Bell 47 or H 300C on Ag work?

[206dvr]

Looking to purchase second machine to back up the turbine. Was going for a H300C but then heard some good things about the Bell 47. Mainly the load. Anyone operated the Bell 47 on ag? Thoughts appreciated.

[Evil Twin]

Speak to Wayne Ashworth at Ashworth Helicopters over in Gisborne he'll be able to fill you in. You'll also want to get Curly at rortcraft to spanner it for you, he looks after our's and knows all the quirks and how to fettle one properly, ex mil.

PM for more
Cheers
ET

[topendtorque]

Me and a lotta blocks here could tell you lots of good things about a '47.

I only have a couple of hundred hours in a 269, but plenty others would tell you about them.

BUT, if you get yourself an R44 then pretty soon your 206 will be the back up. and you might still be looking for a '47 to replace it.

if you really want a '47, stay away from the 540, (G4 or G4A) and the 3B2A, if there are any left that is. That is the wet sump, turbocharged 435 with the 900 series xmon, it will lift an extra 150 pounds more than the others, as long as it is on the hook.

The 540 specialises in split crankshaft ops, followed very quickly thereby with silence and the other in short order, silent ops, after the magneto idler fails.

The 3B2 and 3B1 are both excellent. G5's or 5A's are good if you are in cool climes and the tomcat variety is an extra good ag machine.

do your sums, include airspeed.

[helispeediii]

b 47 is agood ag machine easy to fly very docile slow though for positioning purposes ,running costs much higher spares getting hard find ,,h300 probally a slightly better bet not quite as docile but ok ,fuel running costs lower in spite of lower payloads, spares much better proposition! i have not done ag work but have owned and flown both in the past you pays your money and takes your choice good luck helispeed 111

[SASless]

Consider a Soloy Hiller 12E....horse of a machine....much better than either the Hughes or 47.


An old Jetranger works well too....they are getting cheap enough and parts are not a problem.

[nigelh]

I would get an old AB 206 A for around $150k and it will be reliable and cost v little to run as AB spares are dirt cheap . ( I should know as i have a hangar full !!) This will be a lot cheaper than a Bell and a lot of people reckon they are better built as well . I also had a 3B1 47 a beautiful machine which i used for spraying . Has the advantage that you can have engine quit at 10 ft and you can still climb away , dump your load ( chemical i mean ..) and land safely !!!!!

[206dvr]

I had heard that the 47 was docile and put out a nice spray pattern. I get the point about spares etc. I don't want to get a 44. We are a Robinson free zone around here and I can't see that changing. Too many threads about blades etc. I have sprayed in the 300 but never flown the 47. The soloy might be an option- No worries about fuel types. I hear that the engine is the weak point on the 300 though and you have to be very carefull as to checking things out before purchase.

[nigelh]

So .....what about the AB 206 which has the benefit of being the only one that is suitable for other sorts of work incl charter ???? and can take 4 pax..

[krypton_john]

There's one for sale in France!

BELL 206A I, Used BELL 206A I, BELL 206A I For Sale at Controller.com (http://www.controller.com/listings/forsale/list.asp?catid=7&man=BELL&mdl=206A+I&guid=99B07D71073B488DB6E98633674A75A5)

Note: C18 so a wee bit gutless?

[206dvr]

nigelh are you trying to sell me another 206!!! Or just the spares. All I was thinking of was a piston machine to fill in the gaps. The 47 I thought might be more forgiving for a low time pilot than the 300. Gotta think safety. More people over here seem to know the 300. I'll probably go that way. Thanks to you all for your advice. Keep it coming.

[Fark'n'ell]

206dvr

Has the advantage that you can have engine quit at 10 ft and you can still climb away , dump your load ( chemical i mean ..) and land safely !!!!!

Nigelh is correct:ok:

[landseaair69]

In the interest of comparison, any Owner/Operators able to offer approx or real DOC's of Bell 47 / H300 / AB206 and what hours per year that's based on ?

Cheers, LSA

[206dvr]

Three things to think about for my mind. 1. Purchase cost. We have a turbine and were looking to not double the mortgage. 2. Running/ Insurance costs. Putting a lower time pilot on this one and doing the smaller jobs. 3. Safety for the aforementioned lower time pilot. The 47 seems very safe in the auto but is it more likely to get into that situation than the 300. I don't want a machine that is constantly parked in a paddock awaiting an engineer.

[rick1128]

I was doing some research earlier this month and can across some interesting numbers. I looked at the NTSB website and searched the light helicopter accidents from 1 Jan 1970 to present. I broke it down to number of accidents, the number of fatal accidents and the the percentage of fatal accidents. I found the figures quite interesting and having some bearing in this discussion.


Type / #of Accidents / # of Fatals / % of accidents fatal

R22/ 418 / 69 / 16.5%/

R44 / 94 / 36 / 34%/

H269/300 / 725 / 75/ 10.3%/

BH47 / 1670 / 164 / 9.8%/

Hiller 12 / 592 / 28 / 4.7%/

EN28/280 / 375 / 32 / 8.5%/

BH206 / 1343 / 277 / 20.6%/

AS350 / 118 / 32 / 27% /

500 / 67 / 9 / 13.4%/

Based on these numbers, you might want to take a look at a Hiller 12, especially considering that safety is a major consideration.

Just some food for thought.

[SASless]

Did the stats take into consideration the fleet size, hours flown, kinds of operation being performed, seating capacity, percentage of occupancy....or just raw numbers for events?

[JimL]

Rick1128,

As SASless as said (in as many words) your 'headline' data needs to be 'normalised' before it provides the 'information' necessary for Risk Assessment.

Jim

[rick1128]

These are raw numbers. While they may not provide details, they do present some interesting pieces of information. Much of the information you suggested is not readily available. Fleet sizes change for year to year, a wide variety of operations are conducted, a large variation for fleet usage, occupancy may not be accurately recorded and so on makes that sort of information difficult if not impossible to figure.

But some of the raw data points out some eye opening figures.

The R44 has twice the fatality rate of the R22.

The BH206 and the AStar have an above average fatality rate, even though they are primarily professionally flown.

The Hiller 12 has almost half the fatality rate of the BH47 even though both are used extensively in utility and ag work.

These numbers give you some food for thought. While much of the requested/suggested data would be nice to have, it would almost have to be done on an annual basis which would make the numbers too small and fluctuate to radically.

What is it about the type of operations they do or the design that makes for that difference?

Note that the R22, S300 and the Enstrom 28/280 are reasonably close in fatality rates. All three are heavily used as trainers. The BH206 and AStar are also fairly close in the fatality rates, but the H500 is half that of the AStar. Also similar use, charter, utility, ag, etc.

[206dvr]

Thanks for the data Rick. Food for thought. The 300 and the 47 don't seem too far apart %age wise, but the 47 has more than twice the number of accidents. This may be that it has been around longer than the 300. The hiller is an option I suppose but I have heard too many guys moaning about hiller back and hiller ear! Plus it doesn't have power steering on those big blades. "She's a hard road finding the perfect machine mate."

[John Eacott]

As JimL and SASless have said (in so many words), these figures need to be normalised to have any relevance.

Rick has simply listed the numbers of accidents per type, with no correlation to the hours done per aircraft type, nor the numbers of aircraft per type as a percentage of the total fleet.

It currently bears as much on the discussion at hand as does a list of car accidents which awards the 1920 Ford Model T the "safest car" tag because it's featured in less accidents than any other type in 2008 :rolleyes:

To continue to quote Rick's figures doesn't help this thread in any way that I can see :hmm: