You’ve probably already done this, but…
Try contacting the BHT rep for your area; you can find them through the Bell website
www.bellhelicopter.textron.com . If they don’t know the answers themselves they’ll certainly know whom within Bell to ask and both BHT reps I’ve had occasion to deal with myself couldn’t have been more helpful. Alternatively, if one of you is going to the factory school soon, this would be great discussion fodder for the class and instructor.
As an aside, and following Nick’s point, I remember reading an article about tech delays on the USAF C-5 Galaxy fleet – the majority of which were due to the Air Force insisting on exercising emergency systems each flight that had been designed as emergency systems, i.e. for one-time use…
