Lets go visit our friend @Marc in his native country. No we aren’t going to have Chocolate, no we aren’t going to see the scenery as much as we want too. But lets go check out the Kopter!
Kopter is a Swiss based operation. With the Air Medical not be exhibiting at this year’s edition of the Air Medical Transport Conference, taking place on Nov. 4 to 6 in Atlanta, Georgia, but it believes its upcoming light single SH09 has the potential to change the helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) sector in the U.S. The company has been working with a customer advisory committee focusing on the U.S. HEMS market, with representatives from about 10 different operators that fly a combined total of around 40 aircraft. Larry Roberts, the company’s senior vice president, U.S. business development. told Vertical Magazine, "We’re working with them, trying to get their expectations, understand what their needs are, and we’re trying to funnel all that information back to our engineering folks to do as much as they can to integrate those needs into the aircraft for certification.” Kopter pitches the SH09 as providing the cabin size of a twin-engine aircraft, but with the acquisition and operating costs of a single-engine helicopter. And Roberts said it was the aircraft’s cabin size that proves particularly appealing to the EMS market. “We have unobstructed patient access due to the big cabin, and that’s tremendous for the flight crews because the number one goal for them is to treat the patient, so full patient access is very important,” Mr Roberts said in an interview. When asked about the future of the HEMs industry, Mr Roberts said in the next five years we could see up to two hundred SH09s flying around. Earlier this year, Kopter signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Metro Aviation, one of the largest EMS operators in the U.S., for five SH09s, and Roberts revealed that the company has also signed an agreement with another EMS operator for 15 of the type.
The SH09 Kopter is a single engine utility machine first flying in 2014. The helicopter is powered by a Honeywell HTS900 with a fenestror tail rotor and five-bladed bearingless hub for the man rotor.
It was announced at Heli-Expo 2016 that Swiss operator Air Zermatt. So far The aircraft has already reached 11,000 feet and 135 knots, and will continue to build hours with intense flight testing over the winter in Sicily. Kopter will soon finalize the design of pre-serial aircraft four (PS4), with the aircraft set to join the flight test program for certification flights in mid-2020. Kopter is expected