Bell 205 UH-1H performance

[Choppie]

Hello everyone,

Where can I find performance graphs and specifications of the Bell 205 UH-1H? I need it to compare with the AS350B3 as a motivation of why rather to take a B205 than the B3 for heavy lifting.
I've tried googling for it but can't find anything that will really work for me. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[klaus_a_e]

Hi Choppie,

can't help you with B205 performance but I would be very interested in what came out after comparing. I spent some thoughts on the same topic but as far as I got is that for general utility work in high altitude the AS350B3 performs better in terms of cost to weight ratio… Let me know what you figured out.

Cheers K

[Skid Bighter]

Try Googling 'HeliWrench downloads', I came across some flight manuals that may be of assistance to you. Let us know what your findings are.

Cheers.

[Choppie]

Thanks guys, I eventually found the 205 flight manual online.

The quick comparison I did worked out hourly rate wise is that the 205 will run at $450/hr more than the B3. That is with the expensive prices of fuel in Africa.

What I did see was with the 205 you can add a ferry tank and have 100% in the mains with an additional 280litres in the aux and still be able to lift our system. That will take the endurance up to about 2.9 hrs. Where with the B3 we can't get more than 1.5 hours endurance out at this moment. For us it's all about endurance, the longer we fly the more we can do because of being so far away from base.

[R.OCKAPE]

how do you feel when you hear a 2 blade Bell Medium..

[w_ocker]

Hard!

But then, the Huey is my first love. Good payload, huge cabin, proven worker - but pay the weak tail rotor all the respect you can, it will bite those who dont!

[exrotarybooty]

I'll second that about the tail rotor.

I got 'bitten' twice in an AB205, hot and high in Oman, and although we climbed out of the wreckage OK, on both occasions, it changed my status from pilot to an ops officer on Masirah for the rest of my contract! :sad:

ERB

[Darkhorse30]

Be careful! The Bell 205 and the UH-1H were certified by the FAA and the Army, respectively. There charts are not the same. Last year I ran some numbers on the UH-1H based on the fuel costs at that time, and the result was $1079.43/hour. This figure did not include insurance and crew. The fuel was calculated at $5.50/hour.
Additionally, the 205 has been out of production for some time and there are few for sale.

[TheMonk]

Darkhorse wrote:The fuel was calculated at $5.50/hour.

That's gotta be a typo.

[N707ZS]

Isn't the working days of the 205 done even the Spanish have more or less banned them because of old age. Probably best just painted up in USAF colours and flown at airshows. Great in their time but 40 years on!

I would have one any day for private use so don't think I am trying to shoot them down. There are a few places I would love to buzz flat out!

[jab]

Choppie. In a UH-1H that was well kitted out with composite blades, -703 engine etc, I was lifting a full water bucket out of a lake at 9200 feet and that was with about 800 pounds of fuel on board, enough for an hour at least. The bucket took 1300 litres which works out to over 2800 pounds.

I love the B3 but it is not going to come close either in lifting capacity or cost/pound when you consider the cost of acquisition of each helicopter. A really good UH-1H with all the goodies is going to cost you close to a million US while a B3 I seem to recall being well over 2 million US right now. For Africa, take the Huey. Wont be as easy to do survey with but there are other advantages which make it a good choice.

[heliRoto]

Make sure you are using the right charts for the right machine. I have flown the UH1-H, Super Huey, 204, 205 and the 205A++. A 205A++ will out work all the others to include a 212 at altitude. I have not flown the ++ in years but it is still my favorite machine.

Good Luck

[Oldlae]

Which aircraft are we discussing? A 205 is not a UH-1H the tail rotor's are on different sides.
A 205A has a Lycoming T53-11 engine and a 205A-1 has the T53-13 which is much more powerful. The 205's have servos that often leak and can drain the hydraulic system.
A 205 with 212 servos and tail rotor is the ticket I think it's a 205B or Huey II but I stand to be corrected.

