ONTARIO: DART Aerospace gathered key members of its Canadian product development team based here, to kick off a project for bearpaws on the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X.
The goal of the project was simple: bring to the global marketplace the performance, value and user friendliness that customers have come to expect from a DART Bearpaw.
With DART Bearpaws present on nearly every production skid gear equipped helicopter today, it was an obvious decision for DART to develop this product.
“The objective was to bring a lightweight bearpaw product to market that provided better stability when the Bell 505 lands in soft conditions”, said David Shepherd, DART VP of Certification. “We were also successful at incorporating a full length wearplate option to improve longevity and ease installation”.
Within 9 months after kicking off the project, the Federal Aviation Administration issued the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for this product, joining the already approved Transport Canada (February 23) and European Aviation Safety Agency (March 22) STCs.
With these three approvals and the associated bilateral agreements upwards of 70%, the helicopter operating world can legally install this product.
