https://player.vimeo.com/video/124513347
Since its announcement at the 2013 Paris Air Show, the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X has reached several milestones in its development. From achieving first flight with two flight test helicopters, to breaking ground on a new production facility for the aircraft, Bell’s short light single helicopter is well on its way to certification. Vertical caught up with David Smith, the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X program director, at Heli-Expo 2015 to get an update on the Bell 505’s development, and to review the aircraft’s accomplishments to date.
“We kicked the team off going down a very aggressive path of prototyping and developing versions of the product that we knew would be valuable for learning how to build it, [and] how not to build it,” Smith told Vertical. “We did that over the course of 20 months en route to a first flight last November . . . and subsequently we’ve flown the second aircraft in late February of this year, so we’ve got two aircraft flying in the air and we’ve reached roughly 80 hours of flight test.”
The Bell 505 Jet Ranger X will be assembled at a new facility in Lafayette, La. Construction of the 82,300-square-foot production plant began last August, and assembly operations are expected to begin in 2016.
For more information on the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X’s development, watch the video above.