Originally Posted by
nikoel
Just a few pages down from this thread there is an other by Swiss Company that already had a working prototype helicopter in 2011. It looks kind of similar to the one you have purchased. Agusta bought it out and rebranded it as the AW09. The built prototype was being showcased 12 years ago. It has taken it this long to come to market* (* longer actually, since it's still not actually out yet) and it has a Powerplant built by Safran, Avionics built by Sagem and Garmin, support and an army of engineers and developers from one of the biggest helicopter companies in the world. Hills has none of those and says at public events that it will have a flying prototype by the end of the year
Yes, on the surface the comparison between AW09 (SH09 Marenco Helicopters) and the HX50 comes to mind but the reality is different.
The SH09 was always targeted toward professional users (Air Zermatt was their projected and actual lead launch customer) the HX50 is targeted toward the wealthy private operator. Marenco’s initial thinking drivers were comparable to hill helicopters, giving the customer more of what they need for a lower price. Basically, an EC135(+) lookalike but with the simplicity and efficiency of a single. Everything already built-in compared to an AS350 that you have to add a bunch of STCs to get it right.
If you try to compare the now AW09 story to the HX50 story now, it just does not match. Agusta Westland has done exactly what any large manufacturer would have done.
That is: add 10 years to the project schedule and redesign everything (they redesigned the transmission, rotor head, tail fenestron, cowlings, new engine ….) when you say: Powerplant built by Safran, Avionics built by Sagem and Garmin and army of engineers to support it all. It warms my heart, that is honestly what I want to fly in.
But the HX50 appeals to a different crowd, the crowd that is tired of paying an incredible cost to get their machine flyable. Basically, the same crowd that adopted the Robinson products years ago. Except the Robinson products break up in the air and we are getting tired of flying a turbine (R66) that look like an overgrown R44. So yes, there is a space for a machine for the private owner that is turbine, and that is in the R66 operating price with all the modernity that we should have today.
I would have hoped that Gimbal would have come to the table with a G4, to satisfy that need, I think it would have been quite similar to the HC50, maybe a bit more utility focused, like an H120. but they don’t, they might be a reason why, similarly they also terminated the H120 production.