor’s position of no outright ban and trying to find an equitable solution,” Jeffrey Smith, vice president of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council (ERHC) told AIN. “I just wish the negotiations weren’t so politically charged that they would have done actual [noise] studies. We just wish it would have been handled a little differently, but something had to be done.”

The tour flights take off from the Downtown Heliport at Pier 6. Saker Aviation leases the FBO there from the

The new rule could have unintended consequences. Helitour operators at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport will reduce their flights over popular locations such as Central Park, but those based at other locations have no such obligation.

30 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

out there saying this is not satisfactory and they are not going to be satisfied until the entire industry is shut down. That is not a reasonable negotiating position and is not in good faith by any stretch of the imagination,” Zuccaro said.

“This plan is only a two-year extension [of the EDC’s concessionaire agreement with Saker], Smith said. “You don’t know what the concessionaire agreement will be after that. There are a lot of variables that we don’t know. There’s nothing to show what change the metric of a 50 percent [flight] reduction will bring. If you have a demand [for tourist flights] and you cut it by 50 percent you’ll raise the price in New York City to mitigate some of the losses that you have, but you can raise it only so much or people won’t be able to afford it. But any raise takes away the ability of middle income people or people on a stricter budget.”

Any demand for lower-priced and more abundant air tours of New York City could be met by launching them from outside the city in places such as White Plains or in New Jersey, Smith warned.

“Making a move like this can spread the number of operators and where they are and then we have no control over where those operations happen. I don’t think [tour] operators in New York City will do it because they want to maintain their foothold at the [Downtown] heliport. But the demand could be there for people to get in a bus and go to a different location and get on a tour and fly around New York City.

The FAA is not going to restrict the airspace,” he said.

This would not only load up the airspace where the current tour operators fly; these new operators would not be bound by current voluntary routing agreements not to fly across land including Central Park. “A tour operator from another part of the country might find it advantageous to get into this market. Then the city of New York has no authority and no say over where those tour routes are,” Smith said.

Zuccaro thinks the agreement will embolden helicopter critics in other markets, particularly Los Angeles. “There are going to be people who interpret it as a call to arms and target air tour operations in other locations. It’s unfortunate,” he said.

Smith agrees. “This is going to have another ripple effect across the country again. It’s another one of those New York things that causes other communities to see it and act, and I think you’ll see this in L.A. and other places. And it also boosts the [pending] New Jersey [state] legislation [A.B. 1198] that would ban tour operators from basing in New Jersey licensed airports or heliports.”

While that bill has widespread political support, in the event it passed it would likely draw an immediate legal challenge as a violation of FAA grant assurances.

Meanwhile, New York’s helitour operators will soon need to make do with less. o

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More challenges for Hamptons helicopter flying

by Mark Huber It has been a challenging year for helicopter operators flying in and out of the East Hampton Airport (KHTO) in eastern New York. In April the town board passed a trio of

restrictions limiting operations.

The first is a weekly limit on flights of any aircraft with an approach noise signature louder than 91 EPNdB (effective perceived noise level in decibels),

a restriction that covered most rotorcraft, but this was thrown out by the district court. However, two “shoulder curfews” covering those aircraft were adopted and upheld, effectively

forbidding access after 8 p.m. or before 9 a.m.

The broader curfew’s impact was to shift much of the East Hampton helicopter t­raffic to seaplanes to beat the noise

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App-based helicopter services did not increase traffic at HTO as expected.

restrictions; seaplane ­traffic to the airport was up 76 percent this season, driven by the services tied to travel apps Uber and Blade. Meanwhile h ­ elicopter traffic, which should have grown due to association with those apps, remained flat, according to Jeff Smith of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council (ERHC).

Noise Complaints Continue

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32 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

Meanwhile the new curfews have done nothing to assuage the helicopter noise complainers, who continue to inveigh against traffic transitioning to East Hampton from the mandatory FAA-imposed North Shore route.

Ironically, that route was established for voluntary compliance in 2008 as a response to residential noise complaints and political prodding from elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who pressed then transportation secretary Ray LaHood and the FAA to make it mandatory. The FAA did so in August 2012 (FAR 93.103 A&B), with a two- year sunset provision.

The FAA chose to renew it for another two years in August 2014, and it has the option to renew it again this August.

The ERHC will begin in March to work with the impacted communities to disperse the transition routes, Smith said. “We’re going to continue our fly-neighborly program and work with the impacted communities,” he said.

Meanwhile, the issue of helicopter noise continues to be prime political fodder. U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R) who represents the Hamptons in Congress, favors dispersing the transition routes, while his likely general election opponent, Southampton town supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, wants the heavy hand of Congress to make the FAA impose a solution. She told a citizens’ meeting last summer, “The FAA needs to be held accountable and needs to be brought to the table. It requires an act of Congress.”

Throne-Holst also wants a mandatory South Shore Route, a routing that would send more helicopter traffic bound for East Hampton and Gabreski (KFOK) over residential areas and that could dramatically increase the number of helicopter noise complaints. o

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Helicopter maker researches extended MGB run-dry time

by Thierry Dubois Finmeccanica’s helicopter division (Booth 6451) is studying ways to enhance main gearbox performance in case of loss of lubrication. At the EASA rotorcraft symposium last December, Marco Tamborini, one of the company’s experts in transmission system design and

development, gave details on Finmeccanica’s strategy in gearbox durability.

Unless the possibility of such a failure is extremely remote, EASA rules call for continued safe operation for at least 30 minutes. In November, Finmeccanica announced it had demonstrated

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The main gearbox on the AW139 incorporates a number of changes implemented on the AW189.

to the Italian airworthiness authority a “60-plus-minute run dry capability” for the AW139’s improved main gearbox.

Finmeccanica’s target is to achieve the longest durability after loss of oil, Tamborini said. First, to minimize the probability of a major oil loss, the company has replaced external pipes with integrated oil passages, a process that makes casting more complex. Redundancy is provided by dual pumps working in parallel. For those pressurized items with fittings, fail-safe design is ensured in the event the gearbox loses a fastener.

Mitigating Oil Loss

Then, assuming oil is lost, design engineers want to minimize power losses. To do so, they have reduced the number of reduction stages. They prefer roller bearings to ball bearings. Moreover, they have adopted fine-pitch gears to reduce sliding velocity.

Engineers have also used ceramic rolling elements to further minimize power losses. Surface finishing of gear teeth and integral bearing raceways has been improved by fine grinding or superfinishing, Tamborini explained. The AW189, which demonstrated 50-minute run-dry capability and was certified in 2014, was a key step in gearbox design, according to Tamborini. Some features were transferred to the improved AW139.

Better ventilation in the transmission bay improves heat rejection. Some 10 percent of the heat is normally rejected by convective exchange, Tamborini said.

Maintaining clearances throughout the highest expected temperatures is another design measure to increase the operating endurance after loss of oil, he went on. For instance, loss of clearance on gear teeth and bearings is likely to generate an uncontrolled increase of contact forces. Adopting special materials for bearings and gears enables them to withstand operating temperatures up to 350 degrees C, “without dramatically losing their hardness.”

