Podcast: What's The Buzz At Verticon?

Guy Norris (00:06):

Hello and welcome to this edition of Aviation Week's Check 6 podcast. I'm senior editor, Guy Norris. With me is Tony Osborne, a London-based European defense editor and resident guru on all things rotary winged.

Tony Osborne (00:18):

Oh, I wouldn't go that far out Guy. Okay,

Guy Norris (00:21):

Just take it the you join us at actually what is the very first vertical aviation international Verticon conference here in Dallas, Texas. In case you've never heard of Verticon, don't be alarmed. It's the former HAI Heli-Expo show, which was rebranded last year to recognize the growth of vertical lift beyond the traditional helicopter industry. It's the biggest vertical lift conference or convention of its kind in the world. There's more than 15,000 attendees here, 600 plus exhibitors, around 60 aircraft on display and over a hundred safety and education sessions, which go alongside it for the industry. But the thing that Tony and I love about it, it's more impressively named now because particularly when you try saying it with a sort of Hollywood style voiceover. Yeah, Verticon.

Tony Osborne (01:15):

Verticon, it does sound like one of those events that would've been in Blade Runner in 2040 or something like that.

Guy Norris (01:22):

It's really quite exciting. So we're all in favor of the rebrand. So Tony, let's start by mentioning some of the highlights, particularly that rarest of events, at least in terms of recent shows. The launch of not one, but two new helicopters, the Airbus H140 and the Robinson R88. Let's start with you.

Tony Osborne (01:43):

It's an incredible year actually. I mean, we've gone, I think the last time we had a new aircraft was probably the Airbus H160, which I think we are talking nearly 10 years ago and even more impressive to have two. So as we came into this show, we had this sort of gut feeling that light helicopters would be on the agenda and my God, we were right. So firstly, Airbus H140. So we got a sneak peek of this just before the show down in Germany. And this is, it's fair to say it's probably quite a low risk venture by Airbus, but a way of basically bringing a new product into the sort of light twin engine market. So what we've got as an aircraft is built on the legacy of the H135, that's the German made twin engine light helicopter. And what Airbus have done is they've increased the size of the fuselage, put a five bladed main rotor on it, and increased the height of it and done some other sort of important things.

(02:42):

The key thing is that increase in the volume of the cabin makes it very attractive for operations like emergency medical services, like the sirens you can hear right now outside our window, very conveniently timed, but just that minor increase in size means that you can squeeze more passengers on board. You can potentially carry two stretcher, bear two stretches, or it gives you more room to do more in the cabin. And we can see from the show they've already secured the first three years of production for that program. So we've seen orders from companies like Germany's ADAC and OAMTC, which are emergency medical operators, air Methods, Metro Aviation who provide services but also build medical interiors. So that aircraft's already gotten off to a good start. And the thing is, evers don't really need to worry about cannibalizing sales of the H 1 35 because they've already got a significant percentage of this market. They now have three aircraft in the light twin market by comparison, there's only a handful of others. You've got Bell’s 429 and you've got the Leonardo a AW109 of course things like the MD helicopters MD 900 and no longer a built or produced. So it's just basically going to give Airbus more market share in this. It's still an important market, particularly in Europe where they demand twin engine aircraft for over urban areas and still popular here in the United States as well, even without that mandated requirement.

Guy Norris (04:14):

Right? Yes. And of course over here in the States, the big news from the US perspective was the launched by Robinson Helicopters of this much anticipated R 88. It really extends Robinson's reach into an area they've never been in before, sort of punching above their weight potentially. But we don't think so. It seems like they're really grappling with ambitious plans that go beyond simply the launch of this new helicopter to include sort of all sorts of associated work with UAS UAVs. So it's sort of part of a bigger picture expansion that the company's looking at. Well, I mean the

Tony Osborne (04:55):

Past year has been incredible for Robinson, hasn't it? We had the arrival of the new CEO last year's Heli Expo with a big bang if you like, and he's the companies like one that's transformed. I mean, we saw a launch of an aircraft, we'd never seen anything from Robinson in the past. I mean we were there Sunday evening and it was almost like a rave like atmosphere.

Guy Norris (05:18):

Yes. It was very, very unlike the traditional Robinson that we've all been sort of family owned, quaint almost, and very loyal customers. Of course that's not changing. But obviously what is changing is the lineup with the addition of this much larger helicopter. It's got a planned internal payload of 2,800 pounds and the range of over 350 nautical miles and powered by a French engine powered by French engine, the 1000 shaft horsepower Safran Arriel 2W turbo shaft. But it's remarkable because they're managing to squeeze up to eight passengers and two crew seats into this design. It's got sort of this amazing sort of truck bed style rear door for simpler cargo and stretcher loading. And the other thing, of course, it's still clearly recognizable as a Robinson design.

