Interesting, Geoff! The H-1 has always been one of my favorite helicopters (it's even my desktop background). Too bad Bell made so few of them. Glad you got to fly one! I only got to ride
in them as a kid; a NYC radio station for a time used *two* of them for traffic reports. But yes, with the Franklin engine they were doggy. I wonder if Bell instead had put in the high compression Lycoming VO-435 from the...?
As for differences between G-2 and G-3 as a personal ship, I'd take the wide-cabin turbo G-3 over the narrow-cabin non-turbo G-2 any day of the week.
Question for you, Geoff:
Had to do an EoL for real in a G5A with (Sir) Norman Foster when the newly furbished rotor head fooled the balance chappie and it threw off pitch so violently that we both thought the end of the world had come. Turned of the engine on the way down to a nice grass meadow.
Why'd you shut off the engine? Was it giving you trouble? Did shutting it off help the vibration problem any?
Just curious. I've often heard pilots tell stories of having non-engine-related problems but entering auto anyway...just...you know...because. Which I never understood and still don't.