As a result of these changes, the gearbox has maintained a steady thermal balance during run-dry conditions for more than 50 minutes (AW189) or 60 minutes (AW139) in certification testing. Finmeccanica, however, has not released an entry-into-service schedule for the upgraded AW139. o

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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.

Lousiana Facility Revs Up

Bell 505 flight-test vehicle 1 made its first flight in November 2014.

Bell aims for mid-year OK for Model 505 Jet Ranger X

by Mark Huber 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 navcom, 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.”

Bell sees a strong market in law enforcement for the Jet Ranger X.

“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 produceability” 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. o

HFTC SECURES APPROVAL FOR BELL 407 SIM 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 a deal with Tampa General Hospital’s Aeromed program. That marked Metro’s first operation of a Bell helicopter in 25 years.

–K.L.

HFTC’s Frasca Bell 407 FTD was recently certified to Level D.

36 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

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Over the next four years, the UH-72A will become the platform for the Army’s basic training and basic combat skills training.

U.S. Army transitions to Lakotas for training

by Mark Huber Simulators are also part The U.S. Army is currently training its first class of pri- of the mix early on, and that mary helicopter pilots on the wasn’t the case with the TH-67.

Airbus UH-72A at the 110th “Currently with training on the Aviation Brigade, U.S. Army TH-67, our primary trainer Aviation Center of Excellence at right now, the first time you Fort Rucker, Ala. Forty students do anything is when you sit in began academic work on Decem- the aircraft, take off and go fly ber 10 and airwork on Janu- around, so you get no simulaary 11 in what will be a 22-week tion prior to getting in the aircourse that sees them graduate plane,” Hines said. “With the UH-72, students get simulawith an instrument rating.

The Army is transitioning its tor time first. Right now stubasic training and basic com- dents have access to three Level bat skills training flying from a B simulators. That number will combination of the Bell TH-67 soon grow to five, and there is Creek and OH-58A/C Kiowa a plan to switch over to Level Warrior to the UH-72A over D simulators in the near future. the course of the next four Altogether students, during the years. This year, 25 percent of course of their training, will get students will train in the Airbus, 37 hours in simulators.

“The way the LUH [UH-72] and the number will increase by 25 percent annually as the fleet works is that you do the simuincreases from the current 61 lations so the students see how to 204 and the Bells are drawn it works, know how to start it without having the added stress down and retired.

The Army’s move to employ of taking it up into a hover the UH-72 in the primary train- and taking off,” he said. “They don’t practice hovering mission was not ing in the simulator without controversy or but they practice trafits critics. Col. Kelly fic patterns. Hovering Hines, commander of in a simulator helps the 110th, explained but is not as realistic. how training on the new helicopter was They do take it off from the ground in organized and what a simulator and they advantages it predo emergency procesented, what was dures training in the the same and what sim before they sit was different. in the aircraft. They The ground school Col. Kelly Hines learn how to operremains the same Fort Rucker commander save some of the content. “It’s ate systems, how to tune radios, the same type of classes as when how to load flight plans, that they were flying TH-67s, same sort of thing,” he explained.

Learning in a twin-engine time frame for basic instruments and advanced instruments,” machine provides an added Hines said. “A lot of the sys- margin of safety, Hines said, tems are much more modern- and provides a smoother tranized than what we had in the sition to the Army’s warfighting ­ aving TH-67s or the OH-58s so they machines. “They’re not h are learning more of what this to do autorotations all the way generation is meant to learn, to the ground as we did in THthey’re much more computer 67s so that is actually much safer. savvy than us old guys, but as And a lot of the run-on landfar as that, nothing different ing stuff with the older aircraft save that as a dual-engine it is a that we had to teach…so it is a safer platform, we don’t have the much safer more stable platform single-engine-type failure thing that allows us not to do that. We still teach the EPs [emergency to worry about.”

procedures] as far as an autorotation from altitude but they recover before they touch the ground. So that is a very good system for that and it better prepares them for their advanced aircraft when they get done with their initial training. The dualengine is much more translatable into the Black Hawk, Chinook or Apache, which are all dualengine. A lot of the instrumentation crosses over, and systems management is much better this way as is habit transfer when they get to go to war aircraft.”

Basic Combat Skills Training

Training in the UH-72 also provides improved continuity, Hines said. It allows students to stay with the same airframe and the same instructor longer, increasing confidence and the quality of instruction.

“What has changed is that the student will continue to fly the LUH all the way through what we call basic combat skills.

Before that we were flying TH67s up to a point when they

38 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

were finished with instruments and then the students would have to flip over and learn to fly an OH-58A/C, which is a postVietnam-era aircraft, and learn how to fly that to go out and do basic combat skills, which is mostly low level and operating in remote fields.”

Students also receive NVG training in the UH-72 as opposed to their advanced aircraft, which Hines says is safer and saves money. “The current plan now is when they go into basic combat in an LUH they will actually get to fly NVGs at that point so that they will be NVG-qualified. It will reduce the actual hourly requirement as far as flying helicopters in the advanced aircraft, which saves a little bit of money and time because it transfers over. And it is also a safety item. When we put the NVGs on them they are much more confident in [the UH-72] as opposed to, say, someone who is just learning to fly a Black Hawk, and then we put goggles on them.”

Students also get to stay with the same instructor longer. “The student will begin with an IP [instructor pilot] on day one, and he will be able to maintain that IP all the way through advanced instruments,” Hines noted. “The way we used to do it was a student used to

fly with one IP during contact and then switch over to another during instruments. The reason I like this is that we have an IP who knows his students better, knows their weaknesses and their strengths and provides the ability to either tailor your package or techniques or if a kid is doing better to advance him a little faster.

“Previously a TH-67 contact IP couldn’t teach instruments at all. Now if an IP sees his students are progressing at a better pace he can start introducing more advanced stuff earlier.

Vice-versa if he has a student who needs more help on something, he’ll know that and be able to work it in.”

Hines said he and his staff will be monitoring these first training classes closely and will make any needed course adjustments. He said the four-year transition plan gives them ample time to tune the program. “It made sense not to try and do this all at once,” he explained. “So we would have time to look at the first class and see if there were bugs and make whatever adjustments we need to. We’re watching this class very closely to see where there are efficiencies gained, or where there are places we may need to add hours, and we really won’t know that until we have had a couple of classes go through.” o

FRASCA ADDS MORE HELICOPTER SIMULATORS 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 delivered a Robinson R44 flight training device (FTD) to Sky Safari General Aviation in Shanghai, China, and recent contracts include a number of helicopter simulators, one of which is an AS350B2/H125 FTD that will be delivered to HNZ Group. Here at Heli-Expo, Frasca is sharing its booth with HNZ Group, and on display is the AS350B FTD, a Robinson R44 FTD and a Sikorsky 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 AS350B2/H125 FTD 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 AS350B2 FTD 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.

