Gerard David, French Union of Helicopter (UFH)
Release Date: 2009-01-30
Many stakeholders in the UK's aviation industry call the UK more of 'a flying nation' than any other. They are quick to claim that the Shorts Brothers, founded in 1908, were the first true aviation company in the world. The flying heritage of the UK is very strong. What can be said of the heritage of helicopters in France, a place where it sometimes seems that both society as a whole and government today are trying to bring helicopters to the ground,willing to close or to reduce access to the only heliport in Paris?Clearly, I don't want to start a 'war' between France and the UK or France and the USA. There is a big disagreement about who can claim to the first human flight. We claim that Frenchman Clément Ader accomplished the first human flight with an engine-powered aircraft in 1898. This was five years before the Wright brothers, but the world celebrated the centenary of aviation in 2003 probably because the US is probably stronger in communication than us French. However, for vertical flight, there is no doubt that France invented it in 1907. Three Frenchmen – Paul Cornu, Maurice Léger, and Louis Bréguet – realized the first vertical takeoff. One did so in the spring, another in the summer, and the third during the fall of 1907. The problem is with the witness. The only takeoff which can be certified by both witnesses and photographs is the flight of Paul Cornu on the 13th of November 1907. So France has undoubtedly invented the vertical flight. After that, it took time to really fly vertically. An engineer working for the automobile maker Peugeot, Etienne Oehmichen, almost 20 years later, on the 4th of May 1924, realized the first in flight kilometre with a rotorcraft. Ever since these pioneering times France has always been, and still remains today, the world leader in manufacturing helicopters.
From my point of view, the most important event which reaffirmed France's global leadership was the manufacture of the first gas turbine powered production helicopter ever, the Alouette II, starting in 1955. It was a revolution to prove that it was possible to use a gas turbine engine in a helicopter. It changed the way of thinking. Historically speaking, just as the Boeing 707 was undoubtedly the airplane to open the future for commercial jet engines, the Alouette II was the first 'operational' helicopter. It was and still is very operational.
Today, Marseilles-based Eurocopter, owns more than 50% of the world market for helicopters. Only Bell comes even close probably in part due to the fact that innovation in vertical flight has always been a major focus for the French aeronautical industry. Similarly, SAFRAN's Turbomeca is the #1 manufacturer of engines for helicopters in the world with well over 50% market share. They have two major plants in the southwest of France – in Bordes (Aerospace Valley) and Tarnos near Biarritz - as well as manufacturing in Canada, India, Brazil, and many other parts of the world.
The companies you mention have operations in virtually every corner of the world but in France they tend to be concentrated in one particular region. How can this be explained?
It's interesting. It is for strategic reasons that many major French industrialists and aerospace players, even Dassault, have chosen to locate or relocate to sites near Bordeaux and Toulouse. They did so because it was as far away from Germany as possible. This dates back to WWI when the first real aircraft space plant was built and the trend was continued with WWII. Ironically, Eurocopter is now a Franco-German enterprise. Today, a less strategic reason, the weather, makes that part of France attractive since it is easier to perform tests on aircraft in the south of France, as Dassault does in Istres and Eurocopter in Marignane.
It's striking that France has developed such a dominant position in the global helicopter business despite the relative anti-helicopter attitude here. After all, Paris has only one heliport and there is constant lobbying to close it down. What are your thoughts?
It's unbelievable that you can not reach Paris by helicopter, other than L'héliport de Paris - Issy-les-Moulineaux, which is on the outskirts of the city. Every major capital city in the world either has or should have many places to land not only for medical-related flights but also for business, politicians, the media, et cetera. Paris is an exception and it is certainly true that the heliport of Paris is under threat of closure due to the fashion of 'sustainable development.' Pressure is coming from all directions due to the image of the helicopter as noisy, polluting, and dangerous. Because often times when a helicopter crashes very famous people are on board, the media makes sure to cover the event. Furthermore, there is a general opinion in France that quietness is more important than economic reality. We are fighting against this way of thinking through one of our main messages: You cannot plan or realize any economic or social development without the helicopter.
At this time, we face two key challenges in confronting the issue. First and foremost, we are battling against an excessively regulated European environment. This problem does not exist in the US where helicopters can fly day and night, even offshore in the Gulf of Mexico with a single-engine helicopter. There, regulations on helicopters are very liberal, pragmatic, and responsible. In contrast, the 'red tape' we face in Europe considers that two engines are safer than one. Statistics prove that this is totally false. In fact, the opposite is true mainly due to the undisputable reliability of the modern engine. The problem is that regulations here are created by bureaucrats or technocrats who are not at all aviators. They do not consider the helicopter a real business or development tool. In Brussels, the regulators clearly believe that the lower the number of helicopters in the EU sky, the less risk they are taking.
Also, due to the general preoccupation with sustainable development, helicopter manufacturers are very aware of the need to reduce noise levels. To that end, they are very actively pursuing studies in areas like blade modification and developing innovative breakthroughs for the future. Unfortunately, the administration does not realize those efforts and aims to ground helicopters as much as possible. At this time, European regulations are so constraining that you must obtain a special waiver to fly. In France we have more waivers than regular authorizations. This is a reality particularly in the Paris vicinity and in the St. Tropez area during summer. This is the largest major obstacle to the development of helicopter usage here. We are strongly in favour of more liberal, pragmatic, and responsible regulations as found in the US.
