The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) is spreading the safety recommendations contained in a government/industry rewrite of Part 23 certification rules here at Heli-Expo’13. “One of the primary focuses that we have had over the past year is to try to look at how we are regulated and how those regulations just strangle our abilities to get safety-enhancing technologies into the cockpit,” GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce said during the association’s release of 2012 year-end shipments last month.
HAI Convention News
March 5, 2013 - 9:30am
Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland signed a memorandum of understanding in late January to establish a joint venture with Brazilian aircraft company Embraer. The plans calls for the two companies to manufacture AgustaWestland helicopters in Brazil for both the domestic and regional military and civilian markets.
March 5, 2013 - 9:30am
Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland signed a memorandum of understanding in late January to establish a joint venture with Brazilian aircraft company Embraer. The plans calls for the two companies to manufacture AgustaWestland helicopters in Brazil for both the domestic and regional military and civilian markets.
March 5, 2013 - 9:00am
Cobham Aerospace Communication’s Digital Audio Control System (DACS) has been selected for Life Flight Network’s 15 new AgustaWestland AW119Kx helicopters. The Aurora, Ore.-based aeromedical transport provider is the launch customer for the AW119Kx and will be taking delivery of its first aircraft this year. According to Cobham, the DACS is a compact and lightweight unit that “distributes and controls aircraft audio to/from all transceivers, receivers and audio warning systems.” Software in the DACS allows customization of the system to fit customer needs.
March 5, 2013 - 6:00am
Global demand for helicopters is expected to increase over the next five years, according to the results of Honeywell’s Turbine-Powered Civil Helicopter Purchase Outlook survey, released here at Heli-Expo ‘13. Deliveries of new civilian-use helicopters will total between 4,900 and 5,600 units during 2013-2017 according to the survey, with strong demand focused in the first three years of the period and reflected in every region of the world. This is 35 percent higher for this three-year period than was recorded in last year’s survey.
March 5, 2013 - 6:00am
Bristow Helicopters, the largest global helicopter provider, is set to become the U.S. launch customer for the not-yet-certified Eurocopter EC175. Representatives of the operator and manufacturer are expected to sign the purchase agreement at Eurocopter’s Heli-Expo booth (No. C2922) at 3 p.m. this afternoon, here in Las Vegas.
March 5, 2013 - 3:01am
Lease Corporation International (LCI), which signed a large helicopter order with AgustaWestland at last year’s Heli-Expo show, has announced an agreement with aerial services group Avincis (Booth No. C7211), which is leasing a new AW139. This will be operated for offshore crew changes in North Sea oil and gas fields by Avincis’s Aberdeen-based subsidiary Bond Offshore Helicopters.
March 4, 2013 - 8:15pm
The aircraft modification segment of Butler National’s wholly owned subsidiary Avcon (Booth No. C3004) is exhibiting at Heli-Expo for the first time. Avcon is armed with a novel concept design for a skid-mount portable system for Lidar system operations in rotorcraft. Avcon modifies business and cargo aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotorcraft, in Newton, Kansas, and provides many FAA-approved solutions to a variety of operators.
March 4, 2013 - 7:45pm
MD Helicopters unveiled at Heli-Expo yesterday its Next Generation Cockpit for the MD Explorer, featuring an integrated, single-pilot IFR-capable flight deck from Universal Avionics.
“It’s a huge upgrade to the aircraft–exactly what customers are asking us for,” said Lynn Tilton, CEO and principal of Patriarch Partners, which owns MD Helicopters. “This is the beginning of great things for the [MD Explorer] 902 on its 20th anniversary.”
March 4, 2013 - 7:35pm
Steve Hickok is understandably proud of the work his company has done to bring safe and reliable GPS-enabled lateral navigation (LNAV) and localizer performance with vertical guidance (LPV) approaches to helicopter operators across the U.S. In fact, every helicopter Waas LPV approach approved since 2008 has been developed by Hickok & Associates (Booth No. N6204.)