–M.T.

TODAY AT HAI HELI-EXPO 2016 TUESDAY, MAR. 1

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 THURSDAY, MARCH 3 HAI Rotor Safety Challenge Sessions

HAI Annual Membership Meeting & Breakfast

8:00 am – 4:30 pm

8:00 am – 10:00 am

Room C203

Manufacturer Technical Briefings

Military to Civilian Transition Workshop*

8:00 am – 5:00 pm

(HAI Professional Education course)

8:00 am – 12:00 pm *Requires separate registration

8:30 am – 10:00 am

Room B103

Exhibit Hall Open 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Rooms C101, C104, C105, C108, C201, C205

North & South Wings, East Hall

Fatigue Risk Management 8:00 am – 12:00 pm

Room C101

FAA: Face to Face 8:30 am – 10:30 am

Room C203

Exhibit Hall Open – Final Day 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

North & South Wings, East Hall

USHST SMS Working Group 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Room B102

HAI Salute to Excellence Awards Dinner*

Manufacturer Technical Briefings 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Rooms C109 & C112

HAI Safety Committee Meeting

Room B105

HAI Rotor Safety Challenge Sessions 8:30 am – 4:30 pm

Rooms C101, C104, C105, C108, C201, C205

7:00 pm – 9:30 pm Louisville Marriott Downtown *Separate ticket required for Salute to Excellence Dinner

Rooms C109 & C112

HAI HELI-EXPO Opening Ceremony 10:15 am – 10:30 am

Welcome!

South Wing A Lobby

Exhibit Hall Open 10:30 am – 5:00 pm

HAI HELI-EXPO 2016 Show App

North & South Wings, East Hall

10:30 am – 5:00 pm *Requires separate registration

To Our First-Time UAS Exhibitors

Download at rotor.org/expoapp or scan me with your smartphone!

HAI Helicopter Industry Career Fair* West Hall B

AeroUAVs (Booth #12239) Aeryon Labs (Booth #7833) High Eye (Booth #7736) Olaeris (Booth #3801) Riegl USA (Booth #7636)

New This Year! UAS at HAI HELI-EXPO UAS and UAV: Applications and Awareness for the Rotorcraft Industry

HAI Professional Education Course (requires separate registration) • Sun., Feb. 28 8:00 am – 5:00 pm Kentucky International Convention Center

Rotorcraft/VTOL/ Multirotor UAS Accidents and Incidents RSC Session* • Tue., Mar. 1 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Room C105 • Wed., Mar. 2 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm Room C105

Where’s the Pilot?

An Overview of UAS Research Activities RSC Session* • Tue., Mar. 1 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm Room C101

DON’T MISS TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Integration of Unmanned Systems and Rotary-Wing Assets RSC Session* Presented by Insitu, Inc., a Boeing Company • Tue., Mar. 1 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm Room C205 • Wed., Mar. 2 10:30 am – 11:30 am Room C205

Unmanned: UAS in the Mix

General Session, with Panel Discussion by Representatives from the FAA and the UAS and Helicopter Industries • Wed., Mar. 2 8:30 am – 10:30 am Room C203

UAS Operational Safety Considerations for Rotorcraft Operators RSC Session* Presented by Unmanned Safety Institute • Wed., Mar. 2 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Room C104

HAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems Committee Meeting • Wed., Mar. 2 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm Room B103

*RSC Session = Rotor Safety Challenge Session

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March 6–9 • Exhibits Open March 7–9 • Dallas Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center Visit Us at Booth #6033

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Airbus North America consolidates ops in Dallas

by Mark Huber 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. The company benefits from the large Lakota primary training contract with the U.S. Army, and it has also seen dramatically improved product support as measured by AIN’s Product Support Survey, leapfrogging last year 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 tech reps.

“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

AS365

UH-72A Lakota

H125

H135

of its customers. This includes plans to install a Level D H135/H145 roll-on/rolloff 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,” he added.

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

40 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

H160

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 [Dallas Fort Worth] 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 EASA DOA 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

SALUTE TO EXCELLENCE​

Ex-Timken Extex unit meshes with Kaman

Appareo Pilot of the Year Award

by Harry Weisberger

by Amy Laboda

TIGER’S NEW TUG Helicopter tug specialist Tiger Tugs is displaying its new Typhoon model tug here at Heli-Expo (Booth 10554).

According to the Oregonbased company, the Typhoon offers true omni-directionality and can drive any angle, rotating 360 degrees around its center. The single-operator unit features full wireless remote control, with all-electric drive motors and an advanced motive system providing smooth operation.

Tiger noted the unit can be built in many different size ranges to accommodate virtually any size rotorcraft. –C.E.

division, predicted, “TAAT will be a great fit with our current engineered parts business and has the potential for significant product and market synergies.

Global expansion of the product line will be a key focus of our growth strategy.” TAAT had annual sales of approximately $20 million.

Shiembob told AIN that Extex’s turbine engine and helicopter power train component business is proving a better fit with Kaman than with Timken, because the latter company’s business plan had become less oriented toward aerospace.

He said an increase in Extex sales since the Kaman acquisition was highlighted by “a very strong January.”

Extex is preparing to introduce several new products early in the second quarter. These will include helicopter driveshaft and various airframe bearing components, building on the expertise of Kamatics, a fellow Aerospace Group division specializing in mechanical and helicopter driveshaft components and self-lubricating bearings.

Timken’s de-emphasis on aerospace markets was marked by the 2014 divestiture of the TAAT turbine engine overhaul business. Dallas-based Prime Turbines purchased the TAAT turbine engine test cells and has continued to operate them at Extex’s Mesa facility.

Extex is moving in May from Mesa’s Falcon Field Airport to a new, purpose-built site about 15 miles south in Gilbert, Ariz., concurrent with the new product introductions. Shiembob said the move will be accompanied by addition of technical personnel in the second quarter.

Kaman has been an aerospace company since 1945, and its Aerospace Group is a $700 million component of an $8 billion corporation. “Extex is a wellrespected name in the industry,” explained Kaman’s Robert Paterson. Extex is now an Aerospace Group division, along with Kamatics and RWG, the German aerospace bearing manufacturer that Kaman acquired in 2002. Paterson added that the synergies within the group’s divisions “create a meaningful bearing business supporting principally the OEMs, airlines and MRO operators.” o

Heli-Expo is the venue for the presentation of nine Salute to Excellence Awards, honoring the best and brightest in the helicopter industry. This year’s Appareo Pilot of the Year Award goes to New Zealand-born Jason Laing, a 6,400-hour helicopter pilot with more than 5,000 hours of mountain flying experience, along with NVG operations, SAR and firefighting skills. Operating from his home base in New Zealand, Laing has flown business travelers, touring flights and other types of missions in New Zealand, Australia, Antarctica, Kashmir (India) and Nepal. He is often called upon for difficult mountain rescues.

