Hill Helicopters
Proof of concept for world’s first single-part helicopter fuselage
Background
Based in Rugeley, UK, Hill Helicopters was founded in 2020, when they started their quest to bring their “disruptive, ground-up helicopter” to the private and commercial rotorcraft market.
The project received funding from UK Government body Innovate UK with a vision:
“to develop a next-generation private helicopter that delivers reduced environmental impact, lower noise levels and unprecedented levels of safety, comfort and performance at a game-changing price point”.
Challenge
With a ground-up innovation mindset, Hill questioned the conventional method of bonded joints in fuselage design and manufacture. This method is prone to creating points of failure, and increased overall weight of the final structure.
Hill Helicopters (or Jason Hill) approached our team of experts and asked:
- Is it possible to produce a single-part helicopter fuselage using a resin infusion manufacturing process?
Solution
CI, as partners in the Innovate UK project came to be involved with an incredibly creative and collaborative dialogue with Hill Helicopters which resulted in our role to support and de-risk the idea, with the objective of demonstrating that it was feasible and workable.
Working collaboratively the CI and Hill teams:
- Fabricated two 1/3rd scale Infused versions of the monolage in Composite Integration’s factory.
- Used the 1/3rd versions in the December 2021 launch show to demonstrate the design and composite monolage concept.
Results
In response to the successful prototype manufacture, Hill have purchased a customised CIJECT 2 a to trial production of the full-size fuselage, and other infused tooling. This will be trialed and compared with a number of other composite techniques.
“The CI team deserve their world-class pioneering reputation, and share our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. They embraced our challenge, and helped us prove our vision was feasible.”