Tony Osborne (06:13):

It looks a bit like a wide body Robinson. The R 66 was your Boeing 7 37. Then this is the triple seven of Robinson's. It's really, really impressively wide. It

Guy Norris (06:22):

Really is. And of course the fact they've been able to redesign it with the Safran engine above the cabin means that it's in line with the transmissions. So therefore it looks a bit more fed in. It looks a bit more like some of the other competitors in that market. I think it's probably

Tony Osborne (06:40):

Important to point out is also going to continue to feature that traditional teetering two bladed main rotor and two bladed tail rotor. So that makes for an incredibly tall mast, which we're still wondering about how that's going to work and how comfortable operators are going to be with that because it makes for an incredibly tall aircraft.

Guy Norris (06:59):

It does, you're right. And U of I have sort of not joked about it, but we've sort of said it's really like the rebirth of a Huey type. Yeah, absolutely.

Tony Osborne (07:08):

It's like if you think of it as a model 204 or 205, it's really sort of getting into that category of aircraft. It's like the Huey reborn, but under a different brand name. Absolutely.

Guy Norris (07:20):

So

Tony Osborne (07:20):

Going beyond the new helicopters, what else has sort of grabbed your attention here? I mean there's obviously been lots of technology as you've been exploring. One of the interesting underlying tones of this event, so this is a commercial helicopter event, let's be honest, but everyone is aware of this quite significant upcoming US Army program here. Flight training next, which will basically potentially replace the hundreds of Airbus 72 Lakota that are currently in service at Fort Novosel down in Alabama, formerly known as Fort Rucker or Mother Rucker, as I think a lot of its students know it as. And that's the home of US Army rotorcraft training. So the US Army is becoming increasingly apparently dissatisfied with partly the availability of reliability of that platform, but they're also concerned about the quality of the pilots that are coming out, a series of recent accidents. And yeah, we're not talking about the incident in DCA here, but where aircraft have perhaps lost tail road to authority and pilots have not been aware that they need to stamp their foot on the anti torque pedals to try and deal with that. And the aircraft has been lost as a result. And the Army increasingly believes that basic piloting skills have been lost when they're training on a complex aircraft that does a lot of this for you. So now they're looking at going down maybe the single engine path with a simpler helicopter that can do things like auto rotation, things you can't really do with a Lakota or they didn't believe that you would need to do on a twin engine platform because all of its, it's all automated. Blackhawks, Apaches, chins, they're all twin

Guy Norris (09:01):

Engine, right?

Tony Osborne (09:03):

So they wanted, the Lakota was hoped to reduce a pilot that would be better at doing missions and running systems, but actually they need that piloting skill.

Guy Norris (09:13):

So we've actually seen in the last week all of these emerging competitors jumping into this space, Robinson that we just mentioned is going to push for the R 66

Tony Osborne (09:23):

Into that. Yeah, we've got Bell with the model 505, they're going to do a specialist version. It's important to mention that all of these aircraft will need probably a glass cock pit to give pilots a decent understanding of modern avionics. So there'll also need to be instrument, instrument flight rules rated IFI rated. So that's a lot of work for some of these smaller aircraft. So as we've already mentioned, bell 5 0 5, R 66, Leonardo plans to offer the AW119, which is already in service with the US Navy with the amusing name of the Thrasher. But we've also learned that Schweitzer wants to go in with this program with the S333which would be a return of that aircraft. And of course

Guy Norris (10:11):

Strom with the three three, what would that be?

Tony Osborne (10:15):

A turbine?

Guy Norris (10:16):

Yeah, it would be probably a member of the, yes. Anyway, maybe the 480B perhaps. But yeah, in fact, just talking about Strom, you've covered them a lot in the past and we followed the ups and downs of that company. It's another of these classic stories, isn't it, of a famous name struggling to survive and coming back from the dead almost. And of course they had, they've got some good news coming through and finally they've got hoping to within the next few months to achieve certification of this crash resistant fuel system, which is going to be a game changer for them. In terms of actually getting back to selling in the us,

Tony Osborne (10:58):

This has been a big issue actually for a lot of these smaller aircraft manufacturers. So when the FA mandated crash resistant fuel systems, it sort of caught the industry partially off guard and they've all basically had to stop selling in the United States. So Strom md, they had the same issue, Schweitzer as well. So it's been a real bugbear for them. They've had to sort of build that capability up. And of course some of these companies had struggled. Enstrom had been in chapter 11, so had MD for MD had also faced financial difficulties some time ago as well. So yeah, that Crashworthy fuel systems has been a bug bear that they now seem to be overcoming and hopefully they can start selling back in the United States at least. And that's not impacted foreign sales, but I think once you sell in the United States, then the foreign sales follow as well.