Action on Everest Most recently, after a devastating avalanche at 19,000 feet on Mt. Everest in April 2014 that trapped some 30 climbers, Laing saved lives. He used an Airbus H125 (formerly the AS350B3e) outfitted with a 100-foot longline–doors and extra seating removed–to fly to the icefall at 20,000 feet. He lowered the line, and climbers on the ground strapped their injured colleagues to a stretcher. Laing lifted them in the air and flew them to safety.

He evacuated four injured Sherpas and 12 other victims.

In April 2015, a huge earthquake strong enough to move all of Mt. Everest two inches struck. “I’d just got back to my hotel and was getting ready to come into work,” Laing recalled. “I was on the sixth floor when the quake hit. The building was extensively damaged. I was very lucky to get out alive.”

He headed straight to Kathmandu Airport and went up in one of the first helicopters dispatched to survey the damage. The day after the quake, Laing was tasked to fly reconnaissance to villages where all communications were lost. He discovered massive loss of life, and returned to base to begin a major rescue effort.

“We went up to the Langtang area. There were massive

avalanches everywhere. It was total devastation. There were whole villages just gone,” he said. Next, he was sent to Mt. Everest’s Camps 1 and 2, where a collapsed icefall had trapped some 140 climbers.

In addition to the Appareo Pilot of the Year Award, Laing has been honored with the Kumar Khadga Bickram Adventurous Award from the Nepal Mountaineering Association and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. He has been working with the Himalayan Trust set up by Sir Edmund Hillary to raise $50,000 to stage mountain rescue equipment at Everest above the ice falls, as well as to help rebuild Sherpa villages n in Nepal.

MATT THURBER

Larry Shiembob, general manager of Extex Engineered Products of Mesa, Ariz., is at Kaman Aerospace’s Heli-Expo booth (8137) explaining how his company has successfully dovetailed with the Kaman business plan after being acquired late last year from Timken.

When Timken purchased Extex in 2008, it renamed the division Timken Alcor Aerospace Technologies (TAAT).

Kaman has reinstated the Extex brand name. Extex manufactures FAA-approved aftermarket components, primarily for engine MROs based in North America, and under Kaman ownership it operates under the same management with the same employee base.

Kaman considered Extex a solid company that nicely complemented its aftermarket business and demonstrated consistent financial performance with engineered products that fit together with Kaman’s current offerings. Factors in its decision to acquire TAAT included organic growth opportunities, a robust quality system, engineering expertise and strong relationships with engine MROs and fleet operators of both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, according to Kaman. At the time of the acquisition Robert Paterson, head of Kaman’s Specialty Bearings & Engineered Products

Jason Laing is a highly respected high-altitude pilot often called on for difficult mountain rescues.

MANY THANKS, DEERE Some 55 helicopters were towed through the Kentucky Exposition Center this past weekend by a fleet of bright green and yellow John Deere Gator utility vehicles and model 5045E utility tractors. They performed these tasks effortlessly, even though they’re not specifically designed for aircraft towing.

www.ainonline.com • March 1, 2016 • HAI Convention News 41

Dallas Airmotive, H+S expand engine coverage

by Kerry Lynch BBA Aviation Global Engine Services companies Dallas Airmotive and H+S Aviation have added a series of new capabilities that expand their coverage to 65 percent of the world’s rotorcraft fleets. The new capabilities–including support for the PW200, PW210, PT6T and PT6C-67 (the latter supported by H+S Aviation only)–are part of a multi-year effort to significantly expand the reach of the BBA companies in the rotorcraft engine services market, making those services as central to their businesses as the fixed-wing work. As a result, “We are now virtually authorized on every rotorcraft that we can be on,” said Peg Billson, president and CEO of BBA Aviation Global Engine Services (Booth 4356).

The company has invested roughly $40 million in the past two years in this expansion, which has included the opening of a third major MRO center in Abu Dhabi and the construction of new facilities at DFW International Airport.

The Abu Dhabi H+S facility opened in late 2014 and recently received approvals for PW200 and PT6C-67 engines. Billson noted that a number of employees transferred to the facility to ensure “we are bringing it up with our experienced technicians.” Work has been under way at the facility, which she said will support customers in China, Southeast Asia, India and Africa, along with the Middle East. “We are receiving the interest we’re anticipating for that facility,” she said. “There was a need

and a demand for support for these rotorcraft in that region.”

In Texas, Dallas Airmotive also has received approvals to support the PW200 and PW210, along with its existing support for the PT6T and Rolls-Royce 300 and M250.

These capabilities have come online as Dallas Airmotive prepares to transfer to its new 200,000-sq-ft center of excellence and test center. The company on February 19 received a temporary certificate of occupancy, which Billson said is the “green light to start fitting out the facilities and move forward.”

A permanent certificate of occupancy is anticipated in the next month or so, and the Dallas Airmotive lines will slowly transfer over the next year. Billson said the company has an outline on that transfer, but recognizes that could shift “based on what volume we have at the shop.” Once everything has been transferred and is up and running, the company will hold a grand opening.

Along with Dallas and Abu Dhabi, the company supports customers through its H+S facility in Portsmouth, UK, along with 10 regional turbine centers and a field service network. “We like the footprint that we have in place,” she said. The company also has invested heavily in cross-training so it can “flex” its employees to ensure they have the resources available for where the services are needed.

The cross-training has been helpful in managing work as the energy markets struggle while law

Dallas Airmotive technicians monitor a PT6C-67 running on a test stand.

enforcement and medevac pick up, she said. It also has been a key part of another critical initiative of the company, expediting its turntimes.

“We’ve done a significant amount of work in the last year in increasing our speed and increasing our throughput in our shops,” Billson said, noting the company improved turntime by 42 percent in 2015 across all of its product lines.

With the investments in facilities, authorizations and training, the companies are coming to Heli-Expo with the message that “we are fully open to support…the world’s helicopters fleets.” Billson said. While noting pockets of the industry have been aware of its expansion in the rotorcraft markets, she said, “We are going to make a hard push at Heli-Expo to help people really understand the depth and breadth of our capabilities.” To emphasize that point, Dallas Airmotive and H+S Aviation are offering discounts on services for customers who commit during Heli-Expo. o

VIETNAM-ERA HUEYS NOW FLYING HISTORY

MATT THURBER

This U1-1H Huey is one of two on display this week at Heli-Expo from the Huey History Museum in Peru, Indiana. 369 (the last three digits of its S/N) was part of the U.S. Army’s 498th Medical Company during the Vietnam War. The museum’s other displayed Huey was used for troop transport during the war.

The group is currently restoring a Huey gun ship.

It flies the helicopters to veterans’ events between April and October.

42 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

Enstrom TH180 flight testing halted after hard-landing

by Mark Huber Enstrom Helicopter’s new TH180 piston-powered helicopter suffered an accident during flight testing on February 12 at the company’s Menominee, Mich. headquarters.

According to Enstrom, the helicopter “experienced an emergency hard-landing in Menominee shortly before noon…

There were no injuries or casualties and the pilot walked away from the helicopter. Enstrom personnel were on site shortly after the incident to assist with the clearing of the helicopter to begin an investigation.”

