Bell Looks To The Future With FCX-001 Vertical Lift Aircraft…
Bell Helicopter took the wraps off a very forward-looking helicopter design at Heli-EXPO 2017 in Dallas, Texas, in March.
Mitch Snyder, President and CEO of Bell Helicopters, said in his speech while unveiling the FCX-001 that the aircraft represents only a glimpse of what is going on with Bell’s Innovation Team. "This isn’t a production aircraft reveal," Snyder said, "but rather a 3-D roadmap for the future."
Snyder said a group of artists incorporated into the Innovation Team challenged the team’s engineers to think beyond what would be typical or standard in aircraft design.
One of the more interesting design features are "morphing rotor blades", which Snyder said allows the aircraft to optimize performance in different flight regimes.
The aircraft is intended for single-pilot operation with assistance from "augmented reality" and artificial intelligence.
The concept aircraft was revealed two months before Bell announced its participation in the Uber Elevate program. While this may not be the bird that fulfills that mission, it’s a fair bet that some of the concepts introduced in the FCX-001 will be incorporated into an eventual Bell Uber aircraft.
Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN’s Aero-TV has produced over 3000 aviation and feature programs, including over 1000 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, hosted by Bri Cross, Laura Hutson, and Christopher C. Odom. Just starting its third decade, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published over 350,000 news and feature stories since its inception – having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.
©2017 Aero-News Network, Inc., ALL Rights Reserved
FMI: www.aero-news.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, www.bellhelicopter.com/company/innovation
aero-newsaero-tvaviation
