Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Mark Huber

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 flight-test 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 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 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-by-wire 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 entry-level 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&amp;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.”

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