Hill Helicopters: The supercar of the skies

Brandy Ryan Brandy Ryan December 4, 2024

2 min read

HX50 Rendering

When we first featured Hill Helicopter in 2020, it was a UK start-up focused on the vision of redefining helicopter design. Founded by Jason and Isabella Hill, the company’s HX50 was meant to disrupt the private helicopter market by moving beyond the over-engineered and under-designed reality of contemporary helicopters.

In fact, the most well-known helicopter out there is the Bell JetRanger, which was designed in the ’60s.

BellJet Ranger

Flash forward to 2024, where the HX50 is a physical, tangible reality.

“Everything you see or touch on the aircraft, whether it’s the interior or the exterior, was designed in Alias.”

Henry Morshead — Chief Designer at Hill Helicopters
HX50 in 2024

The helicopter market was long overdue for new design, which is where the HX50 steps in. The “X” stands for “Experimental,” a classification for this helicopter, as it’s meant for recreation. The “50” means that the helicopter sits five people.

HX50 5-Seat Interior

Hill Helicopter has built a stunning facility with machines to build their own parts, so a great deal of the manufacturing is done in-house. This helps keep the cost of production down. They also build their engine there.

HX50 Motor

On this engine is a rotor on the far-left side. If Hill had purchased this part from an OEM, it would have cost them $25,000. Because they machined this part in-house and made it production ready, they were able to reduce to cost to $250.

The HX50 is a beautiful fusion of physics and design as highlighted in the helicopter’s asymmetrical tail.

HX50 Rear View

The asymmetry is a design feature to manage how the air flows from front to back and how the rotation of the blade affects the aerodynamics. Henry Morshead, Chief Designer at Hill Helicopter, had to take that and other realities of physics into consideration when as they were designing the helicopter.

“When it comes to surface modelling, Autodesk Alias is best in class.”

Jason Hill — Founder, Chairman, and Chief Engineer of Hill Helicopters
Henry Morshead, Chief Designer at Hill Helicopter

Now that they have the physical helicopter, their next goal is to do a flight test – essentially being able to hover six inches off the ground. That test is planned for December 2025, with first delivery planned for December 2026. This would cap a six-year journey from final design through customer delivery.

HX50 in Facility

The market is ready. A percentage of their pre-order customers don’t even know how to fly yet, but were so drawn in by the design, they put money down. That’s a great pay-off for the approach Hill has always placed on the Helicopter’s design.

There’s more of the Hill Helicopter story here.

And if you’d like to hear more about Hill Helicopter’s design approach, check out Henry Morshead’s Keynote for AIF 2024.


Stay tuned for more customer spotlights, industry stories, and product updates.

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