Airbus Eurocopter EC120B Colibri helicopter flight and review + how to fly

Hey hey, more helicopter reviews! So this week we are flying one of my favourite helicopters, favourite in many ways, and if someone wants to buy me one of these for Christmas that would be all good. This is of course an EC120B which is a Eurocopter helicopter, now Airbus, and these are fairly new aircraft. You know they started producing these first flew about 1995 and they sell 10, 15 of these a year, so there's about 500, 500, 500 to 600 around. It's a slightly larger brother which is the EC130 which is this model, is a more popular helicopter because it holds more. This EC120 is really a four passenger helicopter, you've got the pilot and then three passengers in the back and one passenger up front. So yeah the EC130 which is basically the same frame and similar to some of the other aircraft that Eurocopter produce or Airbus now produce, holds three people, one pilot, two passengers and four people across the the back. So it's a lot more popular the EC130 because it has a large passenger capacity. And what of course is unique about these EC aircraft is that they have this enclosed tail. And the reason for the enclosed tail is a number of things. Firstly and probably mostly it reduces the sound. Believe it or not, in helicopters most of the sound actually comes from the tail rotor not the main rotor. Especially a main rotor that's got three or more blades is a little quieter than a twin rotor helicopter. But yeah the enclosed tail substantially reduces the noise that helicopters make. And where helicopters have to operate and make as little noise as possible, it's these helicopters which are very popular in those environments. So yeah this EC120 is obviously a turbine helicopter. It means it's run by a jet which goes through a turbine which then reduces gears and runs the rotors. So it's got a turbine engine and we'll talk a bit more about that when we take a tour around the outside of the aircraft. But it produces about 500 horsepower I believe. This helicopter is also pretty fast, it will cruise at 120 knots which is about 130 miles an hour. And it can go pretty high, it can go up to about 17,000 feet so it's a high performance light helicopter basically and it's got a modern cockpit as well. We'll go over the cockpit when we start up but it's a bit more of a glass display where most of the functions are replicated on the LED displays as opposed to the old fashion gauges and so forth. But just as a reminder before we jump out and talk to John who's going to be our pilot again, same pilot as last week's helicopter, I'll quickly run you through the controls one more time so that you're familiar with what we're doing when flying the helicopter. Today I'll be doing a little bit of flying as well as John so that's going to be fun. But yeah so once again the three main controls are the cyclic which is this lever right in the middle here which does the forward, back, side to side movement of the helicopter. Down by my left hand, you can see it here as well, is the big collective which collectively changes the pitch of the rotors and lifts the helicopter up and down or makes it go faster when it's moving forward. Also on that collective is the throttle which as you're pulling in more power, you need to add more throttle. Depending on the helicopter, some helicopters, this one included, has what's known as a governor which automatically manages the throttle for you. And then of course down at your feet are what looks like rudder pedals but are actually adjusting the pitch of the tail rotor blades so that as the helicopter's engine is turning the rotor one way, the helicopter has a tendency to turn the other way and that's what the tail rotor is what stops it from doing that. Of course it provides a degree of steering as well. So yeah the anti torque rotor pedals on the floor there is what keeps the helicopter straight and allows you to turn on your own access. So those are the basics of the controls. This is a much more complicated helicopter than the one with the Bell 47 we flew last time. And so it's going to take us a little longer to go through some of the features but this is, believe it or not, as helicopters get newer, they actually get easier to fly because there's a lot more automation involved and the helicopter helps you with a lot more things so I find the larger the helicopter, actually the easier they are to fly often. So that's about all I've got to say about the EC120. What we're going to do is we're going to take a bit of a quick tour around the outside, then we're going to go through the startup procedures and then we're going to take it for a flight and try a few manoeuvres in it and then come back and land. So I hope you guys enjoy another helicopter review from Nick Murray and hopefully we'll make it back safely as always and I'm going to keep trying to bring you helicopter reviews throughout the summer depending on how much you guys enjoy these. You know I really enjoy flying different types of helicopters so I enjoyed making these videos and so I'm going to try and do a few this summer for you. Anyway on with the outside tour. Okay so you probably recognise John from last week's video. He's going to be flying with me again today and he's the chief pilot for this helicopter, the EC120B. And anything you want to say about this fine aircraft John? Oh it's beautiful. Isn't it? It's all composite. It's a beautiful Airbus product. Flies beautifully. Virtually maintenance free and a lot of luggage space. Right. Should we take a walk around outside of it? Absolutely. This aircraft here is fitted with the emergency floats as you can see. Now I've read that the shape of the landing gear is so that wires will run unimpeded along the bottom if you hit a wire. Have you heard about that? No. I have not. But it makes sense I guess. Makes sense except on this if it hits the floats. Yeah you're screwed. Nice thing about this aircraft is this big sliding door. Right. And this seat pack here detaches with two pins. Oh so this comes out very easily. It comes out very easily. So this aircraft is very versatile. You can have you know this door off and the sliding door open. Okay. One of the beautiful things is doing aerial photography or video work during the wintertime. We can have the door closed get on station and open it. We don't really close the door during flight. As long as we slow down 80 knots. And is there is there a pass through between the cabin and the storage in the back? There is because there's a panel removable panel there. So all this all this area in here is accessible. Yeah. If you wanted to put two floors or ladder. Yeah in there it passes all the way through. It can pass all the way through. And according to the flight manual. Oh wow. You can take that rear door off. So that this panel right here is the one that's removable. Oh I see. Oh it's got a big storage area down here. Yeah so you got all this area. Good smugglers aircraft. Yes and and you can take this rear door off. Yeah. And fly without this on. Okay. And I've actually done that. If you want to take a look at the other side of the baggage area. Oh I see yep. All right you got more circuit breakers up here as well. So what's the engine? It's a 500 horsepower around about. Yeah it's a 509 shaft horsepower turbo mecha. Yep. And of course the most distinguishable thing about these aircraft is this. Is this fenestron. Yep. Tail rotor anti-torque system. Yep. It's um. And these are staggered for noise reduction are they? Correct. It's actually the stators on the yellow side. Yeah. Oh okay. That are staggered. Yep. That uh reduce some of that noise emissions. Yeah makes a cool sound though. It does yeah. This is uh I believe the quietest aircraft in production. Quietest helicopter in production. Right right. This is a 2000 model. Okay. And this was uh Airbus's or previously known as Eurocopter. Yep. This was their demo machine. Right. And these seats. These seats are unique as well and that this is these are anti-crash seats aren't they? Right. They're um they they're uh crash worthy seats and uh the seats are good for 10 g's. Oh wow. So they'll collapse. Landing gear is good for 20 g's. Okay. So combined you've got a crash worthiness rating of 30 g's. Something for us to try later on today. Yeah yeah yeah. So anything else of note? This aircraft has windshield wipers on it but. We nearly. Almost almost never use it. It'd scratch the PC glass wouldn't it? Right. Yeah. Very nice. Okay let's um hop in and take it for a flight I think. All right. Thanks John. It just helps me sink the sail. All right. Okay. We got our seatbelts on right? Seatbelts are on. All right. Rotor blade position is good. I checked it on the tail. Okay. We don't like to start it. We don't like to start the aircraft with a blade over the exhaust. It's not a manufacturer thing it's just us. Right. You know. Yeah. All right so we've set our clock here. Actually this is. Why is that clock? Oh clock stops every time you turn the mains off? No it just if you don't crank it once in a while. Okay. All right um so we're going to check the lights. Yep. This is uh basically checking the the two softwares between the two uh screens. Yep they should be matching. Right they should be matching. Right. And this is just checking that all our warning lights are working properly. Here's our airspeed indicator. Attitude indicator. Yep. Altimeter. Yep. Vertical speed tells us how how fast we're going vertically. This is our uh rotor speed. Rotor rpm. So um and the free turbine. The NF is the free turbine. The uh free turbine. The one that catches the gas. That's catching the gas. Right. And then our rotor speed right here. Okay. And you get these also on here? They're... No. No it doesn't duplicate the displays? No. Okay. Does not. Right here is our fuel. Fuel quantity in pounds. 332 pounds. All right. It burns about 200 pounds per hour. So we have an hour and a half. Our T4 is the turbine temperature. Okay. There's... It's cold so there's no no temperature. The NG is the gas producer. That's um that's the the combustion side of the turbine engine. And the torque is measuring the the amount of uh the amount of power applied. And it's a percentage so it can come up to 100 percent. Right. And is there any state that you'd ever go past 100 percent or it gets damages the aircraft immediately past 100 percent? Um no. You've got a you've got a momentary up to that delta. Okay. So we're 110 percent in emergencies. Yeah. And if if you get to that point for more than uh two seconds it's gonna it's gonna log it in the oh in the maintenance computer. So you can't lie about it. Okay. Nor would you want to. No. Because you could have damaged damaged the engine. And then and then you know uh you're kind of flying on a wing in a prayer then. And so uh if you ever have a over limit in any aircraft whether it's a fixed wing or a helicopter fess up to the screw up. Let maintenance take a look at it. Might be expensive but fess up because uh you're playing with playing with fire there. So uh we checked the we checked the light test right. Now we'll check it has uh fire sensors in the engine bay. Uh so we're checking that. The twist grip. If the twist grip is not all the way up. You could try and take off with this twist grip not fully engaged and in flight. Right. And if uh that were the case you could droop the rotor speed. You don't want that. So we'll bring that back to off. So you've got extra switches and buttons here on the um on the connective. This is our hydraulics. Right. That's the hydraulics master. Yeah. This is the this is the hydraulic master. Okay. And this is just for the uh for the isolation. Landing light. Here's your uh fan. You can just have a regular fan. Okay. Or air conditioning. How does this go to air conditioning? It does. Fancy in here. Um and this is this is your heat and de-mist up here. Right. And this is where your your heat will come out of here. Oh okay. And the overhead vents and the air conditioning also comes up over here. And you've got a rotor brake I assume. It's a rotor brake. Yep. And fuel shut off. Got it. Emergency fuel shut off. Okay. All right. And radios down the bottom. Yeah radios. And some circuit breakers. Right. Yeah. Pretty good. All right. Let's start on the checklist. There's a button back here that says call pilot. Oh yeah. What happens if you do that? So you take the engine here. Yep. Start generator is going to start cranking. So so what initiates the start sequence? Just having it here? Yeah. Right. And then. Okay so that engages the starter. Right. And engages the starter. Okay. Wait you have to get it up to a certain speed. And then. It's not like an IMD 5. Okay. It'll peak out and then start falling. Right there. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's right about there. It's going to peak out. I'm looking for where the weapon is warming up. Okay. So it's important to have the right profile. You know you want to stay on that. I'll take the peedle. And it'll shut down.