Bell Textron Inc.has restarted UH-1Y Venom helicopter production for the first international operator. Crestview Aerospace has completed manufacturing the first of eight cabins at the Crestview Florida facility. The aircraft will complete final assembly at the Bell Amarillo Assembly Center. The helicopters are part of the 2020 U.S. Department of Defense contract awarded to Bell for the p...
JSC Russian Helicopters, part of State Corporation Rostec, is gearing up to present several brand new civil helicopters at the MAKS-2021 air show. Visitors to the International Aviation and Space Salon will be able to get their first view of the Mi-171A3, the Ka-32A11M, and the Ansat-M. The new Mi-171A3 is the first Russian helicopter designed for offshore operations and servicing off...
Bell Textron delivered a Bell 505 helicopter to W.A. Oil Factory and Distribution PLC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, its first corporate customer in the country. With this latest acquisition, there are almost 30 Bell 505s in operation across six countries in Africa and the Middle East. “The Bell 505 is an exceptional aircraft for corporate transportation, exceeding customers’ expe...
Safran Helicopter Engines has received FAA type certification for its Arrano 1A engine, installed in the Airbus H160 helicopter. Arrano is a new-generation turboshaft in the 1,100 to 1,300 shp power range. It integrates the best in aero-engine technologies and offers a 15 % reduction in fuel consumption over other in-service helicopter engines. Arrano received EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency...
Safran Helicopter Engines and Global Turbine Asia (GTA) have renewed their contract to support Makila 2A of the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF). Powering their H225M helicopters, over 30 Makila engines will continue to be covered by Safran’s Global Support Package (GSP). Since 2014, this agreement has proved its efficiency to satisfy RMAF’s requirements for optimum availability during...
For the first time, Safran Helicopter Engines has run an Arrano engine using 38% of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at its Bordes plant in SW France. This biofuel was produced from used cooking oil. The ground run marks the first step of a strategy to deploy SAF in engine test cells at all Safran Helicopter Engines plants. By the end of the year, the manufacturer plans to use at least 10% SAF at a...
Italian Minister of Defence Lorenzo Guerini and Italian Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Alberto Rosso attended the acceptance ceremony of an Italian Air Force HH-139B helicopter during an official visit to Leonardo’s helicopter facility in Vergiate (Italy). Leonardo CEO Alessandro Profumo, Leonardo General Manager Lucio Valerio Cioffi, and Leonardo Helicopters’ MD Gian Piero Cutillo were...
60 years ago, on June 24, 1961, Mi-8 took off for the first time, ultimately becoming the most widely used twin-engine helicopter in aviation history. It is called the “helicopter with hundred professions” that can be seen all over the world: over 13,000 have been delivered to more than 80 countries. The development of Mi-8 by Mil Design Bureau began in the second half of the 1950s....
Leonardo announced that building work will shortly commence on a new c.£30 million single-site logistics facility at Leonardo’s helicopter site in Yeovil. The ground-breaking facility, spanning an area of nearly 20,000m2, the equivalent of 2.7 football pitches, is scheduled to be completed in Q4 2022. The project sees the consolidation of eight existing warehouses into one all-enc...
SAF Group will be operating three more five-bladed H145s for emergency medical services (EMS) in France. These three aircraft will be based in Grenoble, Valence, and Montpellier. They will complement the three H145s already ordered by SAF in 2018 and 2020, the first of which was delivered recently and will be deployed for EMS missions in Belgium. SAF CEO Tristan Serretta says: “Introducin...
At a ceremony on its Philadelphia campus and under the backdrop of the Stars and Stripes, Leonardo officially delivered the first TH-73A training helicopter to the U.S. Navy. The ceremony was attended by Vice Admiral Kenneth Whitesell, commander of Naval Air Forces and Commander, Naval Air Force U.S. Pacific Fleet; Rear Admiral Gregory Harris, Director of Air Warfare Division (N98); and Captain Ho...
Russian Helicopters has successfully tested the additional fuel tank of the Ansat helicopter for resistance during an emergency landing. Certification tests were carried out at the Kazan Helicopters plant by dropping a tank filled with a contrast liquid from a height of 15.2 meters. This kind of testing was done for the first time in Russia, but has been carried out earlier abroad. A special pl...
