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Having been in the aerospace industry for over 30 years, this edition of the Farnborough air show is not Mitch Snyder’s first visit to this corner of Hampshire. However, it is his first as the chief executive of Bell Helicopter.
Snyder was promoted to the top job at the helicopter manufacturer in October 2015, succeeding John Garrison, who departed for another industry. Garrison had led something of a quiet revolution at the airframer, launching a pair of clean-sheet civil rotorcraft – the 505 Jet Ranger X and the 525 – and shored up its military business.
That was partly aided by Snyder, of course, who headed the firm’s defence division prior to taking the chief executive role.
While he does not appear about to embark on a revolution – the immediate priority being to shepherd the current development programmes to market – talk to Snyder for any length of time and the word that keeps cropping up is “innovation”, as he plots what comes next.
A dedicated innovation team has recently been set up and, says Snyder “we are offering them lots of questions and [proposing] solutions needed in the industry – technology as well as clean-sheet designs”.
He goes so far as to promise that under his leadership the company will “press harder” on innovation, noting that during his time running the military business it kicked off work on the V-280 Valor next-generation tiltrotor and introduced new technologies and capabilities to the V-22 Osprey.
“We are really looking for solutions that are not just next steps or upgrades, but are game-changers or jump-the-kerb technologies.” These could be added to existing platforms or clean-sheet designs, he points out.
One area of interest is automation and unmanned platforms. “We have started a little bit already to get Bell back into unmanned platforms – that’s where the world is heading,” he notes.
Bell has been eclipsed in this field by US rival Sikorsky with its Matrix technology initiative, which has culminated in the development of an optionally piloted UH-60 Black Hawk for the US Army. As Snyder notes: “There are certain folks that made strategic investments a long time ago and pushed hard into those areas.”
Bell had briefly been there too with its Eagle Eye unmanned tiltrotor, but, unable to find a customer, “we headed in a different direction”. However, the “enabling technologies” – notably fly-by-wire (FBW) controls – on its V-22 and commercial 525 “make it easier to develop unmanned systems”, he says.
Before embarking on any programme, however, Snyder says Bell needs to figure out “what solutions need to be brought to bear to the market and how do we design that?”
As an indication of the market potential, he points to the increasing interest in unmanned rotary-wing platforms both from the military – for intelligence-gathering or resupply missions, for example – and the civil market, for tasks such as pipeline monitoring or crop dusting: “In the commercial space, you can see things are moving that way already,” he says.
“I’m not saying I’m definitely into those segments, but there’s definitely demand on the commercial and military side and I believe Bell needs to be in that.”
He is, as you would expect, cagey about how advanced its development activities are. Nothing has flown so far, “but we are working to get to that point”. Bell, he says, is “looking at what clean-sheet platforms match up with the technology we already have”, for example, FBW systems and sense-and-avoid sensors.
Aside from the tentative steps into the unmanned segment and any other clean-sheet platform, Snyder is keen to look at new propulsion technology – whether that be using different sources of energy or hybrid powerplants – and to bring increased levels of automation to the cockpit in order to reduce pilot workload and increase situational awareness.
“That’s what we are looking at right now and assessing the market. It’s depressed now but it is going to come back,” he points out, referring to the challenging sales environment for all rotorcraft manufacturers.
But over the next two years, as its current commercial development programmes – the light-single 505 and super-medium 525 – enter service “it allows resources to be dedicated not just to what’s next in terms of products, but in terms of the technologies that will fit into those products.”
He says that it is taking a slightly different approach to its product strategy: rather than looking at where Bell has obvious gaps or upgrade requirements, instead it is asking: “Where is the market going to see a need?
“What we are asking is: where is the next segment and what technology will differentiate us when we enter that class? We are getting to the point where we know where we want to enter the market, but we don’t want the rest of the world to know right now.
“We are beginning to work on concepts for the next models,” he says.
In the meantime, of course, the focus is very much on the 505 and 525 as Bell works to gain certification for the civil pair in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Until late last year, the 505 – Bell’s belated successor the venerable 206 Jet Ranger – had been proceeding relatively smoothly towards Transport Canada approval.
There had been an enforced redesign of the horizontal stabiliser between the first and second prototypes, but otherwise progress on the Turbomeca Arrius 2R-powered helicopter had been rapid, particularly considering it was only launched in mid-2013.
But now certification and first delivery are set for the fourth quarter – not a 787-sized delay, but a delay nonetheless – and in the meantime Bell has to contend with moving the Jet Ranger X’s production line from Lafayette, Louisiana to Mirabel, Canada, where the initial flight-test prototypes were built.
In fact, it had only opened the Lafayette line in August last year, but in May 2016 it announced the shift of production north of the border to its “core” assembly facility for civil helicopters.
With output of other Mirabel-made civil models dipping on the back of the weak market, the change is “part of a consolidation effort”, says Snyder. “When we started the 505 we were full in Mirabel and we had to look for other places to grow,” he says.
The Canadian and Quebec governments have also modified the terms of their loans to Bell, but all parties have remained tight-lipped on what these are. In addition, there is no detail on what discussions took place between the two administrations and the manufacturer in the run-up to the decision.
One of the reasons for locating in Louisiana in the first place was to enable the cost of the 505 to be kept around the magic $1 million price point. However, Snyder insists that the move will not increase costs. “The aircraft was designed to be put together very efficiently, so we can use those same efficiencies in Canada. It is partly the way we build it that makes it so cost effective and we can do that in Mirabel or Lafayette,” he says, also noting that the exchange rate with Canada “is doing pretty well right now”.
Installation of the jigs and tooling is currently under way at Mirabel, with production due to begin later in the summer. In the meantime, Bell has begun the process of converting its hundreds of letters of intent into firm orders.
Flight tests have all but ended with the three-strong fleet having accumulated some 800h. “Now we are at the point of communicating with the authorities and preparing documents for presentation,” adds Snyder.
Meanwhile, the path to certification for the 9.1t 525, which is powered by twin GE Aviation CT7 engines, is less clear following a 6 July fatal crash involving the initial flight-test prototype. Prior to the accident the then three flight-test articles were closing in on 300h, and the programme was on track for 2017 certification.
Bell has yet to issue any detailed statement on the crash and its impact on the Relentless programme, however.
Development activities are advancing too on the V-280 next-generation tiltrotor – part of the US Army’s joint multirole technology demonstrator effort – ahead of a first flight next year. Wing join took place in April, and its nacelles are now fitted and the gearbox is being tested, with installation due later this year.
Source: Flight Daily News
