What's The Buzz At Verticon?
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Hello and welcome to this edition of Aviation Week's Check 6 podcast. I'm Senior Editor Guy Norris and with me is Tony Osborne, a London-based European Defence Editor and resident guru on all things rotary winged. Oh, I wouldn't go that far, Guy. Okay. Just take it.

You join us at actually what is the very first Vertical Aviation International Verticon conference here in Dallas, Texas. In case you've never heard of Verticon, don't be alarmed. It's the former HAI Heli Expo show, which was rebranded last year to recognize the growth of vertical lift beyond the traditional helicopter industry.

It's the biggest vertical lift conference or convention of its kind in the world. There's more than 15,000 attendees here, 600 plus exhibitors, around 60 aircraft on display and over 100 safety and education sessions which go along sort of alongside it for the industry. But the thing that Tony and I love about it, it's more impressively named now because when you, particularly when you try saying it with a sort of Hollywood style

Voice over. Yeah, Verticon. Verticon. It does sound like one of those events that would have been in Blade Runner in 2040 or something like that. It's really quite exciting. So we're all in favor of the rebrand. So Tony, let's start by mentioning some of the highlights, particularly that rarest of events, at least in terms of recent shows.

the launch of not one but two new helicopters, the Airbus H140 and the Robinson R-88. Let's start with you. It's an incredible year actually. I mean, we've gone, I think the last time we had a new aircraft was probably the Airbus H160, which, you know, I think we're talking nearly 10 years ago. So yeah, it's even more impressive to have too. So as we

into the show, we had the sort of gut feeling that light helicopters would be on the agenda. And my God, we were right. So firstly, Airbus H140. So we got a sneak peek of this just before the show down in Germany. And this is, it's fair to say it's probably quite a low risk venture by Airbus, but a way of basically building

bringing a new product into the sort of light twin engine market. So what we've got as an aircraft is

built on the legacy of the H135. That's the German-made twin-engine light helicopter. And what Airbus have done is they've increased the size of the fuselage, put a five-bladed main rotor on it, and increased the height of it, and done some other sort of important things. The key thing is that increase in the volume of the cabin makes it very attractive for operations like emergency medical services, like the sirens you can hear right now outside our window, very conveniently timed.

but just that minor increase in size means that you can squeeze more passengers on board, you can potentially carry two stretchers or it gives you more room to do more in the cabin. And

And we can see from the show, they've already secured the first three years of production for that program. So we've seen orders from companies like Germany's ADAC and OAMTC, which are emergency medical operators, air methods, Metro Aviation, who provide services but also build medical interiors.

So that aircraft's already gotten off to a good start. And the thing is, Airbus don't really need to worry about cannibalizing sales of the H-135 because they've already got a significant percentage of this market. They now have three aircraft in the light twin market. By comparison, there's only a handful of others. You've got Bell's 429 and you've got the Leonardo AW109. Of course, things like the MD helicopters, MD-900, no longer are built or...

So, you know, it's just basically going to give Airbus more market share in this. It's still an important market, particularly in Europe, where they demand twin-engined aircraft for over urban areas and still popular here in the United States as well, even without that mandated requirement.

Right, yes, and of course, over here in the States, the big news from the US perspective was the launch by Robinson helicopters of this much-anticipated R-88. It really extends Robinson's reach into an area they've never been in before, sort of bunching above their weight, potentially, but we don't think so. It seems like they're really sort of grappling with

ambitious plans that go beyond simply the launch of this new helicopter to include

sort of all sorts of associated work with UAS, UAVs. So it's sort of part of a bigger picture expansion that the company's looking at. Well, I mean, the past year has been incredible for Robinson, hasn't it? We had the arrival of the new CEO at last year's Heli Expo with a big bang, if you like. And he's... The company's like one that's transformed. I mean, we saw a launch of an aircraft like we'd never seen anything from Robinson in the past. I mean, we were there...

Sunday evening and, you know, there was this, it was almost like a rave-like atmosphere. Yes, it was very, very unlike the traditional Robinson. We've all been, you know, sort of family-owned, quaint almost, and very loyal customers. Of course, that's not changing. But obviously what is changing is the line-up, you know, with the addition of this much larger helicopter. It's got a planned internal payload of 2,800 pounds and a range of over 350 nautical miles.

And powered by a French engine. Powered by a French engine, the 1,000-horsepower, shaft-horsepower, Safran Ariel 2W turbo-shaft. But it's remarkable because they're managing to squeeze up to eight passengers and two crew seats into this design. It's got sort of this amazing sort of truck bed-style rear door for simpler cargo and stretcher loading.

