Inside the $15 Million Airbus ACH160 VIP Helicopter
A New Generation Medium Utility Helicopter
This is the $15 million ACH160, and it’s a top-of-the line brand new helicopter by Airbus. And today we’re gonna have a closer look. The H160 by Airbus Helicopters, it is successor to the AS365 and the EC155 which all belong to the class of medium utility helicopters.
Yeah, but here’s a fun fact.
It had its first flight in 2015 and is suitable for a variety of mission profiles such as emergency medical services, coastal search and rescue flights, offshore transportation for up to 12 passengers, police and reconnaissance flights as well as military operations with the H160M and of course, the VIP version ACH160 for private and business aviation.
Technical Specifications and Performance
Some specs to start. The H160 is 13.9 meters long and 3.5 meters wide, has an anti weight of 4,050 kilograms, is capable of a useful load of two metric tons resulting in a max take of weight of 6,050 kilograms. The helicopter has a cruise speed of 138 knots, a range of 475 nautical miles and an endurance of four hours and 30 minutes with the standard fuel tanks.
Starting from the back, we have the embedded tail rotor called Fenestron here at the H160 which is slightly tilted and therefore helps you with noise and gives you a tiny bit of lift. In front of the Fenestron, you can find the unique biplane wings, which help the pilot during low speed operations close to the ground.
Advanced Engineering and Rotor Technology
Going up to the rotor and the engines, we have the very latest in aerospace engineering or helicopters, AirBus’ BlueEdge main rotor blades specifically designed to reduce up to 50% of noise and increase lift capacity. These blades are powered by two Safran Arrano 1A turbines which were designed exclusively for this helicopter, each posting 1,280 shaft horsepower.
The ACH160 has a capacity of two crew and 10 packs but this particular ACH has a capacity of eight packs so even more space for each individual.
Inside of the cockpit of this H160, you really see that this airplane has been in service only since January. Everything is brand new, almost smells like a new helicopter not that I know of that. Really nice leather seats. All the displays are really clean. Talking about the displays, originally Airbus wanted to revolutionize the cockpit with huge touchscreens and the first fly-by wire implementation in a helicopter. Unfortunately, this didn’t make it to the final production version.
A useful feature for takeoff and landing is the tail camera that provides a live third person perspective of the helicopter and its surroundings.
Inside the VIP Cabin Experience
Let’s have a short look inside cabin with the small door here. Looks a bit more comfy than over here. So let’s go back.
Welcome to the luxurious cabin of this VIP version and you actually have an iPad to control everything back here, for example, we have these especially tinted windows that you can, by a press of a button, turn opaque so you can see through. Or maybe you want them to be like sunglasses and turn dark. Also, the lighting up here is customizable, so you have RGB. Turn it into the color of your mood. Also controllable by the air pad is of course the ventilation and temperature. Over here, it’s possible to lower the middle seat so you can similar to a car, have a small table.