[What Limits]

We are using the 205A1-17 (212 Rotor system - dual hydraulics) and it works a treat.

10200 Internal
10500 External

Great noise too.

[mustangpilot]

UH-1H plus that is lightened to an empty wt. of 5000 lbs with -703 1800 shp engine, composite MR blades, new composite TR blades with new airfoil, strakes, fast fin, and cobra oil cooler will out perform all the 205's and 212's at altitude by a long ways. There will soon be a new advance blade on the market that will even improve the performance more for the Huey.

[SASless]

But in what category, Mustang?

There is only so much market for a Restricted Category machine....how does one get to a more usable aircraft at the same cost?

Gone to Simplex belly tanks on all the aircraft yet?

[rotorboy]

You guys are tyring to compare apples to oragnes to pineapple

UH1H is not a 205, there are lots of structural differences.

a 205 A1++, has the -17, the 212 drive train and running gear (tail rotor), tailboom, with he strake you will have even more of a difference.

you can compare it to a standard 205, or even a uh1h with composites and the 703

It will out work, out lift, out perform all the other above aircraft.

if your looking at cost why not a lama vs the B3
you can pick one up for 1/4 the cost of the b3 and chrage the same money. The b3 will out lift it unitl about 8000' then you start gaining ground

what i would want to know is how it compares the 212eagle single. the 212s has the 11200 mgw and the big pratt

Dyncorp and Temsco were working on something similar for the 205, with a differtn engine and upped gross weight.

[Choppie]

if your looking at cost why not a lama vs the B3Unfortunately the lama doesn't have the cabin space we require. We need to fit some ferry tanks to have an endurance of at least 3 hours. Also our equipment won't fit in the lama.

So you guys say the UH-1H and the A1 is two different machines? I thought the A1 is just the civilian version of the UH-1H.

[organ donor]

Howzit Choppie,

There are a few differences between the A1 and the UH-1H, for example the A1 has dual hydraulics, single generator, 212 drivetrain and transmission etc.
I fly both the A1 and the UH-1H in Africa doing sling work and they perform well with -13's. The A1, due to the transmission will lift 10500lbs at sea level and the UH-1H will lift 9500lbs. Performance does drop quite a bit at high density altitudes, but we carry full fuel and a load of 2000lbs ish at 5000ft and 30 degrees.

[Choppie]

Thanks organ donor,

Is there a known difference between the two when looking at them? I remember something about the tailrotor being switched to the other side on the A1. Don't know how correct I'm about that.

[Darkhorse30]

TheMonk
Sorry it takes me so long to get back. The fuel cost at $5.50 gallon is an average of what I was paying last summer. I paid up to $6.15/gallon! I use 85 gallons/hour as a rough estimate on fuel usage for the aircraft, i.e. a standard UH-1H with a T53-L-13 engine. Of course if you do a lot of OGE hovering the fuel flow is much higher. The problem with going to a -703 or -17 engine is that the fuel flow is higher and reduces range, endurance, etc., though the high altitude hover performance is better. You have to make up for the loss in time by carrying more fuel in an aux tank or just refuel more or carry less.
Tail rotors on standard UH-1H's are pretty weak and anyone who flies or has flown one much has had some not so pretty experiences,especially at high DA's with a load. The original Bell 205's had this problem and were all retrofitted with a tractor arrangement and then later a 212 tail rotor system. I don't know what the AB205 has on its tail.
The Temsco/Dyncorp project uses a Bell 205A with the 212 tail rotor and more importantly a P&W PT6C-67D single engine. The engine uses around 15% less fuel and holds the power better with increasing altitude. The engine is FADEC controlled. I flew a UH-1H with the P&W engine and a tail rotor enhacement kit for quite a while a few years back and it was a real horse! The Border Patrol has one now as well as the Georgia Department of Forestry.
One last thing that needs to be said; the differences in the UH-1H and the Bell205(and presumably the AB205) are pretty well documented in their respective flight manuals. They are not the same, and the most dangerous difference in my opinion is that the UH-1H has no WAT(Weight Altitude Temperature) limit chart which leads one to falsely believe that their is no problem with a standard Huey at altitude - the chart is not a Mil requirement. If you operate a standard UH-1H or one that has a bigger engine or better tail rotor, you ought to look at the Bell 205 manual and the WAT chart contained in it. It's a real eye opener, severely limits the (WAT) altitude for take off and landing, and indicates that once an engine fails that the chances of making a successful landing at high altitude gets to be pretty bad. As a Huey driver with a lot of test experience, I would advise taking a hard look at the Bell 205A WAT chart and it associated HV diagram.