The second obstacle is political – helicopters in the sky don't vote like people on the ground. The Mayor of the Paris district in which we are based, who is in general very liberal, pragmatic, and responsible, explained to us that he must take into account the daily complaints received about the 'danger' and noise created by helicopters. The worldwide accident rate for helicopters is the lowest of all parts of general aviation. A general view of the helicopter safety data is available via International Helicopter safety Team reports on http://www.ihst.org/index.php and BEA (French Bureau Enquête accidents) on http://www.bea-fr.org/francais/rapports/rap.htm . Furthermore, helicopter crashes are quite rare and usually only happening during landing and takeoff. Ironically, it is the same people living in the 16th district of Paris who write letters of protest who are more than willing to be rescued by a helicopter in the Alps when they break a bone.
We are trying to make the helicopter a 'real citizen' by trying to avoid flying over areas where people will be disturbed by noise. But the politicians follow the complaints of their voters much more closely than they do the proposals of UFH. Despite our help, they don't make enough of an effort to educate the general public about how helicopters are now much less dangerous, more reliable, less noisy, and less harmful to the environment.
It will take time to make the helicopter more acceptable, especially because we are not being helped by the current regulatory environment, politicians, and environmentalists which all tend to portray helicopters as Public Enemy Number One, even worse than airplanes. The problem is that the general public has an image of the helicopter as being only part of the rich and flashy jet set lifestile or criminal activity rather than a legitimate business or social development tool.
In China, the topic of using more helicopters in the West of the country, where flying conditions are more challenging than the Alps, is being actively discussed. The Russian helicopter industry thinks it is best equipped to deal with this unique set of challenged…
Go to Alaska or Canada, a paradise for helicopters, where the same adverse conditions exist as in and around Tibet - high altitude, extreme cold, and low visibility – and they use helicopters, many of them French, on a daily basis for everything. The only helicopter to land on the summit of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas – 8,850 meters up - is a Franco-German helicopter, the Eurocopter AS350 B3, piloted by a Frenchman, in 2005. Russian helicopters are not bad, but generally speaking, they require at least twice the power to provide the same service and the maintenance is a nightmare. The Russians have always been extraordinary engineers, very smart in designing and even building marvellous aircraft, but they their engines and cockpits are not reliable. Even when they choose to focus on reliability, it is not conceived with economy in mind. The same was true with our Concorde, which was marvellous technically speaking, but every 200 hours you had to throw away the engine. Today, the first question the potential owner of a commercial or business jet must ask is how long before the engine must be overhauled – at least 5,000-7,000 hours. When the Russian Kamov was conceived its engine needed an overhaul after an average 70 hours of flying. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, German engineers in particular helped to improve this to 600 hours. This is still very short when one considers that the engines produced by France's Turbomeca fly at least 3,000 hours before required overhaul.
This type of competitive advantage must surely contribute to the world-leading position of French helicopters and helicopter engines. Which global markets are most interesting to the members of UFH today? For example, it is estimated that the Chinese market will require 10,000 new helicopters by the year 2020…
There is a major challenge in China. They have to open the Chinese sky to the civilian aviation market. Of course the market has to be regulated, but it mustn't be closed the way it is today. Don't follow the European example in regulations. Instead, look at the American example of opening up the skies to general or business aviation. This is our main message.
The bad image of the helicopter as the carrier mainly of spoiled people, terrorists, drug dealers, smugglers, mafia, and liberators of criminals from prisons, certainly needs to be worked on outside of Europe as well. In fact, a European legal study that predates 9/11 considered requiring helicopter owners to hold a weapons permit. In the mind of many politicians, all aircraft, and helicopters in particular, are considered a weapon by design. This is terrible. The main problem to solve both here and in China, before all technical challenges, is this matter of false perceptions. Businessmen are the main user group of civil helicopters who will benefit greatly from more liberal, pragmatic, and responsible regulations. They will only be able to utilize the great efficiency tool which is the helicopter if they can get around without having to apply for special permits. Promoting this is our #1 priority.
Our second priority, both here and in China, is to remind regulators and planners that the infrastructure required to accommodate helicopters costs practically nothing. When new railway stations, international convention centres, and industrial areas are opened, make sure to plant a big 'H' on the ground to facilitate the takeoff and landing of helicopters. This is an easy and logical way to create efficiencies in business and to aid economic development in general. It is very important always to have this in mind.
Our third priority is to stress the importance of reliable design. In this area, trust experience and technology. At this time, all of the major manufacturers, Bell, AugustaWestland, Sikorsky, Kamov to some extent, and of course Eurocopter as world market leader, offer the same level of technology. All of them are investing heavily in R & D efforts that focus on three main directions, to increase speed, reduce noise, and achieve greater range through the conception of better fuel efficiency.
Finally, I wish the people of China not only to become users of helicopters but also friends of helicopters. The helicopter is a real friend of man. After the horse, the helicopter is man's best servant, because, as horses in the very long story of mankind, they are able to perform the greatest range of activities and to fulfil the largest number of missions and operations. Of course, the horse came first, but the helicopter is the 'horse' of the time being and for centuries to come. It will give mankind, in all fields, an extraordinary number and level of services.
| Company: | French Union of Helicopter (UFH) |
| Position: | President |
| Country: | France |