Our guest today is Larry Thimmesch, Vice President Bell 525 Relentless Sales. Larry has been involved with the 525 for the last 5 years from the program’s very earliest days.

The 525 is Bell Helicopter’s largest helicopter to date and weighs in at 20,000lbs or 9000kg. It has been created off a completely clean sheet design and will be the world's first commercial fly-by-wire helicopter. In this interview you’ll get to hear about the background to the design process and a run down of the technology and advances built into a whole range of the aircraft’s systems.

When Larry first started at Bell Helicopter as the VP of Commercial Programs there was a goal of growing the commercial side of the company in the face of decreasing defence budgets.

From the outset the program aimed to incorporate capabilities developed from recent Bell Helicopter military design experience and to include the best of current technologies avaliable.

A review of the most common causes of rotorcraft accidents was undertaken with a focus on identifying where technology could add value and safety - whether that was Bell internal technology or what was currently in the marketplace.

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A customer working group were invited into the design process and came up with a Christmas shopping list of features they wanted which included a