Kopter is now targeting the entry into service for its upcoming SH09 towards the end of 2022/early 2023, as the third prototype of the aircraft continues flight tests with a new configuration.
The program resumed flight testing on Jan. 19 following an extensive retrofit, which provided an upgraded gearbox and elongated mast, a new flight controls configuration (moving them from inside to outside the rotor mast – a more conventional approach for a civil helicopter), and a new tail rotor hub.
The changes to the flight controls have been completed with a view to improving maintenance access for customers – a sign of the program’s increasing maturity.
“We are not only designing the aircraft for performance, we’re also designing the aircraft for ease of maintenance,” said Michele Riccobono, Kopter CTO and head of flight operations. “At the end of the day, a good product is not only a helicopter that flies fast and carries payload, it is also a helicopter that has a decent maintenance cost.”
The retrofit also included the installation of the Garmin G3000H integrated flight deck, which was flown in a helicopter for the first time in the SH09.
“On the avionics, you never know what will happen [during integration], and if the avionics doesn’t work, the aircraft can’t fly,” said Riccobono. “But thanks to all the preparatory work that was done . . . the integration was seamless, and since the first day, since the first engine start, everything was working as expected.”
The team had already recorded 25 flight hours with the new configuration when Vertical spoke with Kopter in early March, a feat that Riccobono called “quite remarkable” given the challenges of the pandemic restrictions and the cold Swiss winter weather.
He said the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting governmental restrictions have had a limited impact on the program, although it was one of the reasons the prototype was relocated to Kopter’s headquarters in Mollis, Switzerland, from Sicily – where it had been performing flight tests – in September 2020.
In practical terms, teams have been alternating between working at home and at the facility in Mollis, while “new normal” measures, such as social distancing and wearing masks, are also in place.
The flight campaign is now in the middle of the “reopening of the flight envelope,” said Riccobono.
This has already been expanded beyond the limits reached before the modifications, with the team having reached 10,000 feet (3,050 meters). The aircraft’s certified maximum takeoff weight will be 2.85 tonnes (6,280 pounds).
“We are very, very happy with what we are seeing,” said Riccobono. “The aircraft has made significant improvements in all areas of controllability, handling qualities, and performance.”
Over the coming weeks, the flight test team will continue to expand the flight envelope, with oxygen set to be installed in the aircraft to allow it to fly beyond 10,000 feet (as is required by regulations).
The SH09 will be certified in stages, with initial certification followed by expansions following further cold, and hot-and-high trials. As the initial certification target will be at 16,000 feet (4,875 meters), this is the target altitude over the next few weeks.
“I am going to be there [16,000 feet] I think before the end of March,” said Riccobono.
Two more pre-serial aircraft will join the certification program over the next year. PS4 is currently in production and is due to begin test flights in the third quarter of this year, with PS5 set to join it three or four months later.
The two newest aircraft will feature further “aerodynamic refinement,” said Riccobono, mainly impacting the cowling.
PS4 and PS5 will fly the bulk of the certification flights, but Riccobono believes P3 will still have a role to play in performing some compliance flights. After the SH09 has gained its initial type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency, PS5 will then be used to complete cold trials, likely in Alaska, where it will be flown at – 40/45 C (- 40/49 F). It will then move to Colorado for hot-and-high trials.
Ultimately, the aircraft will also have a four-axis autopilot certified – a process that Riccobono hopes will be straightforward thanks to the stability the SH09 is already demonstrating in flight tests.
“It’s really an aircraft that sometimes, looking from the outside, or from the inside . . . you believe this aircraft has an autopilot,” he said. “It is so stable, it looks like it has an autopilot. And this makes me very happy because it means that when we start the integration of an autopilot, it will not be a struggle, because the aircraft is designed to be stable inherently on its own.”
A change in ownership
Kopter was bought by Leonardo in a blockbuster $185 million deal announced during HAI Heli-Expo 2020 in Anaheim, California, in January 2020. At the time, Kopter was targeting certification of the SH09 by the end of 2020, but this has moved to the right since the acquisition.
Instead of certification, the Kopter team said its primary focus was the aircraft’s entry into service. With an end of 2022/start of 2023 target for the latter, Kopter CEO Marco Viola simply said certification “will be some point before that.”
Viola has been CEO of Kopter since Andreas Lowenstein left the company in September, initially on an interim basis, before being appointed permanently in November. Viola had previously been in charge of Kopter’s integration within Leonardo.
In bringing the SH09 to market, Viola said he is keen for it to retain its individuality within the Leonardo product line.
“Obviously the SH09 does have some peculiarities or characteristics that we don’t want to change,” he said. “In my previous mission, which was integration, one of the words always repeated and kept in mind was to maintain and preserve the peculiarity [of the SH09], starting from the people, the way of working, the mindset, but also and above all, on the product.
“[Leonardo’s helicopter division] are putting on the table of Kopter – wherever needed – the expertise, technical skills, database, tools, the data to accelerate in some way the direction of the product roadmap.”
Viola said the market has responded positively to Leonardo’s acquisition of the SH09 manufacturer. “Kopter [being] part of this big family will benefit from Leonardo’s commercial and the global support network, which we are going to extend,” he said. “We are focusing our attention on stabilizing and enlarging the partnership [with distributors] in all the key market areas.”
One of the most significant changes for the program following the acquisition has been the production plan. The SH09 was originally to be manufactured in Mollis, joined by a site in the U.S. in Lafayette, Louisiana. Assembly will now be performed at Leonardo’s existing final assembly line in Vergiate, Italy, where the AW109, AW139, AW149, AW169 and AW189 are currently produced.
The future for the Lafayette facility in uncertain, thanks largely to Leonardo’s substantial U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“We already have … an important and significant plant there in Philadelphia, which covers manufacturing to customer support and training activities,” said Viola. However, he said the decision is still to be made.
As for Kopter’s facility in Mollis, it will focus on prototype manufacture and flight tests in the near term. Longer term, Viola said Leonardo is looking at Kopter as “an incubator for new technologies and technical skills.” Among these will be hybrid and electric propulsion.
Riccobono confirmed that Kopter is already exploring the hybridization of the SH09. “Thanks to some unique characteristics of the SH09 . . . this is also easier to do,” he said. “There is a future of hybrid for the SH09.”
At the time of Leonardo’s acquisition of Kopter, the SH09 order book stood at over 70, with more than 100 letters of intent. Leonardo is not disclosing any changes to those numbers over the last year.
