So you want to build a better training helicopter.

[Dave_Jackson]

. . 23rd Annual Student Design Competition (http://www.enae.umd.edu/AHS/design/RFP/2006_RFP.pdf)

. . . . . . . . . . . 2006 Request for Proposals
. . . . . . . 2-place Turbine Training Helicopter


Win $500.00

Enter as the School of PPRuNe

Student applications are now being accepted, below.

[Hughes500]

If Bell are sponsoring perhaps we should enter the 206 with the back seats removed - they did quite well with the US mil with the instructor and student 2 pilot version of the 206

[IFMU]

My first thought on this was similar to Hughes500's, but I was more thinking about yanking the center seat out of a Schweizer 333. On the plus side, it would be a shoe-in especially considering the third bullet in evaluation criteria paragraph C, under originality, which happens to be aesthetics. However, after I opened up the .pdf file I realized that Bell was sponsoring the event (as Hughes500 had mentioned). Kind of makes the 333's chances a little lean.

Reading further, though, it seems this competition is more about the engine than the airframe. The prospective designers are told to invent the engine, or at least its specifications. Kind of similar to how dreamers in the industry have been operating for years, like Moller, and some UAV folks. This is an industry driven by engine technology. Seems to me the best real solution for the objectives of the design contest would be to find the miracle engine, and bolt it into an existing trainer. Since the competition is slanted to low acquisition costs, that probably means a turbine R22, though a turbine Schweizer 300 might be more cost effective in the long run.

-- IFMU

[Freewheel]

Soloy C-18 conversion to a narrow bubble 47, anyone? Everything old is new again!


Since we're here, whatever happened to those claims about the 47 going back into production? Are they behind this competition?