Originally Posted by
krypton_john
This is interesting. Setting aside paperwork and compliance issues for a moment, is there any practical reason why a Bell part on an AB machine is less worthy than the matching AB part, or vice versa?
No John, it is mainly a commercial thing. It is the same with the Fuji Bell 204's that were built. Fuji took the best of the 204's and made what they wanted, but the TCDS states that they shall not be operated outside of Japan! thats it, Bell simply didn't want Fuji or Agusta building helicopters and then selling them back into the USA competing with them. Somewhere you will find that the Agusta TC states cannot be operated within the USA.
There are also 300's and 500's built under licence still operating.
The one thing that you need to look out for, is the dash number of the relevant assemblies that are being used. sometimes the Agusta got stuck with an old assembly number if the manuals weren't getting updated as fast as the bell manuals.