Targets Luxury Sports Car Market for Personal G-250 Variant
Swedish helicopter specialty company Savback is working with Italian outfit GHT Helicopters to create an ultra-light helicopter, an affordable, reliable product suitable for personal ownership and flight training. With an eye towards Italian automotive styling and design history, Savback's expertise in rotary-wing technology, and some outside-the-box thinking the pair see their offering as a dynamic addition to the quickly growing air mobility market.
Using the base of GHT's G-250 Eagle, a small capsule helicopter boasting low fuel consumption, FADEC, and performance belying its size, the companies are looking to create a more premium, upmarket version with striking styling and turbine-powered go-anywhere performance. The finishing touches of luxury interior styling, advanced avionics, a 100-knot top speed, and a 255 nm range will allow it to find a narrow but popular use case as a premium personal rotorcraft.
GHT emphasizes the Italian sports car influence, describing the 2 sport seats as spacious, but suitable for high performance, comfortable and secure. Advanced avionics and aircraft monitoring tech ensure nothing escapes the pilot's awareness, while living up to the target customer's expectations of premium, luxury travel. For prospective owners and pilots, the upcoming helicopter could be "a tempting entry point to helicopter operations", as Savback describes it. Another vehicle that expands the horizons of their lifestyle, enables faster personal travel and fun opportunities as a suitable prize after learning to fly.
While attempts to bridge the worlds of premium automobiles and luxury aircraft have been done in the past, they lacked the simplicity and ease of modern glass panel avionics and the growing base of air mobility. If the promises of the AAM industry hold true, then a thriving ecosystem of smaller, urban connectivity sites could provide the infrastructure needed to make a small, personal VTOL viable. For the class of customer GHT and Savback will be courting, an asset needs to be accessible to be enjoyable, and past aircraft that required a long commute out of the city didn't present a worthwhile case. If urban mobility dreams come true, however, the small helicopter could be equal parts joyrider and air taxi, skipping all the waiting inherent to metro travel.
With the prototype yet to be unveiled, aside from well-shaded press photography, the final result is said to be aerodynamic and visually appealing, with an "elegant and efficient" cockpit. Michael Savbäck, Head of Sales for Savback Helicopters, sees the aircraft as opening the future of ultra light helicopters.
"The new model is a step-forward for next generation, easy and quick, personal and private mobility helicopters, our re-imagined vision will provide a next-generation experience that brings freedom of movement, security, low cost, high reliability and low consumption rate. Using the latest mechanical and avionics technologies, combined with the experience of proven and talented aeronautical designers, engineers and craftsmen, GHT has delivered the next-generation ultra-light helicopters. Savback is proud and enthusiastic to be able to share this new technology with the world."
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