With the first flight of the Sikorsky S-92 Helibus due within the next few weeks, ground testing of the first prototype, purely a static vehicle, is well underway at the helicopter maker's flight test center in Florida.

Helibus Number 2 will be the first to fly. The aircraft is due to be road-towed to Fort Lauderdale from the Stratford, Connecticut, assembly plant next month. Design and construction of a special 66-foot trailer which, in time, will carry all five prototypes on the road journey, was a vital if mundane element in the flight test and certification program of the international project.

Sikorsky is the designer and manufacturer of the S-92's dynamic systems and is also responsible for final assembly, flight testing and certification, which is scheduled for the year 2000. The first two prototypes will be powered by interim GE CT7-6D engines but the remaining three will be fitted with improved CT7-8s with which certification will be obtained.

Sikorsky's partners in what the U.S. company calls Team S-92 include Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, with the largest sub-assemblies, the main cabin sections. Gamesa in Spain provides the aft transition tailcone and other composite structures, while Taiwan's AIDC is producing the cockpit. The other, larger, China is responsible for the vertical tail fins at Jingdezhen, while sponsons, fuel cells and gauging systems together with the undercarriage are the work of Embraer in Brazil.

Not surprisingly, great use is made of a satellite communications system between the far-flung partners, with three-dimensional electronic models being posted on Sikorsky's electronic mock-up via the system. Sikorsky engineers have also been posted at each of the other partners' sites.

By Bob Rodwell