Originally Posted by
PhlyingGuy
The mounting of the Bell 505 stab is significantly cheaper than the special type of welding that would have been required to integrate it into the tailboom.
Yes, I appreciate the production cost would be lower. But Bell did (and still does) produce countless helicopters with the 'traditional' configuration of horizontal stabilizer. While I have read that they needed to design the 505 to a reasonable budget, I see the solution implemented as being the easiest fix to reconfigure the tailboom and tail surfaces from their original prototype arrangement, else it may well now look like that of a 206?