[sherpa]

came across this one last summer. what a beauty, UH-1H, -703, composite blades, strake, fast fin. looking at the load calc she was doing better than a ++, but she is restricted cat


http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p242/polarbear08/P8020011-Copy.jpg?t=1231777438

[Darkhorse30]

If it's ex-US military it will never be more than Restricted Category, according to the FAA. We had an ex Canadian CUH-1H for a while and could never get it in Restricted category because it was foreign military. Our best cert was Experimental- Exhibition. I used it for a couple of Chuck Norris movies.

[RVDT]

Other interesting numbers on the 205A1 and derivatives is to have a look at the Power Off Landing Distances over a 50' obstacle. Being a Part 29 Transport category aircraft these numbers are in the RFM.

Used to have to do recurrent training of the local CAA inspector. Being an old ex mil guy he used to try and show me how you could put it down 0/0 in autorotation. I couldn't see his point as at any significant weight it wasn't going to happen so why bother practising it.

One of the better machines out there. I think they only made about ~ 350 or so commercial 205's.

Contrary to popular belief not all A-1's have dual hydraulics. Hydraulics off above ~ 40 knots is not noticeable in the cyclic. On the single hydraulic machines (from the fading grey matter only) it pays to check that the inboard strap fittings are set up to give you collective force neutral at about ~30 PSI.

[Choppie]

So looking that the image from sherpa of the UH-1H the tailrotor is on the the port side. So is the 205A1, fitted with a 212 tailrotor, would that be on the other side or also on the same side? And also a standard 205?

[organ donor]

Ja, the UH-1H has the tail rotor on the left side and the A1 is on the right. The A1 tailboom also has a 'boot' in the tail, accessed on the right hand side.

Just to try basically clear up the whole Huey thing, they started out as the Bell 204, the stubby Huey, which the military designated the UH-1A, and following variations were the UH-1B, UH-1C, UH-1E, and UH-1F. In that time somewhere came the 'extended cab' version, fitted with a -11, called by the military the UH-1D, and the -13 version, called the UH-1H.
Agusta at some point in time also built the Huey, and they were called Agusta-Bell 205's, and then Bell built civillian versions called the 205 A1. It can get quite confusing....

The Hueys can be upgraded with engines, transmissions, drivetrains etc to make them better. The UH-1H's tail rotor is not lekker so people often retrofit them with 212 bits, tractor tails, fast fins, composites etc. The most common fit is to put a 212 42 degree in, as the 205 gearbox needs to be inspected every 400 torque events, quite a mission if you are doing that every 2 days or so!

[Choppie]

And the UH-1H with the 212 bits fitted can still just lift 9500lbs? Where the 205A1 can lift 10500lbs. Right?

[organ donor]

I don't think so, as far as I understand it, the weight limit is due to the transmission, so if you put a 212 transmission in a UH-1H it can lift more, as you have more torque to play with - about 54psi as opposed to 50psi. I figure it won't make much difference at altitude as you will be limited by N1 or EGT rather than Torque anyway.
Perhaps someone else will give you a definite answer.

[mustangpilot]

The answer is yes and no. For Restricted category the FAA will not raise the Gross weight on the H with the 212 gearboxes. Same helicopter in Public use with 212 trans is approved to 10,500 by Bell. Again it is only approved by Bell and not the FAA. It's called the huey II and it is not FAA approved.