Heli Austria will later this year become the first European rotorcraft operator to use Thales’s StableLight retrofit four-axis autopilot system for light helicopters.

Installation of the equipment onto an Airbus Helicopters H125 light-single is now under way at Heli Austria’s facility in Sankt Johann im Pongau, near Salzburg. The process is likely to last up to three weeks, Thales says.

Thales StandardAero Heli Austria-c-Thales

Derived from equipment more commonly seen on larger transport category helicopters, StableLight comprises seven new actuators – a mix of smart and trim actuators – plus specific interfaces with the existing flight-control system.

Thales says the system “permits unprecedented control augmentation and functions in a light helicopter.”

“Operational and pilot safety are very important to Heli Austria. We have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to be the European launch customer of this proven product,” says chief executive Roy Knaus.

Integration of the system been performed by MRO specialist StandardAero, which also undertook the prototype installation and led the certification efforts.

To date, the StableLight installation on the H125 has received US Federal Aviation Administration supplemental type certification.

Flight tests with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency have been completed, says Thales, and “the StableLight autopilot continues progressing through the certification process”.

Although ideally suited for all light helicopters, Thales says that for the moment, it is targeting StableLight at the H125 family.

Features incorporated into StableLight include attitude recovery, auto-hover, and stabilised climb.

“This enhances mission capability and can help to reduce risks in critical flight phases and adverse conditions such as inadvertent entry into instrument meteorological conditions,” says Thales.