PANewz sez:
What the 505 brings to the party is an open cabin and more width...
Really? Doesn't look like it to me. In fact, the pictures I've seen make the back seats look very JetRanger-ish in width. But I've never seen one in person and, Googling my little fingers off, I cannot seem to find on the internet a figure for the interior width of the 505. I guess Bell doesn't want us to compare things.
Bell is positioning the 505 in a curious place. It cannot eat into 407 or even 206L-4 sales - that's a given. It will not compete against the H120 (at nearly double the price with the same engine). And at US$1.2 million, it's quite a bit more expensive than the $900k R-66. Maybe
$300,000 is nothing for buyers? And anyway, with its L-4 drivetrain and 504 horsepower engine, the 505 is a class above the 300 h.p. R-66. Or not? Will the 505 and R-66 compete in the same market segment?
I'm really struggling to understand why Bell is reinventing the wheel here (and making it bigger). People talk about that marvelous flat floor(!) as if that's the way Igor decreed they ought to be. In fact, Fun Police says:
If you try to put a stretcher patient in either you'll instantly be able to tell why people feel this way.
Here is one thing I will GUARANTEE: No 505's will be used in EMS. In fact, you won't see forklifts easing up to 505's with pallets of cargo to load. So the flat floor is...well...meh. It's probably not going to matter to the people who'll buy a 505 versus an R-66.
I just look at that big 505 bubble and imagine a seagull coming through at the "135 knots" everyone says the 505 will cruise at. Yikes! I don't even like pushing Bell 47's above 60 knots for that very reason, and the 505 is just as bad! Let us hope and pray it's not nearly as fast as Bell is fake-promising.