And the other thing, of course, it's still clearly recognisable as a Robinson design. It looks a bit like a wide-body Robinson. If the R66 was your Boeing 737, then this is the 777 of Robinsons. It's really, really impressively wide. It really is, yeah. And, you know, of course, the fact they've been able to redesign it with the

the Safran engine above the cabin means that it's in line with the transmission. So therefore, it looks a bit more fed in. It looks a bit more like some of the other competitors in that market. I think it's probably important to point out it's also going to continue to feature that traditional teetering two-bladed main rotor and two-bladed tail rotor. So that makes for an incredibly tall mast, which...

We sort of we're still wondering about how that how that's going to work and how comfortable operators are going to be with that because it makes for an incredibly tall aircraft. It does. You're right. And, you know, you and I have sort of not joked about it, but we've sort of said it's really like the rebirth of a Huey type. Yeah, absolutely. It's like if you think of it as a model 204 or 205, it's really sort of getting into that category of aircraft. It's like the Huey reborn, but under a different brand name.

Absolutely. So going beyond the new helicopters, what else has sort of grabbed your attention here? I mean, there's also been lots of technology, as you've been exploring. One of the interesting underlying tones of this event, so this is a commercial helicopter event, let's be honest. But everyone is aware of this quite significant upcoming US Army program here, Flight Training Next, which...

basically, potentially replaced the hundreds of Airbus UH-72 Lakotas that are currently in service at Fort Novosel down in Alabama, formerly known as Fort Rucker or Mother Rucker, as I think a lot of its students know it as. And that's sort of the home of U.S. Army rotorcraft training. So the U.S. Army

is becoming increasingly apparently dissatisfied with partly the availability and reliability of that platform, but they're also concerned about the quality of the pilots that are coming out. A series of recent accidents, and we're not talking about the incident in DCA here, but

where aircraft have perhaps lost tail rotor authority and pilots have not been aware that they need to stamp their foot on the anti-torque pedals to try and deal with that and the aircraft has been lost as a result. And the Army increasingly believes that basic piloting skills have been lost when they're training on a complex aircraft that does a lot of this for you.

So now they're looking at going down maybe the single engine path with a simpler helicopter that can do things like auto rotation, things you can't really do with a Lakota. Or they didn't believe that you would need to do on a twin engine platform because all of it's all automated. Blackhawks, Apaches, Chinooks, they're all twin engine. Right. And so the Lakota was hoped to produce a pilot that would...

be better at doing missions and running systems, but actually they need that piloting skill. So we've actually seen in the last week all of these emerging competitors jumping into this space. Robinson, we just mentioned, is going to push for the R-66 into that. Yeah, we've got Bell with the Model 505. They're going to do a specialist version. It's important to mention that all of these aircraft will need probably a glass cockpit to sort of

give pilots a decent understanding of modern avionics. So they'll also need to be instrument flight rules rated, IFR rated. So that's a lot of work for some of these smaller aircraft. So as we've already mentioned, Bell 505, R-66, Leonardo plans to offer the AW119, which is already in service with the US Navy with the amusing name of the Frasher.

The thrashers. But we've also learnt that Schweitzer wants to go in with this programme, with the S-333, which would be a return of that aircraft. And, of course, Enstrom with the 33... What would that be? Be a turbine. Yeah, it would be probably a member of the...

But yes, anyway, the 480, maybe the 480B perhaps. But yeah, in fact, just talking about Enstrom, you know, you've covered them a lot in the past and, you know, followed this sort of the ups and downs of that company. It's another of these classic stories, isn't it? Of a famous name, you know, sort of struggling to survive and coming back from the dead almost. Yeah.

And of course, they've got some good news coming through. And finally, they've got hoping to within the next few months to achieve certification of this crash resistant fuel system, which, you know, is going to be a game changer for them in terms of actually getting back to selling in the US. This has been a big issue, actually, for a lot of these smaller aircraft manufacturers. So when the FAA mandated crash resistant fuel systems,

it's sort of caught the industry partially off guard. And they've all basically had to stop selling in the United States. So, you know, Enstrom, MD had the same issue, Schweitzer as well. So it's been a real bugbear for them. They've had to sort of

build that capability up and score some of these companies had struggled. Enstrom had been in Chapter 11, so had MD for MD also faced financial difficulties some time ago as well. So yeah, that crash worthy fuel systems has been a bugbear that they now seem to be overcoming and hopefully they can start selling back in the United States at least and that's not impacted foreign sales.

But I think once you sell in the United States, then the foreign sales follow as well. SIMON HUGHES: Yeah. And then of course, in terms of new technology, we've seen a few interesting things here this week, haven't we?

