As a helicopter mechanic and not a pilot, I hope my opinion wont be dismissed out of hand here. Yes I know I should be haunting the engineers board, but there just aren't many rotary wing topics for me to opine on.
I do not care for dollies for a few reasons. Doing maint. perched on ladders all day sucks. Smaller dollies do not allow for positioning of proper work stands, and even on the larger ones it can get dodgy. Then you have the added annoyance of having to continually get off the ladder, off the dolly, to your toolbox get the tool you need climb up the dolly and then the ladder to get to where you are working. Hard on the old back and knees on those long shifts in the summer heat. Then you have to have another piece of GSE like a tractor or tug to move the dollies, and the dollies themselves to keep in proper working order. Thats more kit I have to maintain...and I have enough on my plate already.
I work for a company that has used Paravion heliporters for B3's, L3's, L4's, 407's and Enstrom 480's for almost 10 years. Our pilots are trained on the heliporters and are tasked to move aircraft in and out of the hangar for flights, unless we have a maintenance job, then the mechs do it. I am pleased with the performance of the Heliporter. Low maintenance (other than routine servicing of batteries, lubing the grease fittings, and the occasional replacement of a battery charger,bad battery, worn out drive tire or broken control cable (really rare) they are close to bullet proof.)
Yes you do need to be careful that you position the porter correctly before you lift the aircraft, and that if you dont plug it in from time to time the batteries will be dead when you go to use it and you will be stuck using ground handling wheels. Another plus is that if you have multiple aircraft types and heliporters and one of your heliporters goes tango uniform, all you have to do is move some lift pegs from one porter to the other and you are back in the business of moving aircraft. The lights on the porter and the optional APU plug are just icing on the cake.
Thank you for your time
