Bell now expects to obtain initial certification of its Bell 525 helicopter in 2022 as it continues to work toward approval by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Earlier this year, the company expressed optimism that the fly-by-wire super medium helicopter would be certified by the end of 2021. However, the timing is now out of the company’s hands, Bell’s senior vice president for Commercial Business, Patrick Moulay, told Vertical in mid-November.
“I think the dialogue with the FAA is going well. I think it’s a very active process. But we don’t want to put any timeline out there because this is frankly in the hands of the FAA now,” Moulay said during an interview at European Rotors in Cologne, Germany.
According to Bell, the company continues to engage with the FAA on type inspection authorization flight testing and is submitting certification artifacts to the FAA in parallel. While Moulay said Bell expects to see the certification process completed “somewhere in 2022,” he declined to say exactly when.
The latest schedule slip is one of many for the program that was first unveiled nearly a decade ago, at HAI Heli-Expo 2012. Nevertheless, Bell clearly believes it’s getting close to bringing the aircraft to market.
In September, the company opened a new 525 Experience Center at the Stavanger Airport in Norway, created to showcase the model’s capabilities for customers in the oil-and-gas, search-and-rescue (SAR), and military sectors. According to Moulay, oil-and-gas remains the primary target market for the 525, with the North Sea showing particular promise.
“The North Sea, and I would say the Norwegian side in particular, represents probably the biggest potential worldwide for the 525,” Moulay said. “So we are investing a lot of resources to make sure we present the aircraft to all the Norwegian stakeholders to make sure they understand what the 525 brings to the table in terms of safety, in terms of comfort, in terms of lifecycle cost.”
Bell already has an agreement with Wintershall Dea Norge AS that will see the oil-and-gas operator trial the Bell 525 in its exploration activities, Moulay noted. He predicted that European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) validation for the model will follow around six to nine months after FAA certification, which will allow the 525 to compete for various tenders.
“What is difficult for us is that until we know the certification date, it’s difficult to make a commitment to our customers when they can get the aircraft,” he acknowledged. “So this has been a bit slowing the direction of the 525, [but] as soon as we can get the certification date, it will be much easier of course to make commitments on those tenders.”
Meanwhile, Moulay said he also expects to see strong demand for the 525 in the search-and-rescue sector, although it will probably take a couple more years to certify all of the associated mission equipment.
“[For] search-and-rescue I think we have a competitive advantage in terms of performance when you look at the speed of the aircraft, when you look at the payload,” he said. Compared to heavy helicopters like the Airbus H225 and Sikorsky S-92, he claimed, the 525 should be able to do most of the same SAR missions at a cost savings of 30 percent.
“So we think over time, it has tremendous potential,” he said.
This article has been updated to indicate that Bell continues to engage with the FAA on type inspection authorization flight testing.
