Ah, 47's. Gotta love 'em! I'm sure everybody would like to claim the "earliest" 47. And maybe some people do have some early examples. But they're authentic in the same way George Washington's "original" axe used to chop down that famous cherry tree is: the handle has been replaced four times and the blade has been replaced twice.
Av8rbpm asks:
You reminded me of a question I had about N555EN (47D1 s/n6). How is it that this ship shows up on the FAA registry as s/n 6, when the first Bell 47D1 produced was s/n 145? The FAA shows the mfr. as Bell, and the helicopter is in the normal category, but if there was never a s/n 6, how did this happen?
The serial numbers are all over the place, and a "D-1" may have started it's life as something else. MSN 6 is listed as a 1947 47D-1, so it was probably a 47B when it came off the assembly line and modified to D-1 status some time thereafter. See, the 47D-1 didn't gain Type Certificate approval until March of 1949. Oddly, MSN 16 is also listed as a D-1, yet it is supposedly a 1946 airframe, a year earlier than MSN 6. Go figure.
It gets more interesting. Curiouser and curiouser, you might say.
There is listed a "straight" Bell 47 (no suffix), MSN 11, which is listed as built in 1947. And there is also a 1947 47B MSN 11, N9241Z on the U.S. registry. Coincidentally, there is also a 1947 47D-1, N157B which is listed as...(drum roll)...MSN 11! Separate aircraft? How many serial number 11's did Bell build in 1947?
Did Bell run all of the early 47 serial numbers for the different models consecutively? Or did they start over a "1" for each new model? The latter is doubtful, since the only differences between a B, a B-3 and a D were cosmetic or operational (spray set up, for instance).
There is a 1947 47D, MSN 5, N147B. And there is also a 1947 47D, MSN 60, N140B. Complicating matters is a 1947 47B, MSN 58, N138B.
Bell must have really been cranking those 47's off the assembly line(s) in 1946 and 47. What with the military orders and all these civilian ships, they must have been running three shifts!
By the way, the MSN 1 47G was, apparently, built in 1959. But there is also a 47D-1, MSN "001" listed as being built in 1961. (Other people besides Bell have built "47's" and this may be the case with MSN 001. Sometimes they show up as "Bell-Shelby" or something like that in the databases, sometimes not.)
Obviously there's been a lot of N-number and serial number switching going on in the 47 world. This is analogous to the classic car market, I suppose, in which cars are purported to be something special (a rare racing Ferrari, say) but are found to be not exactly that when the various serial numbers are matched up.
I personally know of a "47D-1" with a funky but not personalized registration number (not one of the consecutive N-numbers that Bell usually used). There's an "extra" data plate that says that it was modified to D-1 status in 1962. The regular "Bell" data plate says the ship is a D-1, but there is no entry in the "Date Of Manufacture" column, and the whole thing looks hand-stamped. Friends who know about these things are pretty sure it was not a D-1 at birth. The logbooks only go back to a complete rebuild in the 1970's, so God only knows what happened to the ship prior to that. (Maybe it was built up from parts?)
With 47's, authenticity must be very hard to prove. Owners of those early ships must not want to talk about it too much.