To be honesty I didn't personally get a chance to fly the T2 my self because Airbus didn't offer one to fly in time. I flew the conventional tail rotor Mercedes edition and the ride was a bit rough (as to be expected with that head). A trusted friend of mine who had flown the T2 told me there wasn't a big difference in the ride. That said, the ride was a distant consideration to the speed and acquisition cost. The report I did hear was disappointed in the speed of the T2. In his words he was concerned with the parasitic drag of the aircrafts new tail. He was having trouble getting the aircraft to bridge 130 knots even light at sea level. The 429 is a speed demon as we all know easily reaching it's max cruise with no penalty in ride.
I also have to admit that after owning an Airbus product for the last 3 years I wasn't too excited to be an alpha model early adopter with the T2. My local service center, Advanced Helicopter Services, has taken excellent care of us often masking some of Airbus' customer service "idiosyncrasies". The Bell 429 has been out for long enough to be proven. And, if something is to go awry, Bell has proven they care about single ship owners just as much as the fleet operators.
As for the 7,000 lbs limit in the US, this was my biggest hesitation. However after extensively testing the aircraft in our environment I found that because of the speed and fuel burn you are able to accomplish approximately the same mission in less time and with less fuel requirements. Our ship weighs in at roughly 4900 empty with VIP corporate interior (2+3), 4 axis auto pilot, 3 DU, 350H, GTN 650 and 750, XM audio, etc (all typical corporate trimmings). This leaves a healthy 2,100 lbs usable. For our needs it's plenty for our typical under 1 hour flight times. Obviously the EC-145T2 has a significant usable load advantage over the US market Bell 429 but at the expense of speed and fuel burn. Since it was really designed and tested to 7,500 lbs and sometimes 8,000 lbs the aircraft performance in climb, HOGE, OEI, etc is rather impressive and completely un-limiting anywhere I'll fly it in California.
Lastly cost was a significant factor. The 145 is approximately 25% more expensive then the Bell 429. I'd also argue that although contrary to what Airbus claims, it's significantly more expensive to operate then the B429. For a corporate owner flying roughly 200 hours or less a year, the B429 is practically only going in for maintenance once a year. It seems to be an easy aircraft to own and maintain.