Before the accident, Enstrom had been flight-testing the TH180 in preparation for certification later this year or early 2017. Enstrom announced the helicopter at Heli-Expo 2014, and since then has taken a number of signed MOUs for the new helicopter, which is designed for the flight training, light commercial and private owner markets.

“We’ve completed the preliminary envelope expansion testing, and are in the process of evaluating the aircraft with different pilots of different skills levels to ensure the TH180 meets the needs of all our customers” said Enstrom test pilot Bill Taylor. “We’ve had it out over 100 knots so far, and everything is performing as expected.”

Enstrom is building a second flight-test helicopter that will be a fully conforming prototype. That aircraft is expected to fly later this year.

The new helicopter is powered by the 210-hp HIO-390 engine from Lycoming and is a scaled-down version of the company’s popular 280FX three-seat model. The TH180 adapts the 280FX’s type certificate and rotor system, moves that should simplify the certification process.

Compared with the 280FX, the TH180 has more robust landing gear and weighs 500 pounds less, about 2,250 pounds maximum gross weight. The TH180 features a GS Engineering engine governor and an electric clutch switch, and the governor can be activated or overridden at the pilot’s discretion.

The TH180’s fuel capacity is 40 gallons, and the helicopter’s useful load should be around 700 pounds. Company officials said the TH180 should post direct operating costs of $175 per hour and an hourly fuel burn of less than 12 gph.

Enstrom’s expanded and remodeled production plant in Menominee, Mich., has the capacity to build 100 TH180s per year. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of China’s Chongqing General Aviation Group. o

Revamped Finmeccanica promises strong rotorcraft focus Even after the recent restructuring of parent company Finmeccanica, the AgustaWestland brand will still be much in evidence at this week’s Heli-Expo show.

From January 1, the group has been organized under four sectors, including the new Finmeccanica Helicopter Division along with aeronautics, defense and security systems and space.

In an interview ahead of Heli-Expo, Helicopter Division CEO Daniele Romiti told AIN that the restructuring and renaming will not cause any disruption to the service its AgustaWestland customers receive. He characterized the move as necessary to make the various businesses more coherent and competitive in an aerospace and defense market that he described as “the battle of the giants.” In this regard, the changes mirror consolidation that has already happened within the rival Airbus, Textron (Bell) and Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin groups.

Still to be fully resolved is the future of established brands under the new Finmeccanica monolith. Giovanni Soccodato, executive vice president for strategy, markets and business development, indicated that AgustaWestland’s helicopters might not be the only products permitted to keep trading on their history and reputation. In fact, a Finmeccanica board meeting later this month is due to consider proposals for a new permanent name for the restructured group,

with a spokesman indicating to AIN that the Finmeccanica moniker may just be a working title.

According to Romiti, Finmeccanica’s helicopter business is well placed to survive the well-documented market disruption to the offshore sector caused by the collapsing price of oil. “No one can predict what will happen to the oil price, but our customers need us to help them reduce the cost of [helicopter] ownership, and this can be achieved by replacing older, larger aircraft with smaller, more efficient models,” he commented.

So far, said Romiti, Finmeccanica has received only requests to postpone deliveries of new helicopters, rather than order cancellations. He expects new models like the AW119, the latest version

Finmeccanica expects demand for its new models, such as this AW119Kx, to increase as the business case for more efficient helicopters becomes more compelling.

of the AW109, the AW169 and AW189, to be in more demand now that the business case for more efficient equipment is even more compelling.

Looking beyond these types, Romiti portrayed the AW609 tiltrotor as “a quantum leap” that will prove popular with a variety of operations. The ability to transition between vertical lift and fixed-wing service promises to transform the viability of a wide variety of operations. For instance, Finmeccanica executives could use the aircraft to make the 900-mile

MATT THURBER

by Charles Alcock

trip from its Cascina Costa headquarters, north of Milan, to the group’s UK offices in Yeovil in two hours 14 minutes– an attractive option compared to the limited scheduled airline services between the two sites.

Finmeccanica is now working closely with ICAO to agree the regulations that will cover tiltrotor operations. It hopes these will include specially designated approach paths that will allow the aircraft to fulfill its potential for cost effective operations. o

TWIRLY BIRDS ANNOUNCES LES MORRIS AWARD RECIPIENT Twirly Birds announced that the 2016 recipient of the prestigious Les Morris award is Anthony Melvin “Mel” O’Reilly. The award is presented annually by Twirly Birds as a lifetime achievement award to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the helicopter community.

As the founder of Eagle Copters in Calgary, Canada, O’Reilly was a part of the Royal Canadian Air Force in field helicopter maintenance before working as an engineer and pilot around the world. He will be presented

the award by Sergei Sikorsky during the Twirly Birds annual membership meeting here at Heli-Expo 2016 in Louisville today at 5 p.m. at the Marriott Downtown Hotel.

Twirly Birds was started 70 years ago in 1945 as an international body aimed at fostering fellowship among in the helicopter community. General membership qualification requirements include that a prospective member must have flown solo in a helicopter or vertical lift aircraft within the last 20 years.

–S.C.

2016 Twirly Bird Lee Morris Award winner Mel O’Reilly (right) poses with his son Mike.

MARIANO ROSALES

Flightcell teams with Aspen on connected aircraft suite

LOW-LEVEL FLY-BY Workers literally raced over the weekend to get the Heli-Expo 2016 exhibit floor together before the hall opened this morning. There are more than 750 exhibitors and 55 helicopters spanning some one million square feet of floor space at this year’s show.

Aspen Avionics has partnered with Flightcell International to offer airborne Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity across broadband cellular and narrowband satellite networks for both rotorcraft and fixedwing aircraft. Flightcell will couple a proprietary version of Aspen’s CG-100 Connected Gateway System with its DZMx communication system. The Flightcell DZMx provides broadband data and voice services through GSM, 3G and 4G networks. Outside of cellular coverage areas, DZMx provides narrowband capability through the Iridium satellite network.

The CG-100 will be used as a wireless router to enable pilots and crew to access data through any Wi-Ficapable device, including computers, smartphones and tablets. “We had a notion early on that Aspen’s patented Connected technology could

be used beyond its original intentions of providing a gateway to wirelessly communicate with certified cockpit avionics,” said Mark Ferrari, v-p of Flightcell is coupling Aspen Avionics’ Wi-Fi router with its DZMx communications system to provide onboard data.

sales and customer support for Aspen Avionics.

“Working with Flightcell, this new communication capability opens up a whole new opportunity for flight crew.” Ferrari said this access could be particularly important for operations such as air ambulance, search-and-rescue and law enforcement that might fly in areas with unreliable coverage. –K.L.

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TOUR OPERATORS MARK 20th ANNIVERSARY OF COLLABORATIVE SAFETY PROGRAM

FAA nod expected by year-end for H125 BLR FastFin retrofit

by Randall R. Padfield that FastFin improves wind-azimuth tolerance and increases useful load in a hover. Detailed performance data will be provided after certification, when FastFin will be offered as an aftermarket modification and as an option on new H125s.