Guy Norris (11:48):

And then of course, in terms of new technology, we've seen a few interesting things here this week, haven't we? One that really caught my eye was LA based company. They're an automated sort of cockpit developer, Skyrise. We've seen them partner with United Rotorcraft in this case, which is part of the Air medical service provider air methods to support their version of the R66, which is called the Skyrise one. It's a modified version of the R66, and essentially it's fly by wire retrofit. It's astonishing, isn't it? And it's just the first of several that they're planning. They're hoping to do the same things with the Airbus H 1 25, the one 30, and even the Blackhawk, which as they see as a huge market, particularly seeing as you'd be able to get into the firefighting role and really utilize the, it's really sort of improving pilot situational awareness, allow them to get on with the mission rather than having to worry about managing the helicopter and of course just improving his general handling. But I thought that was really interesting to see those sort of developments

Tony Osborne (12:57):

Coming through. Well, imagine the cost saving of not having to have a pilot on board or the productivity of perhaps having three or four aircraft going off to do firefighting without that incumbent risk and being able to do that all day, just putting fuel in and then going off to collect water, dowsing the fire and come back. Yeah, it's potentially massive. And as I understand it, much cheaper than perhaps some of the legacy optionally piloted systems that have been developed by some of the other players in this industry. Some of the bigger players.

Guy Norris (13:28):

Yes. Yeah,

Tony Osborne (13:28):

Thinking maybe Sikorsky Matrix for example.

Guy Norris (13:31):

Absolutely. Yeah. We were both looking at each other then thinking, are we going to say that? But yes, it's exactly. And the other sort of technology related story that caught my eye was the announcement by magnis the electric propulsion developer, that it's basically going to launch a new family of electric helicopter engines. And it sort of really speaks to why Vercon is Vertigo unit beginning to see these expanding into out of nontraditional areas. So this family's called Heli Storm. Heli Storm, it's almost as good as Vertican. So what is Heli Storm? It's sort of this lightweight. I mean that's the great thing about electric engines. You could get an awful lot of power out of very lightweight unit, high speed electric engine family covering between six and 7,000 RPM and the first engine that they're talking about will provide this peak pad of around 330 kilowatts. And it really leverages a lot of the lessons learned that they've been getting from the flying. This again, it's an R 44 reen engine with their 350 kilowatt magnes engine. So yeah, I see further down the road on that UN therapeutics, that organ transplant company been really pushing that sort of retrofit idea. And now of course Robinson is supporting the follow on development of a hybrid electric hydrogen based fuel cell powered R 66 version for that. So all sorts of

Tony Osborne (15:11):

New directions really, I'm just thinking of technology, it would be really amiss not to mention the oil and gas industry here at the show. So as you've probably seen, and I think we've probably talked on this podcast before about the return of the oil and gas industry after several years of difficulties among some of the operators, chapter elevens, oversupply of helicopters, that oversupply is now transitioning into a lack of supply of helicopters. Aircraft are being heavily utilized as President Trump said drill, baby drill. And the oil companies are doing that and they are going exploring all over the world and they are digging out oil and they're going for gas. And to do that, they need helicopters to support their operations offshore. So we are seeing this increased number of sales and we're also now seeing the introduction of new helicopters into that role. So earlier this week we saw the H one 60 has now been introduced by PHI aviation in the renamed Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.

(16:13):

And then of course we're also seeing now the steady approach of Bell's 525, the long awaited fly by wire Super-medium aircraft. Now it is still not certified. It's taken a very long time and good luck to Bell for having the patience of getting there, but they appear to be very close. And so they're hoping that the second half of the year they can perform a operational evaluation with a company called Omni Helicopters International, that's a Portuguese operator. And the aircraft will go off and fly 500 hours in Guyana in Latin America and they will put it through its paces. They are going to break it as much as they can fly it to rigs flight in challenging weather, do refueling offshore slam doors, close doors, everything that the roughneck will throw at the aircraft. And that will potentially pave the way then for operators to then see the aircraft to go, right.

