Hill Helicopters yesterday held their first Global Meetup & Discover Event at their Development Centre in the UK. Hosted by Dr Jason Hill, the event brought together around 100 people in person – mostly existing owners/customers – and over 1000 online.

Jason Hill announced that the company’s current order book for their HX50 model – being developed in the experimental rule category for private pilots – now stands at 342 from 38 countries around the world. He also announced that sales of the certified version – to be known as HC50 – have now been opened and the headline price will be £725,000 (US$963,000 at today’s exchange rate). The HC50 will thus be the variant that can be operated commercially.

Orders for the HC50 can currently only be booked by people in UK, US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. These geographical limitations are due to initial plans for certification of the HC50 – which notably do not include EASA in Europe or ANAC in Brazil. HeliHub.com understands these will follow in due course and have not been included in the initial list to ensure the program team are not stretched with too much to do and/or too little time. That said, the experience in recent years of other manufacturers may have raised a note of caution. The HeliHub.com article R66 European certification delayed by huge EASA charges from January 2014 may be part of that.

There is also a six week window where HC50 orders are only being taken from people who have already placed an order for an HX50 model – up to 30th January 2022. From 1st February anyone in the listed countries will be able to place a deposit of £50,000 for an HC50.

Deposits on around 20 HC50s were placed during the event yesterday evening.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com