Separately, BLR announced that 1,000 FastFins are flying on helicopters in 35 countries. The 1,000th FastFin went to Agrarflug of Ahlen, Germany, for a Bell 212 on January 29.

In 2005, an AS350B3 flown by one test pilot broke the world record for the highest-altitude landing and takeoff, performed on Mount Everest at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters). Perhaps Airbus Helicopters will attempt to exceed this record with a FastFin-equipped H125 with two pilots on board. o

MATT THURBER

BLR Aerospace completed proof-ofconcept flight tests of its FastFin tailrotor enhancement and stability system on the Airbus Helicopters H125 (AS350B3e) last year.

Now the company expects to complete flight testing and to receive FAA certification for the product later this year, with approvals by EASA and Brazil’s ANAC to follow.

Dave Marone, BLR v-p of sales and marketing, told AIN that BLR bought an AS350B3e last year to do the proof-of-concept work on the helicopter. “Working together with Airbus Helicopters on development of the system was significant and accelerated development of the program,” he explained.

BLR’s AS350B3e with the FastFin is undergoing flight testing, so is not being displayed here at Heli-Expo. The test program showed

THIS WILL GET YOUR SPIDEY SENSE TINGLING If you’re looking for a helicopter with one of the more interesting paint schemes you'll find here at Heli-Expo, go no further than Enstrom's booth (1808) to see this Spiderman-themed 280FX. The scheme was done by Dean Louckes at Elkhart, Ind.-based The Art of Design. Don’t overlook the interior, which also includes several Spiderman-themed elements, including the headphone ear cups.

44 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

L-3’s Lynx ADS-B units are now STC’d for 93 helicopter models.

MARIANO ROSALES

BLR is using this Airbus AS350B3e to obtain approval for its FastFin tailrotor enhancement system for the H125.

Helicopter tour operators are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tour Operators Program of Safety (TOPS), which was launched in 1996 with the goals of increasing safety and improving public perception of the industry.

“What we did 20 years ago was revolutionary, and the fact that it continues today–bigger and stronger than [in] its first days–is testament to the value of the programs,” said TOPS founding member Elling Halvorson, who owns Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters. “We were a group of fierce competitors who recognized an accident in our industry hurt us all.”

Currently, 12 of the largest helicopter tour operators participate in TOPS with the support of manufacturers, insurance providers and other industry organizations. The participants share safety information, abide by the TOPS and collaborate on potential industry safety improvements. “Nowhere else in the helicopter industry do you see such collaboration among operators,” said TOPS chairman Craig Jennison, who manages NorthStar Trekking in Juneau, Alaska.

The Program of Safety involves operating practices and procedures, training and experience requirements and equipment specifications.

The concept for TOPS began in 1993 when a group of operators met informally to discuss issues involving accidents and public perceptions. This culminated in a draft of the prospective Program of Safety in 1995 and in January 1996 TOPS was incorporated as an independent, non-profit organization.

TOPS is celebrating the anniversary with a new website and logo and a special champagne toast at 2 p.m. today at Booth 10631.

–K.L.

L-3 unveils ADS-B solution for helicopters Many helicopter owners and operators now have a quick and easy solution to comply with the FAA’s mandate to equip their aircraft for ADS-B out. L-3 Aviation Products announced yesterday at Heli-Expo 2016 that it has obtained FAA approval for installation of its Lynx line of ADS-B products in 93 helicopter models. The fixed-wing product has been in use for about a year.

The approval is for the one-box NGT-9000 system, which includes both ADS-B out and in traffic and weather information and touchscreen control and fits into the same space on the panel as a standard transponder, and for the NGT-2500 and -1000 remotemout units, said Larry Riddle, vice president of marketing and sales for L-3 Aviation Products (Booth 2411). “L-3’s top-of-the-line Lynx NGT-9000 is an all-in-one solution for rotorcraft operators needing to replace their aging transponder while achieving ADS-B compliance.”

The Lynx touchscreen, which uses resistive technology, can be

activated with bare or gloved fingers, even with fairly thick winter gloves.

The NGT-9000 lists for $6,800, but here at Heli-Expo L-3 Aviation Products is offering a promotional price of $5,495. The NGT-9000+, which adds active traffic to ADS-B coverage, is being offered for $7,250 during the show (list price $9,320).

The 93 helicopter models currently covered under the Lynx approved model list supplemental type certificate (AML STC) include those from AgustaWestland/Finmeccanica, Airbus Helicopters, Bell, Enstrom, MD Helicopters, Robinson and Sikorsky. All Lynx models are approved under the AML STC, which includes the NGT-9000 and the remote mount NGT-2500 and -1000. Many of the Lynx models offer the ability to send weather and data to third-party iOS and Android apps via Wi-Fi. Additional information about Lynx is on L-3’s website, including a free app that simulates the Lynx touchscreen on iOS and Android devices. –R.R.P.

by Kerry Lynch Sikorsky’s Innovations group continues to progress on a spectrum of autonomous technologies as it preps its third optionally piloted helicopter for demonstration trials early next year. The company has been retrofitting a 1979 UH-60A obtained from the U.S. Army with a kit that incorporates its complete Matrix technology from full-authority control to other technologies that pave the way for autonomous missions.

“We want to demonstrate the fact that you don’t have to design this technology in new aircraft. You can retrofit it in

old aircraft and retrofit it in a reliable fashion,” said Igor Cherepinsky, chief of Sikorsky’s autonomy programs.

The aged Black Hawk is the next step of Sikorsky’s Matrix program, which has demonstrated a range of autonomous capabilities from technologies that assist the pilot to aircraft remotely controlled on the ground that can interface with remote-controlled ground vehicles.

The program, Cherepinsky said, is designed to look at “a spectrum of what is needed most for assistance. That goes anywhere from making current

products safer and easier to fly… to automating missions where the pilot starts to become more of a mission operator or a mission manager.” Sikorsky is exploring possibilities where the operator could be in the back of the aircraft or on the ground.

“That is the spectrum of what we’re working on. It really isn’t just about the fact we hope to remote control our aircraft or fly without a human being on board,” he said.

“There are things we can do to enhance safety and reliability of helicopters and enable our pilots to do missions that

SALUTE TO EXCELLENCE​

Troy Lewis saluted with Rolls-Royce excellence in helicopter mx award

by Amy Laboda Troy Lewis is being honored this week during Heli-Expo 2016 with the Rolls-Royce Excellence in Helicopter Maintenance Award, as part of HAI’s Salute to Excellence, which recognizes and honors those who present the helicopter industry in its best light. The awards cross the spectrum, from communications, law enforcement, safety and maintenance to humanitarian service and lifetime achievement.

Lewis is the area training manager for engine manufacturer Turbomeca USA. He began his aviation maintenance career in 1986 with Arlington, Texas-based

Inter-Turbine as a QC inspector.

