Chevron are operating a few 427's in the GOM. Not sure if they have any 430's there. And in Africa they have 427's and 430's.
I've seen them up close, and crawled all over them. Attractive looking birds.
The 430 was designed as SPIFR. It has a very large rear cabin, plenty for a stretcher I would have thought. But the complaint I heard there was that you could load all kinds of pax in a 430, but you couldn't carry their baggage.
Not enough space there, relative to no of pax.
I'm guessing... that the problems with slow delivery times were fatal. Faced with stiff competition, customers voted with their feet. Pity. There was potential there.
I loved the 407. A pilot's dream. Only problem is, after several 1000's of hours in a Longranger, I spent the first 50 hours, with 5-6 pax on a hot day, no wind, just "milking that puppy" "easy-easy-easy" over the deck edge on take-off. Then, as you snatch a hurried glance at the torque, expecting to see that you are using ALL the horses, you find yourself staring at "67%" or something silly. Took me a while to learn just how much "Oomph!" was available to me if I was just willing to pull it.
I did fly the Koala, briefly. Very, very nice. Noticeable vibration (noisy) when you slow down through translational, more so than on other designs? But a superb toy.
Just hope I never have to go out and get a real job. You know, where you hate everything you do, and you're just in it for $$$.
Mind, I know some pilots like that.
It would be interesting to hear from any 427 or 430 drivers out there.