One that really caught my eye was LA-based company, they're an automated sort of cockpit developer, Skyrise. We've seen them partner with United Rotorcraft in this case, which is part of the air medical service provider of air methods to support their version of the R-66, which is called the Skyrise 1. It's a modified version of the R-66.

And essentially, it's a fly-by-wire retrofit. It's astonishing, isn't it? And it's just the first of several that they're planning. They're hoping to do the same things with the Airbus H125, the 130, and...

Even the Black Hawk, which they see as a huge market, particularly seeing as you'd be able to get into the firefighting role and really utilize the... It's really sort of improving pilot situational awareness, allow them to get on with the mission rather than having to worry about managing the helicopter.

And of course, just improving this general handling. But I thought that was really interesting to see those sort of developments coming through. Well, imagine the cost saving of not having to have a pilot on board or the productivity of perhaps, you know, having three or four aircraft going off to do firefighting without, you know, without the sort of that incumbent risk. And, you know, being able to do that all day, you know, just putting fuel in and then going off to collect water, dousing the fire and come back.

Yeah, it's potentially massive. And as I understand it, much cheaper than perhaps some of the legacy optionally piloted systems that have been developed by some of the other players in this industry, some of the bigger players. Yes, yeah. Thinking maybe Sikorsky Matrix, for example. Absolutely, yeah. We were both looking at each other then, thinking, are we going to say that? But yes, it's exactly...

And the other sort of technology-related story that caught my eye was the announcement by MagniX, the electric propulsion developer, that it's basically going to launch a new family of electric helicopter engines. And it sort of really speaks to why Verticon is Verticon, beginning to see these expanding out of non-traditional areas, you know,

So this family is called Helistorm. Helistorm. It's almost as good as Verticon. So what is Helistorm? It's sort of this lightweight. I mean, that's the great thing about electric engines. You could get an awful lot of power out of a very lightweight unit.

high-speed electric engine family covering between 6,000 and 7,000 RPM. And the first engine that they're talking about will provide this peak power of around 330 kilowatts. And this sort of really leverages a lot of the lessons learned that they've been getting from, you know, the flying this, again, it's an R44 re-engined with their 350 kilowatt MagniX engine. So, yeah, I see...

Further down the road on that, Unitho Therapeutics, that organ transplant company, have been really pushing that sort of retrofit idea. And now, of course, Robinson is supporting the follow-on development of a hybrid electric hydrogen-based fuel cell-powered system.

R66 version for that. So all sorts of new, you know, new directions, really. And just thinking of technology, it would be really amiss not to mention the oil and gas industry here at the show. So, you know, as you've probably seen, and I think we've probably talked on this podcast before about the sort of the return of the oil and gas industry after several years of difficulties among some of the operators, Chapter 11's oversupply of helicopters, etc.

That oversupply is now transitioning into a lack of supply of helicopters. Aircraft are being heavily utilized. As President Trump said, drill, baby, drill. And the oil companies are doing that. And they are going exploring all over the world. And they are digging out oil. And they're going for gas. And to do that, they need helicopters to support their operations offshore. So we're seeing this increased number of sales. And we're also now seeing the introduction of new helicopters into that role. So

Earlier this week, we saw the H-160 has now been introduced by PHI Aviation in the renamed Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. And then, of course, we're also seeing now the steady approach of Bell's 525, the long-awaited fly-by-wire supermedium aircraft. Now, still not certified. It's taken a very long time and

Good luck to Bell for having the patience of getting there, but they appear to be very close. And so they are hoping that the second half of the year they can perform a operational evaluation with a company called Omni Helicopters International. That's a Portuguese operator. And the aircraft will go off and fly 500 hours in Guyana in Latin America. And they will put it through its paces. They are going to break it as much as they can, fly it to rig, fly it in challenging weather.

do refueling offshore, slam doors, close doors, everything that the roughneck will throw at the aircraft. And that will potentially pave the way then for aircraft

Operators then see the aircraft to go. Ah, right. Yeah, we think that's now ready Of course, the key thing for this is the big Norwegian order from Equinor Which was announced last year and you know, they want to get that into service in Norway to try and diversify the fleet That's up there, which is largely based of Sikorsky s92s. So currently that fleet is around sort of 50 to 60 aircraft and

And if there's an issue, it's critical infrastructure, those aircraft. So if something happens to one of those aircraft and the fleet are grounded, the oil and gas industry grounds to halt as well. So they need to diversify that fleet. And the Norwegian operators and the Norwegian oil companies are...

trying to find a way of doing that. And 525 is one of those solutions. So, yeah, we're getting to the point where that aircraft could soon be entering service. We just wait and see. And wishing Bell good luck on that one because we've been waiting for that for a very long time. In the same way, we've been waiting for things like commercial tilt rotor from Leonardo. So...

