SASless
5th Mar 2005, 13:42
Doing some research and came across this article....sounds like some real competition in the light turbine market coming up. I wonder if this could be the successor to the Hller 12E Soloy that has been with us for so long.
Maybe Nick will head over to this outfit when he gets Gulfstream straightened out. The UAV market would be perfect for the FH-1100....easy to load on C-130's....or trucks. The Army already has tons of evaluation data on them from the LOH competition.
Stanley Hiller built some classic designs in the early pioneering days of the helicopter industry.
One of his last, and in many peoples’ opinions the best, was the Fairchild-Hiller FH-1100–a design dating back to May 1961, when his Model 1100 lost the U.S. Army’s Light Observation Helicopter program, which Bell Helicopter won, following a judgment against the Hughes OH-6A, claiming Hughes had defrauded the Army via a price-fixing scheme. That judgment gave life to what became known as the JetRanger. Today a Florida company is updating the FH-1100 airframe, making a modern variant it claims meets the needs of cost-conscious commercial operators.
Nevertheless, low cost, high reliability and a 110-knot maximum speed raise the appeal of the upgraded FH-1100. With DOCs of $186 per hour, and the Rolls-Royce 250-C20B derated from 313 shp to 204 shp and burning 147 pph, the upgraded helo is claimed by its creator, Georges Van Nevel, president of FH-1100 Manufacturing Corp., to be significantly cheaper to operate than the Bell 206. “It lifts more and has a higher ceiling,” he noted, adding that the use of composite fuselage components should reduce assembly time from 2,300 hours to 1,600 hours.
This will help the company to achieve its aim to offer a competitively priced light helicopter–although just how competitive Van Nevel has yet to say. “We see a lot of promise for this design in the Far East and South America, in rural areas, where there’s a real need for simple, inexpensive, rugged rotorcraft that consume easy-to-come-by fuels.”
Maybe Nick will head over to this outfit when he gets Gulfstream straightened out. The UAV market would be perfect for the FH-1100....easy to load on C-130's....or trucks. The Army already has tons of evaluation data on them from the LOH competition.
Stanley Hiller built some classic designs in the early pioneering days of the helicopter industry.
One of his last, and in many peoples’ opinions the best, was the Fairchild-Hiller FH-1100–a design dating back to May 1961, when his Model 1100 lost the U.S. Army’s Light Observation Helicopter program, which Bell Helicopter won, following a judgment against the Hughes OH-6A, claiming Hughes had defrauded the Army via a price-fixing scheme. That judgment gave life to what became known as the JetRanger. Today a Florida company is updating the FH-1100 airframe, making a modern variant it claims meets the needs of cost-conscious commercial operators.
Nevertheless, low cost, high reliability and a 110-knot maximum speed raise the appeal of the upgraded FH-1100. With DOCs of $186 per hour, and the Rolls-Royce 250-C20B derated from 313 shp to 204 shp and burning 147 pph, the upgraded helo is claimed by its creator, Georges Van Nevel, president of FH-1100 Manufacturing Corp., to be significantly cheaper to operate than the Bell 206. “It lifts more and has a higher ceiling,” he noted, adding that the use of composite fuselage components should reduce assembly time from 2,300 hours to 1,600 hours.
This will help the company to achieve its aim to offer a competitively priced light helicopter–although just how competitive Van Nevel has yet to say. “We see a lot of promise for this design in the Far East and South America, in rural areas, where there’s a real need for simple, inexpensive, rugged rotorcraft that consume easy-to-come-by fuels.”