214 ST
I was fortunate to fly several thousand hours in the ST on Offshore and VVIP work as both line pilot and TRE/IRE. I thought it was a great helicopter. It was faster, had better range, and was more economical than the 332L. It was also more reliable than the 332L, as Bristows discovered. It had a great in flight blade tracking device whereby the pilot could adjust the length of one pitch rod in flight to achieve the lowest vibration level. They are stil being used in Saudi for King Fahd (2), and the Royal Oman police had 6 when I was there (now 4).
Its drawback was a small boot, and the centre passengers were a fair way from the doors and a view. We carried 18 pax on sectors under 100 nm.
It had a great liferaft deployment system, where the pilot could release the liferaft in the roof, which fell down outside the doors, and automatically inflated.
It had 2 big. low stressed cool running GE 700 engines. Single engine performance was good for the late 80's & 90's, but not Cat A.
It had a Vne in auto of 100 kts, which made life interesting when cruising at 130 kts, and entering auto at that speed was dangerous. I think it was a combination of C of G, sudden change of airflow on the rear stabiliser, and maybe some retreating blade stall, but it was almost uncontrollable above auto Vne. I think this may have caused the 2 fatal crashes Evergreen had in the late 80's.
It was one of Bell's big mistakes in not doing some R & D. and developing it further (4 blades etc).
With only 2 barn door size blades rotating fairly slowly, the autopilot had to work hard. At altitudes above 8000 ft, we often had either a dutch roll or an undamped fugoid.
It was always dual pilot IFR due to the weight category, but had all the equipment for and was certainly capable of SPIFR.
I throughly enjoyed my time on it.
And yes, we were a good bunch of fellas in the desert thud & blunder.
Hope this helps.
katfish