Ben Holgate learns company is launching its first research and development initiative

Airbus Helicopters, which is based at Oxford Airport, has commenced its first research and development projects in the UK despite having operated in the country for the past four decades.

One of the two current initiatives involves adapting mouldable armour for aircraft to be used as body armour for military personnel and police.

Richard Atack, Airbus Helicopters’ vice-president, design and customisation centre, said: “These are the first two we’ve done. They are significant for us.”

He said the catalyst for the UK’s largest civil helicopter company to undertake R&D in the UK was the Government’s development funding. “It’s not efficient to fund research by yourself,” he said.

One project, which began last September, involves developing a lower-weight, lower-cost helicopter armour. The £1.2m project has attracted funding from the Department of Business’ Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain scheme.

Airbus Helicopters will work in conjunction with NetComposites on the project.

“The armour that we’re developing with NetComposites is a lightweight, composite, reinforced, mouldable material with ceramic inserts. The beauty of this is that it’s mouldable. Now it [armour] is mostly flat sheets.”

Mr Atack said the armour could be moulded around a helicopter’s seats and doors, for instance.

“The whole aircraft gets a much better ballistic protection.”

Under the Government’s policy of Dual Use Technology Exploitation, which encourages companies to identify and leverage technologies in one industry and apply them in another industry, the partners are also exploring options to adapt this new armour to protect people’s bodies from knives or bullets.

Mr Atack said that while existing body armour was slightly curved, the new composite material could be moulded for body shapes, such as arms, sides, chests and backs, while at the same time allowing flexibility for free movement. “It will be in the form of a vest,” he said, adding that the main market was for military personnel and police.

The second project, worth £2m, started on November 1, and is being funded by both the Government’s Aerospace Technology Institute and Airbus Helicopters.

The project involves developing technologies to measure the deformations of a helicopter rotor blade in real time while in flight.

The project centres on embedding sensors within each rotor blade, which in turn send data to a ground station.

The ground station might be controlled by a central organisation, engineers, or even the helicopter pilot.

Mr Atack said that while all components in an aircraft – such as the engine, fuselage, rotor blades, batteries, and so on – had their own maintenance schedule, under which they are inspected at certain points in time, there is no system to continuously monitor the flex of a blade and how it is performing.

Under this new system, the sensors will record data from the blade’s performance that will be combined with data from a mathematical model. If the two sets of data diverge, it will prompt an intervention by an engineer to fix the relevant problem.

“It’s about understanding what the blade is doing.”

He said this system had the potential to have a major impact on flight safety and to reduce the amount of time required to travel between destinations.

“The goal is to put this sensor system into all helicopter blades at the point of manufacture.”

Partners on the project include Cranfield University, BHR Group, which will do the modelling, and SME Helitune, which will monitor the health of the test helicopters.

All testing will be conducted at Airbus Helicopters’ base at Oxford Airport.

Both the armour and rotor blades projects will take three years to complete.

This is the first time Airbus Helicopters, which is a subsidiary of French-based aeronautics, space and defence services multinational the Airbus Group, has participated in UK Government-led industrial development.

Mr Atack said the UK “offers quite a favourable arena to do research” with the combination of Government funding, academic resources and world-leading technology.

He said these initial two projects paved the way for future collaborations with Government departments and external partners.

Airbus Helicopters’ clients include the police, air ambulance services, oil and gas producers operating in the North Sea, and private helicopter owners.

The company has sold 330 civilian helicopters, plus another 100 helicopters to the Ministry of Defence.