Story ID: 490
First Airbus Helicopters H160 Coming Together 
By: Gregory Polek
Caption: Pre-assembled rear fuselage "plug and play" ready
Word Count: 304

Airbus Helicopters has fitted the first pre-serial H160 medium twin with the rear fuselage at the company’s facility in Marignane, France. That component assembly was pre-assembled in Albacete, Spain, according to the site specialization strategy implemented by Airbus. The main fuselage of the first pre-serial aircraft arrived from the company’s facilities in Donauwörth, Germany, earlier in the year. A total of 10 pre-serial aircraft will be progressively assembled as the company fine-tunes its industrial process with the eventual goal of decreasing assembly lead times to 40 days at the full production rate.

The new H160 final assembly line at Marignane will integrate five major component assemblies that will be completed and tested before they reach the line. The flow will be automated and move down two production lines, each with several workstations capable of assembling the various H160 configurations. Airbus said it has the capacity to ramp production up to 50 helicopters per year after the H160 is certified in 2019. The first delivered H160 will be configured for commercial passenger transport for oil and gas, followed by an emergency medical services (EMS) version.  

The H160 features the Helionix avionics suite, an all-composite airframe, flat-floor cabin, oversize cabin windows, and a baggage compartment that can hold 661 pounds. Its cabin can be configured to seat four or eight passengers in executive/VIP layouts, or 12 in a utility configuration. The H160 also incorporates a variety of new technologies, among them Blue Edge active tracking main rotor blades in a five-blade system with a double-sweep design that reduces noise and contributes to a smoother ride, and new Safran Arrano engines that yield 10 to 15 percent better fuel consumption than the AS365/H155 family it replaces.

 

 

 
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