Louisville, USA, 2 March 2016 -  Innova Helicopters has signed an agreement with Rolls Royce for a technical development programme to certify the Rolls-Royce RR300 turbo-shaft engine for the C630 helicopter.

Innova recently acquired the intellectual property (IP) rights of the C630 from New Zealand-based Composite Helicopters and is now working under the name Innova Helicopters as part of Innova Aerospace.

The contract with Rolls-Royce is a three-year engineering support agreement which will provide technical installation support to complement the C630 certification programme. The engine is expected to be an off-the-shelf fit for the aircraft.

The first flight of the C630 aircraft is expected to to take place by the end of 2016 and production of the helicopter to commence in 24 to 36 months from now, Greg Fedele, executive VP at Innova Aerospace, told journalists at Heli-Expo 2016 in Louisville.

Now the New Zealand company is part of Innova the certification programme is in full swing.

‘Innova now has a stake in the company and the company in New Zealand is now a wholly-owned subsidiary,’ explained Fedele.

Type and production certification is set to take place in New Zealand and the company is looking forward to Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of New Zealand certification.

Fedele said this was the first time the FAA and CAA were working in partnership to certify the aircraft under a 'shadow' programme.

The company has already conducted around 250 hours of flight under experimental testing.

While the aircraft is still in its flight testing phase, Fedele noted that: ‘At the moment we have around 30 or more aircraft in the order book.’

At Heli-Expo in 2015 the company, then operating under the name Composite Helicopters, had two aircraft on display. This year the company has said that it is focusing on certification and therefore had decided not to bring an aircraft to the exhibition.

‘We still need to set up the support network for the aircraft,’ Fedele said, adding that the company plans to have manufacturing bases worldwide and given the helicopter is modular and scalable the manufacturing potential is significant.

Source:  Shepherd Media by Beth Maundrill