Bell believes it is in the very final stages of its long effort to gain certification of its Bell 525 super medium from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — having completed all flight testing required for the approval.
“Our objective is to certify this year,” Mike Deslatte, senior vice president for the Bell 525 program, told media at a press conference on the eve of VAI Verticon, the vertical-lift industry’s biggest annual tradeshow. “[But] we don’t own the timeline — that’s with the FAA. But what I can tell you is that this team has never been closer. We’ve never enjoyed the amount of momentum that we’ve got today with the FAA.”
The two remaining tests will take place in Bell’s system integration lab in Arlington, Texas. The first is failure mode regression testing, said Deslatte.
“[Bell has] to prove to the FAA that in all different flight regimes, this aircraft — with its reliability, its redundancy — that it continues to achieve safe flight and landing if you have an unanticipated failure of a system,” he said. “That’s pretty typical of a fly-by-wire control system.”
The second is a test involving the final software.
There will be no 525 on Bell’s booth at the show — due to the fact that the aircraft are busy preparing for market entry, said Deslatte.
Two of the three flight test aircraft are now working on post-certification cold weather expansion and full icing capability, in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and Marquette, Michigan, respectively. Together, they have flown hundreds of hours and recorded thousands of test points, said Deslatte.
The third experimental aircraft “is ready and waiting to begin F&R [function and reliability] testing with the FAA” once prerequisite activities are completed.
The fact that two of the aircraft have moved onto post type certification activities was a “pretty good signal that we’re close to the end [of certification],” Deslatte noted.
“While certification remains underway, our focus is clear execution and readiness,” he said. “We’re committed to delivering an aircraft to offshore oil-and-gas and other critical markets that meets the highest standards of safety and performance.”
At Verticon last year, Bell announced that Omni Helicopters Guyana will take part in a six-month, 500-hour operational evaluation with the 525 once the aircraft is certified. It will be flying a representative offshore oil-and-gas mission, building up to full operational tempo.
“Obviously, we know this aircraft very well — we’ve got over 3,000 flight hours in the flight test campaign,” said Deslatte. “But what we want to do is see it in its native environment with our customers, and see them use it every day, and find the things that we need to do to help make their operations as smooth as they can be when we enter this into service.”
In early January, two pilots from Omni completed a four-day familiarization course at the Bell Training Academy, which included eight hours in the Level C full flight simulator and three days of instructional courses.
Regarding the feedback from the pilots, Deslatte said it was all very positive.
“Every time we put a new person in the 525, they continue to be blown away by the smoothness of the ride, the quietness of the ride, the technology and how we’ve applied the fly-by-wire control system to provide pilot situational awareness, crew resource management — all the things that will make a meaningful change in safety when this aircraft reaches the market.”
Meanwhile, Bell has been stepping up discussion with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to work towards validation from the agency.
“[In 2025] we hosted 30 or 40 different familiarization reviews in different parts of the aircraft, different systems and subsystems, to get EASA up to speed with where we were as we are closing the gap on type certification with the FAA,” said Deslatte.
Bell received a draft validation working plan from EASA at the end of last year, and is working with the agency to define the remaining parts of the scope.
“We have a pretty good idea of what validation is going to look like on the 525 with EASA,” said Deslatte. “We look forward to working with them very closely.”
