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 by dollar volume 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.
Snow Flight
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 G500H PFD/MFD, a Garmin 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 radar altitude information on the G500H PFD; Technisonic TDFM-9000 radio in a variety of single- to four-band options; and an Aerocomputers moving-map 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.
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 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.
Why a Cadet?
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 two-place 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 air-conditioning, 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 low-cost, 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.”