Bell invites media for "inaugural flight of 429" - which occurred last month, we thought
Well, this one had the Rotorhub.com team scratching their heads! Bell Canada has issued media invitations to "the inaugural flight of the new GLOBAL RANGER 429, first model from the highly innovative MAPL series." - today 1.15pm at Mirabel.
Given that the first flight happened just a few days before Heli-Expo opened, on 27th February to be exact, we can only assume that "inaugural" has a different meaning in this context to what we are used to...
Perhaps this will be the event that prompts Bell to issue the first official photos of the 429 prototype? Thanks to the internet, photos of that have been circulating already - Bell's French distributor Rotor International, for example, quite happy to put photos on their website in recent days/weeks:-
Source: Rotorhub.com
For the first "official" photo of the Bell 429 GlobalRanger's maiden flight in February, visit the French website Helimat or click on the thumbnail below.
Photo Source: Helimat
I find it a bit peculiar that two independent websites in France have more information about the first prototype getting airborne on their websites than Bell Helicopters has on its official Bell website...
