Colorado
Crews from British helicopter builder Agusta Westland are testing the high-altitude capabilities of the Super Lynx 300 at the Fremont County Airport in preparation to sell the aircraft to military users in Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa.
"We are completing the high trials to give a full-flight envelope to our customers," said Dave Glover, a 35-year Agusta Westland employee who is overseeing the tests. "This is a prototype which we have sold to Malaysia, Thailand and hopefully South Africa for use as a utility aircraft on land and as a naval aircraft."
The helicopter must be tailor-made to fit customer needs, so it has been tested at 4,000 feet in Morocco last summer; and in the wintry climates of Sweden and the Arctic Circle, Glover said.
The crews brought the helicopter to Fremont County's airport recently for testing at higher altitude. They will go on to Leadville for the very-high altitude tests starting Aug. 10.
"This is high-density testing when the temperature is hot and the altitude is high," said pilot Mike Swales, who has been flying Lynx helicopters for 25 years, the past two testing the Super Lynx. "We are flying the helicopter at maximum weight at the limit of performance and it is performing how we want it to."
"It is performing exactly as we expected, but, of course, we had to prove it," Glover said.
During flights, high-tech equipment measures stresses and strains on the helicopter from the main rotor to the blades, preserving data on recorders so that it can be analyzed. The test flights are done sometimes at low speed and include complicated maneuvers so that the technical crew can see how it performs in winds from all directions, Glover said.
Mechanics David Hedditch, Paul Neale, Neil White, Ray Gunner, Gary Howells and Eric Burton make sure the helicopter stays in top-notch working order.
The high-performance chopper is the ballerina of helicopters -- able to fly sideways in fluid motions. The Super Lynx comes from a line that includes an earlier Lynx that shattered the 220-mph world speed record with a 249-mph mark in 1986, Glover said.
As many as 16 Agusta Westland employees are on the job in Colorado, although a change of crew will be coming shortly, Glover said. After testing in Leadville, the crew will move on to Phoenix before returning home to Britain Sept. 7.