He then joined Turbomeca’s quality department. During his tenure there, he was instrumental in establishing a number of programs that have saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“When I started my career at Turbomeca USA in 1991 it was a much smaller company,” Lewis told AIN. “This gave all of us an opportunity to learn many aspects about our engines as we all had to cover many different areas of the MRO and production process.”

During 20-plus years at Turbomeca, Lewis has trained thousands of aviation maintenance

Troy Lewis, lead instructor, Turbomeca USA, trains customer technicians on the details of maintaining Turbomeca helicopter engines.

technicians annually, both at the company’s Arlington training center and at customers’ maintenance facilities. “We have a great instructor network, and with that I think we all bring a great deal to the table and mentor each other,” Lewis said.

He became a customer-training instructor in 2008, and in 2014 was named lead instructor. As lead instructor, in addition to his regular teaching duties, Lewis is responsible for instructor audits, recurrent training and qualifications and for mentoring instructors in Turbomeca’s training network. “I enjoy when I can pass along historical information to a fellow instructor to give them a background of why a service bulletin or technical document came to be on an engine,” he said.

Lewis earned the Rolls-Royce award this year because of his knack for communicating clearly, sensing each student’s knowledge level and getting the information to them in a professional manner.

“The advice I give to students and those I mentor is that you must have passion. If you have a great passion for your job then it doesn’t really feel like a job at all,” Lewis said. “I feel very strongly about a famous philosophical quote: ‘What I hear I forget; what I see, I remember; what I do, I understand.’” n

Testing Under Way for Civil and Military Applications

The program has involved two test vehicles so far, the Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA), a modified S-76, which has been flying since July 2013, and, a UH-60MU flyby-wire helicopter that began trials in March 2014.

Equipped with a datalink and multi-spectral sensor package, the SARA aircraft is “really our flying lab for developing and maturing algorithms through hardware and …technology as a whole,” Cherepinsky said. The trials are “focusing on perception,” the ability to detect and avoid obstacles and operate in harsh conditions such as brownouts, he said. “We’ve developed a lot of sensing algorithms for things like landing zones and obstacle avoidance,” he added. This includes evaluating dynamic route planning, the ability to sense obstacles and reroute missions in real-time. Studies also have been under way on the man-to-machine interface.

The Black Hawk, meanwhile,

initially conducted demonstrations of ground-control technologies to enable optionally piloted expeditionary operations and cargo resupply. More recently, Sikorsky teamed with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to demonstrate cooperative missions between the helicopter and CMU’s unmanned ground vehicle.

Miller has been encouraged that “the technology advances that we’ve made in this program have been significant. We’ve been very pleased with the pace at which we’re demonstrating a whole range of automation of different capabilities.”

Sikorsky has moved the first of the developed technologies into service, a software update for the S-92 that automates approaches to oil rigs. The technology brings the helicopter to a “standoff” distance of the rig and the pilot moves the helicopter over to final landing. FAA- and EASA-approved, the app “takes a very high-workload, higher-risk maneuver and makes it safer and highly repeatable,” Miller said.

This is the first of what the Sikorsky executives promise will be a series of technologies that will transfer into service, although for competitive reasons they are not specifying what might be next or when. But Miller said the company will “port” over the technologies as customers begin to accept the autonomous functions and certification authorities come on board. “Those are the big considerations. We are working that just as hard as if not harder than the actual technology,” he said. o

MATT THURBER

Sikorsky progresses on spectrum of autonomous helo technologies

we can’t do today,” added Mark Miller, v-p of research and engineering for Sikorsky Aircraft.

Noting that helicopters operate in stressful obstacle-rich environments, he said the program is designed to address those challenges with built-in safety redundancies. “Our aircraft are critical assets. These are large-scale helicopters so it’s not like a drone where you have an acceptance of some rate of failure.”

STEADY AS SHE GOES Some 50 helicopters, including this colorful EC130B4, landed at the Heli-Expo helipad here at the Kentucky Exposition Center on Friday and Saturday. The marshallers are highly trained and adhere to strict safety protocols, beginning each morning with a pilot briefing session.

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Sequoia Helicopters chose Skytrac’s flight-data monitoring solution to meet the FAA’s April 2018 mandate for Part 135 aeromedical helicopters.

Skytrac flight-data monitoring keeps tabs on Sequoia’s B212s

by Amy Laboda About two years ago the FAA made final a long-anticipated rule affecting helicopter air ambulance (HAA) operators in the U.S. The rule requires HAA flights with medical personnel onboard to operate under Part 135 rules. HAA flights operating under Part 135 must meet a number of enhanced operational requirements and equipment parameters, including the use of radar altimeters, terrain awareness systems and flight data monitoring systems.

The final FAA rule reads: “After April 23, 2018, no person may operate a

helicopter in air ambulance operations unless it is equipped with an approved Flight Data Monitoring System (FDMS) capable of recording flight performance data.” Why FDMS? Rulemakers realized that HAA operations could benefit from the ability to provide critical information to investigators in the event of an accident.

Skytrac (Booth 2300), based in British Columbia, recently introduced its Skytrac 2 solution. “Skytrac 2 is part of a new brand identity that reflects our evolution over the past three decades,” said Skytrac CEO Stephen Sorocky. “The

aviation industry is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and clients are looking for more than simple GPS tracking.

Data is about capturing previously hidden information and incorporating it into your overall operating procedures,” he said.

With business in oil and gas, firefighting and tourism, Sequoia Helicopters is working with Skytrac to stay ahead of the curve on the new rule. It announced recently that it selected Skytrac’s Helicopter Flight Data Monitoring (HFDM) for its Bell 212 fleet. Sequoia was looking for a solution that could assist the company with both proactive safety programs and cost-saving maintenance management.

“We have an extremely experienced crew working in complex environments that involve remote territories and, frequently, heavy workload cycles. Skytrac HFDM will help us monitor trends in engine parameters, inadvertent exceedances and other maintenance issues that could impact aircraft performance over time,” said Sequoia CEO Ralph Wagner. “For us, equipping now is about demonstrating to our clients that we are passionate about providing safe, reliable and high-quality services.

Our clients need to know they’ll get the timely response they need because our

aircraft are in top shape and ready to go at all times.”

Sorocky is emphatic in his portrayal of the importance of HFDM systems such as Skytrac. “Tapping into the onboard sensor systems, even of older aircraft, can offer a wealth of insight into everything from hard landings and unstable approaches to OOOI events and pilot duty hours. Skytrac has tools for reconciling bill-by-the-mile systems against high-resolution flight path GPS coordinates. Layered weather data and realtime exceedance alerts offer even more tracking and accountability.”

The Sequoia Skytrac HFDM program is scheduled to take place over three phases. The solution will harvest data from the fleet’s onboard sensor systems and log in-flight activity for post-flight analysis. Real-time notifications will be sent to maintenance support staff based on predetermined values, which will expedite any field-support requirements.

