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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0031.PDF
What future for civil helicopters? ' FLIGHT International, 5 January 1985 Ian Parker comments on the difficulties of predicting the helicopter market and lists the events at this year's Helicopter Association International Con vention in New Orleans on January 16-19. Pure mathematics and hindsight are the only exact sciences. All others carry some degree of error. Economic and market predictions come well down the list of accuracy, particularly when applied to aviation and especially when applied to civil helicopters. No doubt some companies attending the Helicopter Association International's 37th Annual Meeting and Industry Exposition in New Orleans will feel sufficiently confident to look forward and make their views known, but it is always difficult to judge the effect of optimism on rationalism. Market predictions are always made more difficult when the product in ques tion is a tool rather than any other form of merchandise. Tools need work and work stems from a healthy economy. A general economic recession may have no effect on the sales of a product that is connected with, say, leisure. Such pro ducts are bought with disposable income and are an end in themselves. Apart from a few very wealthy people, no one is going to buy a helicopter unless he has a job for it. Executive transport, offshore oil support, emergency medical services, and logging are all examples of jobs that helicopters do very well, but they are all dependent on other markets which, in turn, may also be service industries. This makes the predicting of helicopter sales very difficult. Could the development of new tech nology improve sales in existing markets and create others? There must be a vast number of people who would dearly love to learn to fly a helicopter for pleasure. But with hourly operating costs at about three times that for an equivalent fixed- wing aircraft, for most people a PPL(H) must remain a dream. The Robinson R22 has gone some way to bringing helicopter flying closer to the private pilot, but it does not go far enough. It is unlikely, however, that a major helicopter manu facturer would want to look at a large investment in a low-cost high-production- volume helicopter when the fixed-wing manufacturers are closing their trainer/pleasure aircraft lines and are looking at smaller production runs of high-cost business types. It is a sad fact that, when recession strikes, research and development are often among the first activities to be cut. How many new helicopters are there on the drawing board? Advanced ideas such as Tilt-Rotor, Advancing Blade Concept, and Notar are held back by enormous development costs, which is a pity, because one of those three inventions may hold the key to wider acceptance of rotary-wing aircraft in city centres. Collaboration is likely to be the best course for most helicopter manufacturers to follow towards new products. The Westland-Agusta link-up on EH.101 and Bell/Boeing's Tilt-Rotor are beginnings. 29
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