Flying the Bell 505
Hi PPRUNE ers,
after following this thread for quite a while, I used the chance today, offered by Agrarflug-Helilift and Bell, especially Tim Otteson, to make up my mind on the real machine.
OK, it is probably not winning the helicopter design award - but as long as design follows usability it seems ok.
Get a cool paint job and things look better ;-)
On the pro side, easy entry, good seats - more later, pedals easily adjustable.
The overhead panel is gone, you only find there the rotor brake and the fuel shut off lever.
Com-connection is on the right side of the pilotseat, which one has to get used to.
The cable either over the right shoulder or over the belly ;-)
Good battery, Tim used plenty of time to explain the glascockpit with battery on - no issue at all.
Baggage compartment moved compared to the Bell 206 but is still spacy.
I would also put on the pro side, that rotor head / tail rotor assembly is still Bell 206, rugged and proven over years (ok, no negative G, but easy to hangarage and maintain with existing facilities)
Other might have wanted something completely new, but the 505 is the JetRanger X, so its ok for me.
What caught my eye is the easy - and fast start of the engine up to ground idle. The FADEC is doing a good work there. Also accelerating to flight idle is easy.
Even better would be, if you won´t have to switch on the generator after start. I´m used to just check its on after reaching ground idle on the models I usually fly.
Flying
It was quite a while since my last SE flight and without stabilising systems.
Well, I hope, I did´t disappoint Tim to much ;-)
It was nearly no wind but tail rotor authority seemed much better as I recall from my 206 days.
Hovering, transitioning and flying was straight forward.
Close to the Bell 206 but with better tail rotor authority and lots of power available.
On the short hopp I did´t went to max speed but I felt some vibration coming with increasing speed.
The question will be, could tracking reduce that, so that prolonged flight at higher speeds are more comfy?
Probably, cause the bird was brand new, as well as the blades.
Up to around 100 KIAS everything was quite smooth, probably due to the new gearbox attachment with damping system.
On return I went for a power recovery autorotation.
Nr ought to be at 104 % (always, flight, autorotation) and dropped a little bit, cause I was a little bit surprised by the idle set by Tim.
Nevertheless, just a little flare and the Nr came back and the autorotation was no problem.
In my eyes, the Bell 505 is quite useful for training.
In normal operations the uneventful autorotation capabilities sure arenˋt a bad idea.
Also the monitoring systems would help so nobody can over torque and so on, without the owner knowing,
Fuel usage seems to be around 110 litres / hrs, which is quite good for the power available.
Cons or my points I don´t like to much.
Seat - a really nice comfy seat for me (nearly 190cm tall) until Tim told me, that for the flight the seat has to be in the front position to guarantee the escape space for the rear passengers….
Thats back to the Bell 206 seat feeling for me - ok, may be a little bit better, but I think it would be a big step forward, if the seat could be used in the back position,
The glas cockpit, I´m spoiled by Helionix, is to crowded for me.
I.e. the wind indication, calculated from the GPS is given as an arrow with heading und speed in numbers.
In my view, thats to much information. Just an arrow with the indications like from the weather charts for speed works well and needs no reading.
Also in this direction is cancelling warnings - which is done with a button on the bottom of the right screen.
There is a lot of space available on the cyclic, where a warning cancelation button could be implemented, so that you don´t have to take your hand of the cyclic in case you get one.
Overall I´m more pleased than disappointed, even after reading this thread beforehand ;-)
Photo by Rene Köhler, who caught me on the controls ;-)