
On Thursday May 26th, Enstrom resumed flight testing of the TH-180 with the second prototype – N181TH, seen in photos here. The aircraft was flown by Enstrom test pilot and Senior Technical Fellow, William Taylor. Taylor took the aircraft through a standard production-type acceptance, including all the hover and forward flight checks such as tracking and rigging checks.
Enstrom expects to fly the third TH-180 prototype this summer.
The pause in test flying follows the heavy landing and damage to the first prototype N180TH when it came down in February in a residential area 600m short of runway 32 at Marinette Twin County Airport at Menominee, Michigan. Later reports, not corroborated by an NTSB report as yet, suggest that test instrumentation was a significant part of the cause for the accident.
Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com

Related Posts
- TH-180 program has two prototype aircraft in the certification program
- Enstrom 180 resumes Flight Testing
- Enstrom confident they can keep TH-180 on schedule
- Enstrom TH-180 prototype has test flight accident
- 12-Feb-16 N180TH Enstrom TH-180 Menominee, US-Michigan
- Continuing Development of the Enstrom TH180
- Enstrom brings TH180 development aircraft to Heli-Expo
- Enstrom TH180 First Flight
- Enstrom Adds Dealers, Continues Innovation
- Enstrom introduces new two-seat trainer – the TH180