Perspective please, guys.
As an enthusiastic R44 owner I would be the first to agree that even given its superb commercial success, the R44 can’t be described in any sense as the greatest helicopter. As a former B47 owner (hence my old username..) I replaced that glorious machine with an R44. Why? Because a 47 is not a method of transport for getting you any distance. A sniff of a headwind often meant you were battling with a 40kt groundspeed!
Best helicopter? Best for what purpose? That’s as pointless as arguing a Range Rover is better than a Ferrari 430. Depends what you want to do with it.
Frank is a genius for what he has achieved in producing the best selling machine that enables people like me, who pay their own bills, to fly. Those who sneer and are flying turbines at other people’s expense really miss the point and frankly the Robbie bashing from that quarter is a boring broken record. If it’s your own money you get the best you can afford and for most of us that’s a piston machine with four seats that gets you there at 110kts and safely.
The R44 has an excellent safety record re. total fleet hours flown. Yes it’s built to be light so can be easily insulted as ‘flimsy’. Good aviation design is not wasting fuel on weight. Are you suggesting Frank should have made it heavier (slower and thirstier) to make you feel happier with more metal around you because you’re used to a turbine with three times the horsepower? Chalk and cheese my friends. To see how far light helicopter design has come in forty years, compare my old B47 with the R44 – similar horsepower, same fuel consumption, half the speed and fewer seats. For its time the 47 was a fabulous machine, but is incredibly inefficient compared to the 44’s design. Most fatalities are CFIT, weather and wires, so being flimsy by comparison to a heavier turbine isn’t going to make any difference to most fatal accidents.
Yes, of course I’d prefer a B2, but Frank’s genius with the 44 means I can afford to leave the ground.