BLR Aerospace Announces First European H125 FastFin System Fleet Sale to Heli-Austria
BLR Aerospace announced Heli-Austria purchased six additional FastFin Tail Rotor Enhancement and Stability Systems for its Airbus H125 helicopters. The first European operator of the H125 FastFin System, Heli-Austria now operates the largest global fleet of the system on 14 Airbus H125 helicopters.
“FastFin is beneficial in all flight regimes, but we consider it essential for high altitude operations,” says Roy Knaus, managing director of Heli-Austria. “We remain long-time supporters of the system, which is also installed on our Bell medium helicopters. We added the FastFin System to eight of our H125s in 2017 and saw such a strong performance margin, we are outfitting the rest of the fleet.”
Heli-Austria aircraft routinely operate between 7,000 and 10,000 feet, though periodically are required to reach altitudes of 13,000 feet during a variety of vertical reference operations, including logging and construction.
AS350 series (H125) FastFin Systems have been sold to operators around the world. The system utilizes advanced airflow management to increase anti-torque system effectiveness resulting in significant increases to useful load and aircraft stability, especially in hot/high conditions. The H125 FastFin system boosts useful load and provides a 10 percent improvement in pedal margins, which reduces pilot workload, allowing easier control in precision hover-hold operations and better management of the yaw axis when hovering in challenging crosswinds.
“Heli-Austria is a long-time advocate of the FastFin System, and we are pleased to see they’ve received such a benefit from the system that they’re outfitting the rest of their H125 fleet,” said company President Mike Carpenter. “As word gets out on the benefits of the system, global demand continues to grow.”
FastFin was certified in late 2016 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for installation on Airbus H125 helicopters and received approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) shortly after. The system is available to the aftermarket and as a factory-installed STC option on new Airbus H125 helicopters.
The FastFin System is available for a variety of medium and light helicopters, including the Airbus H125, and Bell 204, 205, 212, 412, and UH-1. The company also supplies performance enhancing Dual Tailboom Strakes for the Bell 206 series and OH-58, which provide similar useful load and tailrotor authority benefits to the FastFin System.
