European High Speed Rotorcraft

Nice. Airbus Helicopter’s RACER demonstrator is also scheduled to fly imminently (I read April 13th but no official confirmation)…

… so will be interesting to see who gets bragging rights for first to fly and to compare how both test programs progress.
 
fightingirish said:
Leonardo Helicopters successfully conducted the inaugural hovering flight of its Next Generation Civil Tiltrotor (NGCTR) technology demonstrator today, December 19, 2025. :)
Source /Link :
https://www.flightglobal.com/helico...trotor-technology-demonstrator/165766.article
Click to expand...
Good for them but that’s a very carefully cropped picture to give the impression that it’s hovering higher than it actually is! You can just about see the ground lighting at the bottom…

… so it does sounds a little like someone was trying to chalk up a win before the end of the year.

114709_ngtrfliescleonardohelicopters_821540_crop.jpg
 
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?!? It´s just that.... hovering to ensure directional stability.
When you want to check your pot is hot, do you press your full palm on it?
 
My point is usually you don’t make a big PR splash about a hover test in ground effect and pretend it’s a « first flight ».

It’s the PR aspect that sounds a bit desperate, as does how the picture was cropped. And with the end of the year approaching it sounds like they really wanted something to show for in 2025 and since they couldn’t wait for a true first flight this is what they could get… e.g. perhaps there were some expiring CleanSky funds at stake and they needed to fudge the milestone to hit a 2025 deadline.
 
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lol
Most rotorcraft "first flight" is just some air under the tires to check stability. I do agree though that Leonardo wants to get as much out of it as they can considering they are a tiny bit behind their original schedule.

@TomcatViP - I would imagine that they did a number of ground stability checks prior to putting it in the air. To include the risky "weight on wheels" disabled.
 
That´s much better. Single seat cockpit. Interesting choice (but does give an indication of how realistic the demonstrator is for a troop transport*).

Notice they are close to an active runway with the fin of a large airliner (civil or military) accelerating (or decelerating) in the background behind the tree line!**

*at least it´s built and can hover
**They are probably well in a down wind position to discard the inherent risk of vortex wake
 
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I recall in a briefing by Leonardo at a VFS Conference a couple of years ago they pointed out that the demonstrator would only have one crew station. With all of the telemetry going to a control room a second pilot (test pilots are expensive!) might be redundent now.
 

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