The VIP version will seat eight to 12 and incorporate all the entertainment, information and high-speed-connectivity equipment that you can find on the latest private jets. (Photo: Mariano Rosales)
The VIP version will seat eight to 12 and incorporate all the entertainment, information and high-speed-connectivity equipment that you can find on the latest private jets. (Photo: Mariano Rosales)

New Aircraft Preview: Bell 525 Relentless

It’s the company’s most ambitious project in years and its largest civil helicopter ever.

The rumors had been swirling for years: Bell Helicopter was working on something big. Insiders called it “Project X” or “Magellan.” Some people thought it was a replacement for the 412, the civil descendant of the infamous Huey that became a legend during the Vietnam War. 

They were wrong. What Bell finally unveiled in 2012 was something radically different and far more ambitious: the 525 Relentless. It’s a “super-medium” twin-engine helicopter with retractable-wheel landing gear and seating for up to 16 or 20 passengers, depending on cabin configuration. Bell has developed several kits for the 525 and plans to have the most popular ones available when it delivers the aircraft. 

In addition to the red-hot offshore energy market, the company envisions a variety of uses for the helicopter, including law-enforcement, air-ambulance, search-and-rescue and coastal-patrol work and, of course, corporate and VIP transportation. Layouts for the latter are expected to seat eight to 12 passengers and to incorporate all the entertainment, information and high-speed-connectivity equipment that you can find on the latest private jets. 

Entry to the 525’s 4.5-foot-tall cabin is through a pair of hinged doors located between the cockpit and the first of four seating areas or through two large aft sliding doors. Passengers enjoy 88 square feet of floor space and a 128-cubic-foot baggage hold—bigger than what you’ll find on most corporate jets. Indeed, this is the largest civil helicopter that Bell has ever built. It has a range of 500 nautical miles and an all-composite, five-blade main rotor system with a diameter of 54.5 feet.

The 525 is comparatively fast with a top speed of 155 knots. It’s aerodynamically slick and features computerized fly-by-wire controls and touchscreen Garmin G5000H avionics. Gone are the traditional cyclic sticks between the pilots’ legs. The cockpit has sidestick controls and a decidedly futuristic feel. The pilots’ seats swivel into position for ease of egress. Ahead of them is a low-slung digital instrument panel and an enormous field of Plexiglas that affords superb visibility over the nose and down to the ground. 

This is the most ambitious project to emerge from Bell since it started making V-22 “Osprey” tilt rotors with Boeing for the U.S. military. With the 525, Bell wasn’t just going after medium twins like the wildly popular AgustaWestland AW139 or the large Sikorsky S-92 favored by heads of state for VVIP conveyance; it created a new category between the two and is going after both markets. Bell designed the 525 to be cost competitive for any mission between 50 and 500 nautical miles that either of these other helicopters currently performs.

It’s an audacious move, especially considering how Bell struggled to deliver its last new helicopter, the light twin-engine 429, and some industry wags forecast problems with a project as ambitious as the 525. Even though Bell had acquired new management since the 429’s nadir, I had my doubts as well—until I met RASIL, which stands for Relentless Advanced System Integration Lab.

RASIL dazzled. It’s a cluster of mission-control-style rooms buried deep within Bell’s Fort Worth complex, and it connects a 525 cockpit to computers and mechanical actuators in an adjacent room. Engineers are using RASIL to write the control laws for the triple-redundant fly-by-wire (FBW) system and to tune the avionics, but you can also “fly” it and get a pretty clear idea of how the 525 will behave, thanks to a bank of video screens that provide real-time imagery as good as or better than in most flight simulators. I had a chance to strap in and was blown away by the cockpit’s ergonomics and all the built-in safety features the FBW system affords. 

Bell calls the 525’s cockpit ARC Horizon—for Awareness Reactive Control. This isn’t just marketing jargon. ARC Horizon thinks faster than a human and automatically does things to keep pilots and their passengers out of harm’s way. 

“In critical situations, the system identifies the problem and does something about it,” says Larry Thimmesch, Bell vice president of new programs. ARC is intuitive and can sense, for example, when system failures require an autorotation; and it can automatically set up the helicopter to enter one, saving pilots critical seconds and allowing them to focus on executing this emergency-landing maneuver. 

Another built-in safety feature is particularly useful when landing in low-visibility situations such as severe dust. When you let go of the controls at forward speeds below 10 knots, the FBW system automatically pulls the 525 into a hover. From there the pilot can make small command changes (called “beeps”) and safely let down, even if he can’t see the ground. The ARC Horizon cockpit will allow the 525 to be flown single pilot even though it is a relatively large helicopter. 

While chock-full of new technology, the cockpit will not be so complicated as to befuddle pilots. “This technology makes sense to the operator,” Thimmesch says. That includes “unparalleled” real-time health usage and systems data transmitted via uplink with trend monitoring and diagnostic capabilities, a feature that detects problems early and can minimize maintenance downtime.

Bell’s forward thinking goes beyond the cockpit and into the airframe, which mixes metal and composites in a way that reduces exposure to corrosion and allows for curves when they make aerodynamic sense. Quarter-turn fasteners on non-structural panels provide mechanics with faster access to items that are designed to be replaced in the field. The “lift assist tailboom” and a canted tailrotor mean the tailrotor needs less power to provide anti-torque, allowing that power to be sent to the main rotors and saving fuel. 

Bell expects to begin flying the 525 early this year. Deliveries could start in 2016. The company hasn’t set a price yet but it is expected to be in the $20 million to $25 million range. 

“This should be an aircraft pilots love,” says Troy Caudill, Bell’s principal experimental test pilot. My guess is the passengers will feel the same way.


Bell 525—At a Glance 

Price: Not published

Max. cruise speed: 155 kt

Range: 500 nm

Engines: 2 GE CT7-2F1 (1,800 shp each) 

Avionics: Garmin G5000H

Crew: 1–2

Passengers: 8–12 (corporate/VIP configuration)

Cabin height: 54 in

Cabin floor: 88 sq ft

Baggage compartment: 128 cu ft

Max. takeoff weight: 19,300 lb

Fuel capacity: 634 U.S. gal

Source: Bell Helicopter


Mark Huber is a private pilot with experience in more than 50 aircraft models.

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