Volume 44 Number 3 Summer 2021 VOLUME 44 - NUMBER 3 - Summer 2021 This ex-US Army UH-60 Black 69 Hawk, VH-UHS, is one of two DRF Luftrettung upgrade H145s...Leonardo Next Generation Civil put into service by Aerotech in Adelaide, South Australia for Tiltrotor moving towards completion...First Biofuel H145 flight... fire fighting. Fitted with 4,000 RotorX to enter eVTOL market...TAI design approval...etc... litre belly tanks and snorkels for refilling from any water source, the aircraft are also the 90 first Australian commercially owned Black Hawks to go on Spring 2021 the CASA register after efforts to certify ex-Australian military Black Hawks failed to pass CASA scrutiny. 75 74 83 84 86 91 88 89 The Collective Column 68 A Fairey Tale 87 75 76 US Army introduces upgraded UH-60V...Leonardo hand over latest HH-139B...Venom and Viper reach milestone...First CH-47F Chinook for Singapore Air Force delivered etc... Avia Press Associates 2021 Spring 2021 78 Page 67 IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE 50 YEARS have passed since Agusta carried out the first flight of the shapely A109 helicopter at their Cascina Costa factory, but we remember at the time thinking how well the Italian flair for design had surely given the company a big head start over its competitors in the light twin market. The 2.4 tonne eight seater, with its four-blade articulated rotor, semi-rigid two-blade tail rotor and retractable landing gear certainly looked the part, but mechanical challenges meant it took a little over four years from the first flight on 4 August 1971 to certification and entry into service. Since then the basic model has been considerably improved and upgraded, with the current 3 tonne class AW109E Power, AW109S Grand, and GrandNew typifying the success of the aircraft. In fact over 1,600 aircraft have been sold over those 50 years, whilst the company itself found a firm foothold in Philadelphia where it established its first A109 support centre as North American sales lifted off. Whilst the lengthy gestation gave rivals, including the Bell 222, a chance to catch up, nevertheless the A109 was the first of a new generation and as such has a guaranteed place in history. * The US Army next generation FARA (Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft) and FLRAA (Future Long Range Assault Aircraft) competitions are beginning to look distinctly wobbly and very expensive to the outside observer. The Army’s project manager has already said that the original performance requirements for the future rotorcraft “are not compatible” with the law of physics and that the schedule previously set for the competitive fly off in the FARA programme is not attainable either. FARA sees Sikorsky with its advanced compound Raider X coaxial rotor design going head-to-head with the much simpler Bell 360 Invictus, which now uses the company’s Model 525 rotor and transmission system after abandoning various shrouded tail rotor options. Whilst the latter offers far less technical risk, it doesn’t meet the performance levels promised by the Raider X, provided of course that reliability and field maintenance issues are not an issue for the latter. These same features are in play with the FLRAA, where Sikorsky Boeing remain very coy regarding progress with their larger compound coaxial offering, the SB-1 Defiant X. In this competition the partners are up against a Bell tiltrotor, developed from the V-280 Valor which has already completed its full demonstration programme and has now been retired. With Bell now looking again at folded proprotors on tiltrotors to further increase range and performance, one wonders where FLRAA will eventually go. Page 68 DRF Luftrettung upgrade H145s DRF Luftrettung has begun upgrading its fleet of Airbus H145 helicopters from the four-blade to a five-blade configuration, in a three year programme that also involved modifications to the transmission, exchanging batteries and software updates. Previously the company took delivery last December of a brand new five-bladed H145 from Airbus, which entered operational service in the Stuttgart region in March and provided further confidence for the retrofit programme. This first retrofit was carried out the trials prove successful and demonstrate Above: This Airbus H145 of ADAC Luftrettung was demonstrated at the beginning of June, using in cooperation with Airbus at their the viability of the UAV operations, the partners believe that both the urban and sustainable aviation fuel in its Safran Arriel 2E Donauwörth factory, providing initial engines. The biofuel is manufactured by Total from experience for the DRF technicians and rural areas of Ireland could benefit hugely, recycled cooking oil. a template process for all the following both from the testing and development of retrofits. Future conversions are being drone research and the services that can TAI design approval carried out in the DRF hangar facility