(17:11):

Yeah, we think that's now ready. And of course the key thing for this is the big Norwegian order from Ecuador, which was announced last year, and they want to get that into service in Norway to try and diversify the fleet that's up there, which is largely based of SS 90 twos. So currently that fleet is around 50 to 60 aircraft. And if there's an issue that the entire it's critical infrastructure, those aircraft, so if something happens for those aircraft and the feet are grounded, the oil and gas industry ground still halt as well. So they need to diversify that fee. And the Norwegian operators and the Norwegian oil companies are trying to find a way of doing that. And 525 is one of those solutions. So we are getting to the point where that aircraft could soon be entering service. We just wait and see. And wishing Bell, good luck on that one because we've been waiting for that for a very long time. In the same way we've been waiting for things like commercial tiltrotor from Leonardo. So

Guy Norris (18:09):

Yes, I'm glad you mentioned the 5 25 and in fact we definitely picked up the sort of feeling that yes, this is actually really going to happen now. And there was a sort of subdued sense of excitement from the Bell team wasn't there over that you very distinctive.

Tony Osborne (18:26):

It's the first time they've really openly for quite a while it feels like that they've been really forthcoming about talking about the program. They put all the key people up to chat two, and I think the excitement is building of this is finally getting that and they need to get it done because obviously they've got big fish to fry in terms of things like the US Army's flower program. And they've also got to think about the future of their other commercial platforms, which is fair to say that some of 'em are aging. I mean oh 5, 0 5 and 5 2 5 the newest. But you've still got things like four oh sevens and Bell 412 are based on Jet Rangers and Huey. So yeah, those need refreshing and Bell needs to get to work on those.

Guy Norris (19:05):

Right. But just like classic cars talking of classic cars,

Tony Osborne (19:11):

My favorite story of this show is speaking to McDermott Aviation. So they are a company down in Australia who want to rebuild Bell 214ST. Now if you're not familiar with what the Bell two and four St is, imagine a Huey. So yeah, the Huey is the staple of every Hollywood movie. I mean they even dub the noise of Hueys over the noise of every other helicopter. So imagine a Huey, but then double it in size and then put the most enormous chord blade on it. And then you get a rough idea of Bell 214ST. And this is an aircraft that was actually designed for Iran for the Shah of Iran's Air Force at the time, but they never got delivered because of the overthrow of the Shah back in 1979. So these aircraft then found their way into different parts of the world doing offshore stuff.

(20:00):

And John McDermott, the company's owner, bought the remaining fleet and has been using them as a firefighting fleet, and particularly in Greece where they've been doing sterling work. He's been working on trying to start restart production of them. He's hoping to sell them for around 20 million. So not cheap, but he thinks that it's a great aircraft. You can put fuel tank, you can put water tanks on it, you can put Bambi buckets on it and you can carry firefighters. But I mean it's pretty agricultural. But you lead these big heavy lift aircraft to go and fight fires, especially as fire seasons get longer. Fires are getting more and more severe as we've just seen in California. So they might be onto a good thing there.

Guy Norris (20:46):

And what I like about this show is also the little discoveries that you make sometimes just walking around. And one of those that I saw was this amazing, it's a tiny little sentence. I mean literally it would easily fit in your hand like about two or three inches tall. And it just projects underneath the nose of the helicopter. It's been developed by Metro Aviation, which is an EMS provider out here, outer Link Global Solutions. And basically what it does, I'd say it's tiny little thing, it just fits underneath the nose, but it actually monitors the difference in real time between air temperature and dew point. And why that's important is because this is known as the temperature dew point spread, and the more the gap narrows between the two, the narrower it gets, the more likely to get formation of cloud. So as you know, working in covering this industry for so long terrain into control flight into terrain and flight into IMC instrument, met conditions are the two leading causes of rotorcraft crashes.

(22:01):

And this is basically one of the answers to getting immediate information to the crew that they're about to fly into something that wasn't on the forecast. And the great thing about it is that using Outer Link, they're down linking that information. It's a bit like a military data link system, really, and they immediately are able to tell crew to look out for this situation. And what they're saying is, the more helicopters are provided with this system, the more it'll crowdsource that information in fleet and provide a network of real time weather data, which is so vital for NAPA of the earth type operations that helicopters do.

Tony Osborne (22:44):

Yeah, I do. It sounds a bit like sort of the Waze maps feeding information about the traffic condition.

Guy Norris (22:49):

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So crowdsourcing, there you go.

Tony Osborne (22:54):

Need one of those to the UK weather. Fortunately it's sunny here in Dallas, but back in London, I'm sure it's

Guy Norris (22:59):

Cloudy. Yeah, well you'll have to deal with that in just a few days, but well, I guess, unfortunately we are out of time, but I'm sure we'll be back and revisit the topic many times because the rotary industry is just really on a growth path. But anyway, for now, that's a wrap for this week's check six, a special thanks of course to our podcast editor, Guy Ferneyhough. Anyhow, and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Check 6 so that you never miss an episode. 

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