This video provides an update on the GT50 and HX50 programmes, outlining recent advancements, including testing of GT50 engine sub-systems.
We also discuss refinements made to the engine's core, particularly the secondary air system, which has led to an adjustment in our programme timelines.
Revised Milestones:
Full GT50 Engine Run: 19th December 2025
Engine Event at PC1: 26th March 2026
HX50 First Flight: 26th June 2026
Production Start: 28th June 2027
Further details will be shared in our upcoming AMA on July 24th.
IMFO
HX50 is the helicopter you have always wanted, exquisite in every detail, combining exceptional performance, safety and ease of flying with an outstanding ownership model
A Fresh Approach
Hill Helicopters has pioneered a reimagined approach to delivering and supporting safe, exciting luxury private aircraft ownership at an affordable price. We call it General Aviation 2.0.
General Aviation 2.0 (GA2.0) extends far beyond the aircraft. It is an end-to-end ownership experience delivering the aircraft you’ve always wanted and combining it with all the support you need to get the best out of private aviation.
Entirely customer focused, GA2.0 begins with our ground up, exhilarating modern aircraft design embodying all the features today’s pilots demand, while simultaneously meeting or exceeding the latest EASA and FAA airworthiness requirements. Beyond this, GA2.0 also provides an all new, safe, and fully supported ownership experience. These factors together ensure your new aircraft delivers unprecedentedly low operating costs and maintains a stable high resale value, making personal helicopter ownership more attainable than ever before.
Dual Role Approval Model
Light helicopter owners fall into two broad categories – private and commercial users. While an aircraft may meet performance requirements for both, private owners demand far more modern technology, greater luxury, frequent product refreshes, and notably different support compared to their commercial operator counterparts.
Our Dual Role Approval Model allows us to best serve the needs of both distinctly different userbases with two variants of the same aircraft. HX50 serves private owners while HC50 focuses on commercial users. Both aircraft are essentially identical, each meeting the latest EASA and FAA certification standards for small/normal category rotorcraft and both entirely factory built in our world-class UK aerospace manufacturing facility.
HX50 however is not sold with a type certificate. Instead, it receives an initial type approval from the UK CAA to the latest certification standards of EASA CS-27, meets FAA Part 27 and is provided to customers with an amateur-built airworthiness approval. Each aircraft is factory constructed during a two-week fully supported build course in the UK.
HX50 Benefits
Factory-built aircraft
Meets the latest EASA and FAA certified standards
Greatly enhanced design and safety features
Modern technology
Strong residual value
Lowest possible cost of ownership
Our commercial variant, HC50, is offered with a traditional type certificate, with the initial certification being provided by the UK CAA and subsequent type validations/acceptances following around the world.
There are only four differences between the HX50 and the HC50
Price
Time to market
Required owner participation in manufacture of HX50
Private (HX50) versus full commercial (HC50) use
By fusing the best elements of the certification process with those of recreational aviation, GA2.0 makes owner-operators the focus of the general aviation industry and, together with HX50, will trigger a long overdue
renaissance in private aviation.
Certification Vs Holistic Safety
Certification does not make an aircraft any safer than one designed, manufactured, maintained, and operated in accordance with the certification standards. Certification simply means an aviation authority officially confirms the aircraft meets required airworthiness standards. In the case of privately operated aircraft, there is much more to delivering and operating a holistically safe aircraft than meeting certification requirements. The aircraft must meet the form, function, and safety needs of its end-users.
Private owners are often inexperienced pilots, and their aircraft should focus on their needs – benign handling qualities, resilience to low-g conditions, excellent stability, high power reserves, realistic payload for user requirements, robust crashworthiness, and ease of operation with minimum pilot workload.
The traditional approach to certification inhibits developing innovative new technologies and systems that meet these needs. Manufacturers turn to older, pre-approved components to minimise the cost, complexity, and timescales of certification. This unfortunately limits the ability to deliver ‘holistically safe’ aircraft.
Every Hill helicopter meets the latest EASA and FAA certification standards for normal category rotorcraft and is built in our UK CAA-approved factory. With HX50, we fuse the highest levels of airworthiness from the latest certification standards with the GA-appropriate type approval process found in amateur-built aircraft. HC50, which is essentially the same aircraft, produced in the same approved factory, is offered to the market somewhat later, with a full type certificate enabling commercial use.
The dual role approval model allows the innovative HX50 to meet the highest possible safety standards while being brought to market faster and with lower overall costs, holistically improving the safety and affordability of all light helicopters.
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Comments
- Jason always gives a clear and understandable description of the program and the issues that are being encountered.... This whole project is a genuine inspiration and I wish everyone involved all the very best. Everything about Hill Helicopters, from the product vision, the engineering, the culture and the openness of the communication is like a best in class case study for how to get stuff done the right way.
- Passion, positivity, hard work, creativity and perseverance. These videos are a lesson to us all about how to approach a challenge. I look forward to every one of them.
- Dr. Hill, your vision and perseverance continue to inspire us. Watching the progress of the HX50 is not only thrilling but also a testament to what's possible when passion meets precision. Keep pushing the boundaries—many of us around the world are cheering you on and believing in this dream with you.
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