at follow. the company’s Operations Centre at Turkish Aerospace Industries has now Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport. In Leonardo Next Generation Civil received design organisation approval from addition to upgrading its own H145s to Tiltrotor moving towards completion the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (SHGM) for the development of large the new configuration, DRF also plans in Industry sources have revealed that the helicopters, in particular the T625 Gökbey future to offer the retrofit to external Leonardo Next Generation Civil Tiltrotor multi-role twin-engine machine currently clients too. (NGCT) demonstrator should be moving under test. This 6 tonne class helicopter is Meanwhile the first conversion is into the final assembly phase by the end of presently powered by two 1,300shp LHTEC being deployed to the DRF Luftrettung this year, at the company’s Cascina Costa CTS 800-4-AT turboshaft engines, but is due Villinger-Schwenningen station, based at the facility in Italy. The basic airframe is already to be re-engined with an indigenous Schwarzwald-Baar-Klinikum in Baden- in manufacture, using an AW609 tiltrotor Württemberg. Here the helicopter will be fuselage modified to accept a straight wing powerplant, being developed by TUSAS on standby 24/7 at the only night station in and Vee tail unit. Engine Industries, and will be produced for the region. As Christoph 11 the aircraft is on This fuselage, originally from one both commercial and military use. call to the German Red Cross for missions of the prototype BA609s built under the Securing design organisation across 12 districts in the area, with crews original Bell-Agusta partnership approval for large aircraft will be followed by carrying out over 1,700 missions annually. In programmes, is due to begin the component obtaining separate type certificates for each addition to getting emergency doctors to installation phase during 2022, in helicopter or aeroplane being developed in locations quickly, the helicopter is conjunction with partner companies under the future. In the case of the T625 this will equipped to act as an airborne Intensive the European Clean Sky 2 programme, with follow the completion of the current flight Care Unit (ICU) and is also used for the fast Leonardo saying the demonstrator is on and ground tests programme, expected by and gentle transport of ICU patients schedule for a 2023 maiden flight. 2023. between hospitals. MoU signed for first Irish vertiport First Biofuel H145 flight ... London-based Skyports and Future Mobility ADAC Luftrettung has carried out a first flight with an Airbus H145 rescue helicopter, D- Campus Ireland (FMCI) have signed a HYAJ, using sustainable aviation fuel in its Safran Arriel 2E turboshaft engines. The Memorandum of Understanding to establish demonstration, carried out at the air rescue station at Munich’s Harlaching Clinic in the a new consortium aiming to operate presence of ADAC, Safran Engines, Airbus Helicopters and TotalEnergies executives, was Ireland’s first passenger and cargo vertiport followed by the signing of a long term agreement between ADAC and Safran Engines to at Shannon Airport on the Irish west coast. further develop the use of sustainable fuels. Two other companies, Artrain which Biofuel is currently certified and approved for aviation use in a maximum blend operates Unmanned Air Vehicles and also of 50 percent, mixed with conventional Jet-A1 kerosene and the demonstration flight used trains operators, and aviation and property a 40 percent blend, but the goal for Safran is to reach a 100 percent sustainable fuel target, developer the Shannon Group have also using residual waste from the food industry with no negative effect on agricultural food signed up. production. The aim of the partners is to set up The Biofuel fuelling the H145 is a second generation development, produced Ireland’s first air taxi service as well as by TotalEnergies at its refinery in Normandy from recycled cooking oil. With this fuel ADAC routine drone flights, under beyond visual- estimates it could achieve a 33 percent reduction in Co2 emissions across its fleet which, line-of-sight (BVLOS) technology, with a with more than 50,000 missions and over 3.3 million km (2,050,524.93 miles) flown per year, base at the FMCI which is located adjacent equates to a reduction of around 6,000 tons of Co2. to the airport. BVLOS trial flights could Safran and ADAC are now launching the next stage of the project with one rescue begin this coming September, with the helicopter in Cologne. This will study all aspects of biofuel usage on the H145, with an Vertiport becoming operational in 2022. If operational evaluation to start as early as this summer. Page 69 and with a new tank divided into four compartments and holding 4 tonnes of water that can be loaded within 60 seconds. The automated system will also add up to 400 litres of foam agent.