One person wanted to rekindle the 47, and bring out a newer version. Bell said thats fine buy the pattern, however, you take on all the past Bell 47's also.
That's quite normal for the new owner of the type certificate to take on liability and Bell probably did the buyer a favor as most of these guys go bankrupt trying to reproduce older designs.
I don't have a Bell 47 but have been asked by an operator here to put a package together for them to keep their B47 Soloys flying another 5 to 10 yrs for ab initio training as their 2 yr old 'euro trainers' break in hard landings where the B-47 just bounces a bit higher than normal and keeps on flying
