The Second Prototype Of The Skye SH09 Helicopter

The First flight of P2, the second prototype of the Marenco Swisshelicopter SH09, was performed Friday with Richard Trueman, Chief Test Pilot, at the controls and Peter Wittwer as Flight-Test Engineer at the company's facilities at Mollis airport in Switzerland.

"This first flight of the second prototype of the SKYe SH09 was a total success, all the test objectives were easily achieved and the aircraft performed extremely well," Trueman said. "The crisp handling qualities combined with the ergonomic and intuitive cockpit features made the SKYe SH09 a pleasure to operate."

The first analysis of the flight confirms low noise levels for the SH09, which is the result of optimized designs, of the blades planform, the low tip speed, as well as the “Maestro” - Marenco’s shrouded tail rotor, the company said.

The first phase of test flights for P2 is now underway, with the initial trials covering hover flights at low speeds and low altitudes before moving on to hover flights outside the ground effect at moderate speeds. This will be followed by trials confirming systems behaviour and avionics accuracy, flying limited auto-rotations and initial performance and stability trials. Finally, testing will move on to handling, load survey and exploring the helicopter’s full Height Velocity curves, to confirm the safe combinations of altitude and airspeed during auto-rotational landings.

With this successful first flight, Marenco Swisshelicopter says it is on track for its first deliveries.

(Images provided with Marenco Swisshelicopter news release)

FMI: www.marenco.ch