Yes, I'm glad you mentioned the 525. And in fact, we definitely picked up the sort of feeling that, yes, this is actually really going to happen now. And there was a sort of subdued sense of excitement from the Bell team, wasn't there, over that? Very distinctive. It's the first time they've really openly, for quite a while, it feels like, that they've been really forthcoming about talking about the programme. They put all the key people up to chat to.

And I think the excitement is building that this is finally getting there. And they need to get it done because obviously they've got

Big fish to fry in terms of things like the U.S. Army's FLARA program. And they've also got to think about the future of their other commercial platforms, which, you know, it's fair to say that some of them are aging. I mean, 505s, you know, 505 and the 525 are the newest, but, you know, you've still got things like 407s and Bell 412s that are based on Jet Rangers and Hueys. So, yeah, those need refreshing and, you know, Bell needs to get to work on those. Right. But just like classic cars, you know. Talking of classic cars. Yeah.

My favorite story of the show is speaking to McDermott Aviation. So they are a company down in Australia who want to rebuild Bell 214ST. Now, if you're not familiar with what the Bell 214ST is...

Imagine a Huey. So yeah, the Huey is the staple of every Hollywood movie. I mean, they even dub the noise of Hueys into the... over the noise of every other helicopter. So you imagine a Huey, but then double it in size and then put the most enormous cord blade on it. And then you get a rough idea of Bell 214ST. And this is an aircraft that was actually designed for Iran, for the Shah of Iran's Air Force at the time. But they never got delivered.

because of the overthrow of the Shah back in 1979. So these aircraft then found their way into different parts of the world doing offshore stuff. And John McDermott, the company's owner, bought the remaining fleet and has been using them as a firefighting fleet, particularly in Greece, where they've been doing sterling work. He's been working on trying to restart production of them. He's hoping to sort of sell them for...

Around 20 million. So not cheap, but he thinks that it's a great aircraft. You can put water tanks on it, you can put Bambi buckets on it, and you can carry firefighters.

But I mean, it's pretty agricultural. But you need these big heavy lift aircraft to go and fight fires, especially as fire seasons get longer. Fires are getting more and more severe, as we've just seen in California. So they might be on to a good thing there.

Yeah, and what I like about this show is also the little discoveries that you make sometimes just walking around. And one of those that I saw was this amazing... It's a tiny little sentence. I mean, literally, it would easily fit in your hand. It's, you know, it's like about two or three inches tall and it just projects out of the... underneath the nose of the helicopter. It's been developed by Metro Aviation, which...

There's an EMS provider out here with Outerlink Global Solutions. And basically what it does, I tell you, it's a tiny little thing. It just fits underneath the nose. But it actually monitors the difference in real time between air temperature and dew point. And why that's important is because this is known as the temperature dew point spread. And

the more the gap narrows between the two, the narrower it gets, the more likely you are to get formation of cloud. So, you know, as you know, working in covering this industry for so long, terrain into, controlled flight into terrain and flight into IMC, instrument meteorological conditions, are the two leading causes of rotorcraft crashes. And this is basically one of the answers to

getting immediate information to the crew that they're about to fly into something that wasn't on the forecast and The great thing about it is that using outer link they're down linking that information. It's a bit like um, like a like a day to let military data link system really and

they immediately are able to tell crew to look out for this situation. And what they're saying is the more helicopters are provided with this system, the more it'll crowdsource that information in the fleet and provide a network of real-time weather data, which is so vital for sort of nap-of-the-earth type operations that helicopters do. It sounds a bit like sort of the Waze maps where you're feeding information about the traffic conditions. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So crowdsourcing, there you go.

Need one of those for the UK weather. Fortunately, it's sunny here in Dallas, but back in London, I'm sure it's cloudy. Yeah, well, you'll have to deal with that in just a few days. But well, I guess, unfortunately, we are out of time. But I'm sure we'll be back and revisit the topic many times because, you know, the rotary industry is just on a really on a growth path.

But anyway, for now, that's a wrap for this week's Check 6. Special thanks, of course, to our podcast editor, Guy Fernio. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Check 6 so that you never miss an episode. If

If you found today's discussion with Tony and I to be helpful, and of course our colleagues who do this every week, consider leaving a rating or review or wherever you listen to your podcast. Better still, you can share this episode with a friend or colleague. So thank you for your time and have a great week. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening.