Bell Helicopter, a Textron Company, has selected Pratt & Whitney's Canada's PT6T-9 Twin-Pac® engines to power its upgraded Bell 412EPI helicopter. The announcement was made during the Helicopter Association International HELI-EXPO in Las Vegas, Nevada. P&WC is a United Technologies Corporation company.

"The PT6T family of turboshaft engines has been powering new generations of helicopters for four decades with a stellar reputation for reliability and power, one that keeps customers like Bell convinced it's still the engine of choice in its class," said Richard Dussault, Vice-President, Marketing, P&WC. "This latest version in the family, the PT6T-9, has an electronic engine control with full hydro mechanical backup, which reduces pilot workload, a key feature since the Bell 412 is certified for single-pilot IFR." The reliability of the PT6T engine is unmatched, at rates that are ten times better than the industry standard.

The Bell 412EPI is powered by a PT6T-9 engine providing a 15 per cent increase in engine power, engine exceedance monitoring capability and engine maintenance reporting. Previous versions of the Bell 412 were all powered by earlier models from the PT6T family, including the PT6T-3D.

"The Bell 412EPI will provide our customers with significant performance improvements," said Jeff Lowinger, Executive Vice President, Engineering and Commercial Programs. "Our Category A operators will be able to translate the increased power available in the PT6T-9 engines into payload improvements for elevated and ground level helipad operations. The aircraft will be on display at the Bell Helicopter booth at HELI-EXPO this week."

In addition to offering electronic engine control (EEC), the PT6T-9 engine provides 15 per cent greater take-off thermodynamic power for improved hot-and high- and Category A-helicopter performance.