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Eurocopter marks pedigree of the Ecureuil
When flight test engineer Bernard Certain flew on the first flight of Aerospatiale AS350 Ecureuil in June 1974 he wasn't entirely convinced it was going to be a success.
'At the beginning, the engine didn't work properly, it was unstable in flight and I remember the cabin was too short. I had to make my own modifications to ensure that the pilot, Daniel Bauchart, would be able to sit comfortably,' said Certain, who is regarded by many as the 'father of the Ecureuil'.
He was speaking to Shephard at the Paris Air Show, where Eurocopter held a get-together for owners and operators of the Ecureuil, marking the first delivery the latest model of the Ecureil, the AS350B3e, to Mafate Helicopters, based in La Réunion, France.
More than 5,000 Ecureuils have now been built. Of those some 300 have made their way into the UK through McAlpine and Eurocopter UK, and more than 800 are currently registered on the FAA register in the United States. Although orders have slowed slightly since 2008 when Eurocopter was recording nearly one AS350/AS355/EC130 order for every day of the year, company CEO Lutz Bertling is confident that such sales levels will return in the next couple of years.
Certain said that originally other test pilots showed little interest in flying the aircraft, apparently not liking the idea of flying an aircraft built from plastic. While the first Ecureuil used the Lycoming LTS101 engine, a year later the Turbomeca Arriel powered aircraft took to the air.
'The main problem was vibration,' said Certain, 'but when we added the bifilar head, the vibration was divided three or four times – that's how good the bifilar was.'
Certain worked with engineers on improving the aircraft's reliability and performance creating new variants of the aircraft. Certain remembers one series of trials when he asked his superior whether he would be allowed to fit the AS350 with the wider chord main rotor blades of the AS355, but was denied.
'But we had already flown the aircraft with the blades in secret and I presented him with the results of the flight,' said Certain. The blades had delivered a not insignifcant 150 kg (330 lb) boost in payload leading to the development of the AS350B1.
Certain was also involved in a series of demonstration flights in Pakistan in 1994, where he was involved in series of high altitude flights which took them as high as the summit of Mount K2.
'We could have landed on the top of the mountain, but we could not get clearance to do so, but I realised we had to create a more powerful version,' said Certain.
Three years later, the AS350B3 was certified and in 2005 test pilot Didier Delsalle went one better and landed a B3 at the summit of Mount Everest, breaking the record for the highest helicopter landing.
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