Flight_International 28Jan2020

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ROTORCRAFT

24 | Flight International | 28 January-3 February 2020

Kopter is confident its much-delayed yet highly anticipated SH09

light-single can challenge status quo in segment by offering new

levels of performance not matched by sector’s incumbents

From Switzerland,

a new world order

DOMINIC PERRY POZZALLO, SICILY

E

ven in December, Pozzallo – nestled

on Sicily’s south coast – is bathed in

sunshine. Tucked away by the town’s

port is a small heliport, built to serve

a gas platform visible a few miles offshore.

But the facility, Elisicilia, has other tenants

keen to take advantage of the region’s benign

weather and relatively empty airspace.

Leonardo Helicopters already had a presence

here, using it as an alternative to its Vergiate

flight-test base.

Now, however, a new arrival is also on

site:  sitting on the tarmac outside a small

hangar is a compact-looking helicopter, its red

and white paint scheme accentuated by the

winter sun.

This is the SH09, which has escaped the

variable conditions of its Swiss mountain

home as developer Kopter attempts to bring

the light-single to market by the end of 2020.

But back in 2011, when the helicopter was

launched as the SKYe SH09, Kopter’s prede-

cessor Marenco Swisshelicopter intended

that by this stage it would already have been

producing the light-single for four years.

Even then that seemed an ambitious target

for a company with next to no aerospace ex-

perience, no manufacturing base or supply

chain and a helicopter that was yet to fly.

Inevitably, deadlines came and went – a

first flight initially set for 2012 eventually

took place in 2014 – and service entry slipped

further and further behind.

Upheaval at the top of the company also

followed, with founder Martin Stucki leaving

in December 2016. The business also under-

went a much-needed rebrand, renaming with

the more succinct Kopter and losing the SKYe

prefix from the aircraft’s designation.

AEROSPACE OUTFIT

What has followed has been the steady trans-

formation of what often felt like a hobby mas-

querading as a business into a proper aero-

space outfit. That has been aided by a steady

influx of executives from established rotor-

craft manufacturers, including chief executive

Andreas Lowenstein and chief technical

officer Michele Riccobono, respectively for-

mer Airbus Helicopters and Leonardo Heli-

copters employees.

In addition, staff numbers have risen to