B212 Single engine conversion

[TukTuk BoomBoom]

A friend of mine is spending the winter working on a couple of B212 conversions from TwinPac to single T53s.
Sounds like an interesting concept, are any of you guys doing this or flying these machines?

[helmet fire]

I get the economics of this process; the 212 comes all drive train upgraded and civ certified and the engine can be banged in to create an economical, fully certified machine. But...

The world is a poorer place for it. With literally thousands of surplus Hueys sitting around awaiting a good donk and some certification to get going again, they strip the world of the 212 for ever.

It is a sad day.

[SASless]

Does that make them 112's or 2121's or 211's?

Now if you have an early versions of the 212....and put the single engine back into it...does it revert to being a 205A-1?

[GTNav]

The first conversion in Canada is I believe going on in Calgary at the moment. Someone from Eagle might give you more info.

It will have a dash 17 in it and be able to pull 58 PSI as opposed to the 54 PSI you can pull in a 205 with a dash 17.

Expect the empty weight to be about 6000 lbs and AUM 11,200; 5,200 lbs of pilot fuel and cargo, quite an improvement on the 205 with a dash 17 and 212 blades.

[remote hook]

I wouldn't write off the 212 just yet.

Looking ahead, there are MANY major users of helicopters who are going to start requiring twin engined machines for their operations. This includes Shell talking about siesmic Ops going twin only as an expample, not to mention a number of other rumblings I've heard in the past year. While this conversion may improve performance over the 205/212, the time is coming when two stoves are going to be a saftey/insurance requirement.

RH

[Giovanni Cento Nove]

I guess thats one way to make 205B's.............

Many years ago Fuji Bell developed and certified the 205B which really is more like a 212 with a single -17 than a 205A1 ever was/is. Have a look at the FAA TC Datasheet and you will see it applies to 1 serial No. There are a few 205 A1's that have been converted with the blessing of Bell. 11,200 Internal GW and the sharp nose and extended pitot tubes like a 212 get fitted as well. After all a 205 is about as difficult to look after as a 206, just bigger.

[tottigol]

Well, Bell entered just that in their proposal for the LUH, they called it the Bell 210 if I am not mistaken.
Also the US Air Force is taking delivery of a couple dozens TH-1H for their primary training in Ft. Rucker, those are also "single engine 212" types, I believe.

[Encyclo]

Let's get that facts staright:
The "Eagle Single" is a Bell 212 converted to single engine using a Honeywell T-53.
The Bell 210 is a UH-1H fuselage, cleaned up and commercially certfied.
There is a ton of differences between a Bell 212 fuselage and a UH-1H fuselage

[Ian Corrigible]

...while DynCorp offers its 'Global Eagle' P&WC PT6C upgrade for the UH-1H, and DynCorp/Temsco are now also jointly working on a PT6C upgrade for the 205A-1 which incorporates the 212's rotor system. (My head hurts... )

All of which will add to the 23 Type Certificates for H-1 aftermarket mods already on the FAA's books !

I/C

[TukTuk BoomBoom]

Very interesting mod, thanks for your replies.

I guess the only downside is the 212s are getting to be pretty old airframes by now.
Not UH-1 old but still long in the tooth.

Good to see Canada has had the balls not to allow ex-military helicopters to be operated on commercial work, which makes conversions like this economical.
The Bell 210 is a great idea but probably out of alot of operators price range.

[Blackhawk9]

Strange how conversions go in circles, when I was in Iran 2 years ago the Iranian Helicopter factory was installing PT6 Twin Pac's into UH1-H's they had so many spare twinpacs, they also cut the nose off and grafted on a local made pointy nose and that was it, they still had single hyd system, l/h t/r etc ,just the twin pac and pointy nose added.