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The long awaited light twin-engined Bell 429 made its official South African debut in true style recently when it was unveiled to invited guest and media at a glamorous cocktail function hosted by local agents, National Airways Corporation (NAC), based at Lanseria International Airport.

Certified in mid-2009 by Canadian, U.S. and European authorities, the 429 is to enter service within weeks with its first customer, Air Methods Corporation. Air Methods will operate the aircraft for U.S. emergency medical service operator Mercy One in Des Moines, Iowa.

The 429's standard-setting features include:

· A design certified to the most up-to-date requirements of airworthiness authorities

· The only EASA-approved maintenance program in the helicopter industry and the only one based on Maintenance Steering Group 3 (MSG-3) practices that are the foundation of the world airlines' unprecedented reliability, and

Performance that, when compared to typical aircraft in its class, provides almost 20 percent more useful load at altitude on a hot day, more than 30 percent greater climb rate at maximum gross weight from sea level on a standard day and higher demonstrated takeoff and landing altitudes.

In his opening speech, NAC CEO, Martin Banner mentioned that besides the debut of the B429, there were a number of other exciting firsts that needed to be highlighted, this included the celebrating of 21 years of partnership between Bell and NAC, the 1000^th B407 delivered in 2010 by Bell, the B407 power plus program, and the recent announcement of the 12% reduction in maintenance costs for the B407, as well as the first installation of a Garmin 500H outside of the USA performed by NAC.

It was also announced officially for the first time the acquisition of Naturelink Aviation by NAC.