Relentless what?

Sorry to snipe at Bell twice in a row but I'd be interested to know how its marketing bods came up with the 'Relentless' name for its new B525 medium twin, launched in Dallas last week. There is a reference in the announcement that they have been 'relentlessly listening to their customers', but that's milksop.

The company hasn't bothered with names for its civil products since the B206 Jet Ranger was launched in the early sixties. So why now? Secondly, why such an aggressive, faux-military name and why -- for Heaven's sake -- an adjective in the first place? What, as a commercial helicopter, will it relentlessly do? Keep going? I would hope that was a given.

I also thought, to start with, that choosing an adjective as the name for a machine was a world first. Cobra, Apache, Dakota, Alouette, Apollo, Impala -- all good serious names and all nouns. Then I rememered what the Bell selection reminded me of. Second World War British Navy battleships, all guns and rivets. HM ships Indefatigable, Illustrious (OK, maybe not so old) and Valiant. Is that the image Bell wants to project?

I rather liked its project title, Magellan. World navigators, why not? A rich vein of potential there.

Still, it's a cool-looking piece of kit. Bell's largest civil helo to date and full of top-end kit, to compete with models from the AW139 to Sikorsky's S-92A. Would love to fly it, 2014 onwards. But I'll log it as a B525.