Hill Helicopters: The Aston Martin of the Skies

Introduction

In this episode, we head to Staffordshire, England, home to Hill Helicopters. They're setting new standards in the helicopter industry, combining cutting edge design with state-of-the-art tech to create helicopters that are not only incredibly beautiful, but also incredibly easy to fly too. Their aim? To become the Aston Martin of the skies. The magic happens at their groundbreaking new production facility, PC1, where every component of their helicopters from the engine to the lavish cockpit is designed, developed, and manufactured. Our producer, Helen Leonard, got the chance to visit this impressive 76, 000 square foot facility with Jason Hill, chairman and chief engineer. A lifelong helicopter enthusiast, Jason shares his passion for flying with the and explains how Hill Helicopters is leading the way in innovation, including their commitment to being carbon neutral.

Origin of Hill Helicopters

Hill Helicopters is a luxury helicopter manufacturer based in Staffordshire, England. Chairman and chief engineer Jason Hill always had a dream and desire to build the perfect helicopter. That dream became a reality when he revealed the HX50, the “Aston Martin” of helicopters. The company owns a 76,000 square-foot factory, with plans to employ over 500 people, and makes 500 helicopters a year.

The HX50: A Masterpiece of Modern Helicopter Engineering

The HX50 was made with the aim of creating a modern, stylish and affordable rotary aircraft. Jason explains further: “Hill Helicopters was really formed to develop a modern, state of the art helicopter for light commercial applications and private owners. The whole general aviation industry had been devoid of real innovation for many years, and that had opened up a gap and an opportunity for a new manufacturer to step in. And be able to produce a new product that was much more of the level of modern automotive products. Think of it as a flying supercar, something that was elegant and high performance and well equipped and appointed and attractive to bring new people back into flying again.”

Sustainability and Biofuel-Powered Aviation

Sustainability was a big factor in the design and production of the HX50. “Modern technology now means that with cellulose based biofuels, we can run these aircraft 100 percent carbon neutral. There is no negative impact on the environment by operating these. Now biofuel technology has evolved to the point where we can synthesize any kind of fuel that we want. It's relatively easy to produce a bio source fuel and then convert that to a jet fuel substitute that's completely compatible with conventional jet engines. These machines can genuinely be operated as cleanly as any of the alternative green vehicles that are being proposed.”

CREO: Design the Way It Should Be

Creo is the 3D CAD solution that helps you accelerate product innovation to build better products faster. Our expert Brian Thompson talks about how CREO aids in Hill Helicopters design process: “I think Creo is well known for being able to blend super cool, highly accurate, really nice surfacing with underlying mechanical design that's highly complex under the skin. With something as complicated as a helicopter, that simulation as part of the design process is also really important. Our partnership with Ansys is also known to have been a big draw for the Hill helicopter team and them being able to put into the hands of their design engineers tools from the world's leader in independent simulation. We have capabilities in Creo to do structural thermal modals, even cfd simulations right there inside Creo and keep those up to date as the design evolves”