All data for Sequoia will be retrievable through Skytrac’s SkyWeb software portal, with options for mobile alerts. The final phase of implementation will incorporate the aircraft’s onboard weight scale to capture and relay water-drop positions and volume data for wildfire management agencies.

Skytrac flight following, flight data and communications technology systems are certified on more than 900 airframes. o

Sequoia Helicopters is implementing the use of Skytrac flight data monitoring systems in three phases on its Bell 212 fleet.

MATT THURBER

Dart Aerospace launches helicopter mx network

BLADE RUNNERS Three of the five rotor blades on the Bell 525 were removed so that the super-medium twin helicopter could be towed through the doors of the Kentucky Exposition Center. The in-development helicopter is making both its public and Heli-Expo debuts this week. Its smaller stablemate, the 505 light single, is also making its debut here in Louisville.

46 HAI Convention News • March 1, 2016 • www.ainonline.com

Dart Aerospace recently launched its new approved maintenance center (AMC) network. These new AMC partners offer a selection of accessories, parts and maintenance solutions from helicopter accessory specialist Dart. Ultimately, this network will allow rotorcraft operations and private owners to have more access to Dart aftermarket solutions in their area.

In Canada, the new AMC partners include Avialta Helicopter Maintenance, Eagle Copters Maintenance and EuroTec. Meanwhile, 11 companies have joined the network in the U.S.: Advanced Helicopter Services, Cascase Helicopter Services, Hangar One Avionics, Hillsboro

Aviation, Rotorcraft Support (RSI), UniFlight (Grand Prairie, Northeast and West Penn), Rotorcraft Services Group (RSG), Sterling Helicopter, Summit Helicopters, Metro Aviation and Paradigm Aerospace. Dart also intends to appoint partners in Australasia, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

In addition to offering Dart solutions, these AMC partners will have the opportunity to work with Dart’s marketing, product development and customer support teams. While this network has been put in place, helicopter operators and private owners still have the option to work with Dart Aerospace (Booth 7143) directly. –S.C.

Aviall sees growth for parts, service in global markets

by Matt Thurber Boeing-owned parts distributor and service provider Aviall is seeing strength in every segment, buoyed by improved efficiencies as a result of implementing a new SAP enterprise resource planning system two years ago. “The results of this investment were evident in record fourth quarter sales and shipments,” said Ed Dolanski, recently promoted to president of Global Services and Support at Boeing. “During the year, we reported strong sales in commercial aviation and also enjoyed solid sales in the general aviation, business aviation and military segments. For 2016, the aerospace industry is in a strong position as well and shows promise going forward as economic conditions, fuel prices, international growth and the overall market continue to improve.”

For Aviall (Booth 4151), commercial, general and business aviation and

Aircraft parts distributor and service provider Aviall reported strong sales and shipments in the fourth quarter thanks in part to a new SAP enterprise resource planning system.

military markets offer increased growth opportunities in the rest of the world, including Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Aviall has 27 facilities in North America capable of next-day freight deliveries to 97 percent of its customers, according to Dolanski. An additional seven stocking locations in Australia and New Zealand support those countries’ general aviation and helicopter markets.

“Throughout my career, I have come to understand that having the right part on hand when it is needed is crucial to success,” he said. “At Aviall, we work extremely hard to simplify the supply chain while also ensuring we stay committed to quality service and convenience. A customer-first mentality is crucial. For example, the implementation of SAP at Aviall has launched us light-years ahead of where we were technologically and provides an even greater convenience for our customers.”

Aviall isn’t just a parts house, although it does market and distribute about two million unique aircraft and engine parts for 240 manufacturers from 40 locations worldwide, 20 of which are repair stations. “As a company, we remain committed to expanding our global repair management services,” Dolanski said, “which include battery services, hose assembly and fabrication, paint mixing, wheel and brake services, chemical management and others.

“Our many locations allow us to provide a variety of supply chain services including order processing, stocking and fulfillment systems,” he said.

“Having a local presence allows us to better offer the products and services of our 240 original equipment manufacturers, and better serve our customers on a continual basis.”

Aviall distributes about two million unique aircraft and engine parts for 240 manufacturers from 40 locations around the world.

Inset: Boeing president of Global Services and Support Ed Dolanski.

New distribution deals include a 10-year extension of an agreement with legacy parts manufacturer Ontic. Aviall also signed a distribution agreement with Esterline Korry for its Korry, Mason and Janco cockpit displays, rotary and pushbutton switches, indicators and flight controls.

Another agreement is with DeWal Tapes for thermal spray tapes used in plasma spraying applications. And Aviall and Lord signed an amendment adding the Bell

Helicopter 204, 212, 214, 222, 230, 412, 429 and 430 to their existing contract.

“Throughout our operations, we consistently examine how we do business,” Dolanski said. “We have recently reorganized our distribution centers in an effort to better align our processes at each facility. This alignment has shown a significant positive impact to our customer service and has improved the overall customer experience.” o

Global helicopter operator and manufacturer Erickson is utilizing its capabilities in support of the U.S. Navy’s heavy lift rotorcraft fleet. The Oregon-based company (Booth 9251) recently delivered the last of five spare tail pylon units for the CH-53E Super Stallion, the largest helicopter operated by the service. Erickson was contracted by Sikorsky, now owned by Lockheed Martin, to build the out-of-production assemblies at its facility at Central Point, Ore. “Erickson is increasingly a trusted provider of contemporary maintenance and repair services, which this project exemplifies,” noted company president and CEO Jeff Roberts. “Our extensive history with the Sikorsky aircraft specifically enables us to perform this important work for the U.S. Marine Corps.” Erickson purchased the type certificate of the former Sikorsky S-54 (CH-54) heavy lift helicopter, a contemporary of the CH-53, in 1992 and is now the world’s largest operator of the type. In addition to remanufacturing legacy airframes it is also building new versions of the iconic S-64E Air-Crane.

Erickson further leveraged that experience when it was selected as a subcontractor by Adams Communication and Engineering Technologies (ACET) to refurbish a pair of MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters. It is the first contract awarded by the U.S. Navy to a commercial contractor for a depot-level maintenance event of an MH-53E, according to Kerry Jarandson, the company’s vice president of MRO and manufacturing. Work on the first helicopter began last month at Erickson’s facility at Rogue Valley International Airport in Medford, Ore. “Erickson is pleased to partner with ACET in support of this project, said Roberts. “We take great pride in assisting the U.S. Navy to enhance their fleet capabilities.”

–C.E.

MATT THURBER

ERICKSON SUPPORTS NAVY HEAVY LIFT PROGRAM

SUPER PUMA MAKES THIS LOOK SUPER EASY The foldable rotor blades on the Airbus Helicopters Super Puma made it a snap to get the heavy twin through the exhibit hall door at the Kentucky Exposition Center. While Heli-Expo 2016 attendees ogle at this behemoth this week, Airbus is working to begin shipments of its predecessor H225 later this year. The H225 will have a higher fuel payload that will expand the radius of action to 300 miles with 10 passengers.

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