Matt Hasik, Bell Helicopter executive vice president for commercial business, reported solid progress on the 505 light-single and 525 super-medium-twin development programs going into this year’s Heli-Expo.
The 505 made its first flight in November, and by early February the first flight test vehicle already had flown 50 hours. A second flight test vehicle will join the program shortly, and a third will be added over the the summer. Cumulatively, Hasik expects all three flight-test ships to accumulate 600 to 800 hours during the certification program. To date, he said the program is “moving along well and we are very confident.”
Hasik said he still expects the 505 to receive Transport Canada certification late this year and said that “for the most part” the supplier team had been selected, including Turbomeca for the dual-channel Fadec Arrius 2R engine (504 shp) and Garmin for the G1000H avionics. He said kit design to meet the 505’s three announced basic configurations–utility, law enforcement, and corporate/VIP–were “well underway.” Hasik did not reveal an exact price for the 505, but said it would be “just over a million dollars.” He said customer interest is strong with Bell holding more than 300 letters of intent for the 505.
Bell broke ground on its 505 production plant in Lafayette, La. in August. “We expect to move into that facility in early summer,” Hasik said, adding that assembly of the first production 505s should occur there late this year.
On the 525, Bell is aiming for first flight early in the second quarter of this year. Ground tests on the first test ship currently are underway and a second test ship is moving down the assembly line at Bell’s Amarillo, Texas facility. Altogether, five aircraft will join the flight test program, including three prototypes and two pre-production aircraft. Hasik characterized the quality of the part fit and finish on the 525 as “unprecedented” for Bell. He said the safety of flight checks on the first test ship are largely completed including those for the rotor system, the latter including blade fatigue tests, dampers and elastomeric CF bearings. Completed drive system safety-of-flight qualification testing includes the intermediate tail rotor gearbox and accessory gearboxes for the main rotor.
Flight control testing on the digital fly-by-wire system also is going well, Hasik said. The first configuration of the flight control software was frozen in November and safety-of-flight tests on it “are proceeding quite well. We do anticipate making changes to the software in response to things that we see [during flight test] and we will be adding capability to the software as the program goes on. We will freeze the software code, in all probability, late in the flight test program.”
Design and development on the first two kits for the 525, oil and gas (OGP) and search-and-rescue, is proceeding after thorough vetting with customer advisory groups. Bell is developing 16- and 20-passenger interiors for the OGP market. “Those are the two largest market segments we anticipate for the aircraft,” Hasik said. Other kits to be developed include utility, firefighting and corporate/VIP/VVIP. “We’ve had quite a bit of interest from the VVIP segment for this aircraft,” he noted “and we have some great plans to make those interiors quite extraordinary.” Hasik said Bell is developing VIP interiors for the aircraft both in-house and with partners.