Bell is proposing a “purpose-built” version of the 505 light-single for an emerging US Army requirement for a new training helicopter.
Changes over the baseline 505 are largely related to the introduction of single-pilot instrument flight rules (IFR) capability, says Carl Coffman, vice-president military sales and strategy, but also include minor modifications to the vertical fin.
Certification for the IFR enhancement is due this year, Coffman said during a 10 March briefing, noting that it could also benefit the civil market.
Under the army’s Flight School Next initiative, the service is exploring ways to reduce cost and boost throughput of its pilot training programme, which currently relies on the Airbus Helicopters UH-72A Lakota light-twin. Last October, the US Army issued a request for information (RFI) to industry seeking ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency in training new pilots.
Additionally, the service has expressed concern that using highly advanced helicopters for training keeps pilots from learning key flying skills.
Coffman says the service is looking for ways to make sure pilots “get back to being brilliant at the basics of flying”.
He anticipates the service moving to the request for proposals stage “sooner rather than later” and says Bell is already well advanced in preparing its response.
It will propose, he says, “something very different to the last 60 years of military training”. Bell does not see the need for a one-to-one replacement of the Lakota, believing that operational readiness improvements would enable it to “do it with a few less aircraft”.
Coffman estimates that by using the 505 rather than the Lakota “we can do it for half of what it’s costing right now and produce a better aviator,” he says.
Bell currently builds 505s in Montreal, Canada and sees no change to the industrial set up if selected by the army.
The 505 is already operated as a military flight trainer by Iraq, Jordan and South Korea.
