Light Makes Right

Airbus Helicopters has received FAA type-certification for its H160 medium utility helicopter, thereby marking a milestone in the aircraft's development, and heralding its imminent entry into the U.S. market.

Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Evans stated: "We are pleased to receive FAA certification for the H160, which is testament to many years of hard work and commitment from our teams in order to deliver this multirole helicopter to the customers in North America who have already placed their trust in the H160. This aircraft features the highest level of innovation and we are confident that its advanced capabilities, along with our strong customer support network, will solidify its position as the preferred choice for customers in the U.S."

Intended to replace the AS365 and EC155 models in Airbus’s rotary-wing lineup, the H160 is a multi-role utility helicopter suited to missions the likes of offshore transportation, private and business helicopter charter, emergency medical services, commercial passenger transport, Search and Rescue, and law enforcement. The model was granted EASA type-certification in July 2020; first deliveries commenced in December 2021.

The H160’s design and construction feature numerous advanced materials and manufacturing technologies by which the helicopter is rendered lighter and more efficient than the models it supersedes. Among the weight-saving measures to which the H160’s svelte empty-weight is attributable is the absence of hydraulic landing gear and brakes. Eschewing convention, Airbus’s engineers relegated the businesses of articulating the H160’s tricycle undercarriage and arresting the rotation of its tiny wheels to electrical counterparts. According to Airbus the elimination of hydraulic components contemporaneously diminishes the H160’s mass and enhances its safety.

While the H160’s all-composite fuselage afforded Airbus’s engineers a high degree of freedom vis-à-vis the aircraft’s external styling, the push to keep the helicopter as light as possible precluded the integration of full de-icing and a fly-by-wire control systems—both deemed too heavy and costly to justify the respective benefits thereof.

The H160 is the first rotorcraft to feature the Blue Edge five-bladed main rotor, the double-swept shape of which reduces blade-vortex interactions (BVI)—a phenomenon occasioned by the impact of a rotor-blade with its own tip vortex. By mitigating BVI, Airbus’s boffins decreased the H160’s rotor noise-signature by 3-4 dB and raised the machine’s payload by one-hundred kilograms (220-pounds).

Further aerodynamic innovations by which the H160 is graced include a biplane tailplane stabilizer, which betters low-speed stability, and a canted-fenestron. The two structures combine to produce and extra eighty-kilograms (176-pounds) of lift. The H160, in fact, is the first civilian helicopter to make use of a canted-fenestron anti-torque tail rotor.

The H160’s power derives of two 1,280-shaft-horsepower Safran Arrano turboshaft engines. The gearbox driven the aforementioned powerplants is safeguarded by a doubly-redundant lubrication system which permits the H160 to fly for as long as five-hours—without incurring mechanical damage—following failure of the primary gearbox lubrication system.

At its business end, the H160 features a Helionix avionics suite comprising a total of four, 6-inch-by-eight-inch multifunction displays. Airbus Helicopters collaborated with Esterline CMC to develop portions of the avionics—specifically the CMA-9000 Flight Management System and CMA-5024 GPS landing system sensor by which the H160’s landing process may be automated.

To date, Airbus Helicopters has received orders for more than one-hundred H160s from global customers—to include some one-dozen U.S. users.

FMI: www.airbus.com/en/products-services/helicopters