If that price is right there won't be any flying in a few years. Who would pay that to keep one going?

Great machine but had its day

US$179,000 definitely is the new price for one main blade. Bit of a hike from US$42k last year.
This is on the Bell website.

I wont be buying any Bell in the future if these are the tricks they play.
I'd prefer they just say they are not available or allow PMA to an outfit who are happy to produce them.

OOW

didn't they used to wait for an order totalling 100 sets and then run them off?

Maybe someone needs to knock on the Kawasaki and Augusta factory doors to see if there's any old jigs, and or sub contractors left around.

Or maybe they'll have to go back to doing ten thousand hours??

:eek:I nearly fell off my chair! I wonder when 206 parts will get that expensive? Hopefully not for quite a while.

Lots of 47's out there and they're still able to scrounge parts ...

http://www.bell47helicopterassociation.org/


At that price somebody's going to start building blades. It seems that's what happened when Textron jacked up the price of the tail rotor components a few years ago. It's a much loved machine and I don't think it's going away for awhile, even though it seems the manufacturer would prefer that it did.

Not exactly good news, but having been on both sides of similar fences, I would have to give Bell some credit for supplying parts for this machine some 60 or so years after its introduction. Not many products have this kind of support.

So it would be cheaper to buy a whole second hand 47 just for the blades?

I believe that there are no new blades for the 206, you can only get ones with time on or get the broken ones repaired.

The Helicopter Museum at Weston-s-Mare tried to locate a bubble for their Sioux a few years back. The UK Sioux has a different bubble to other 47's. The museum ended up getting a standard 47 bubble and fitting that. Lots of gaps and I am certain that the CAA would not allow it to fly if the machine had been airworthy.

Long and short of it was, the only known spare bubble for the UK Sioux is held by the AAC as a replacement for the Historic Flight Sioux.

The museum could not locate a mould either, had they wished to get one made, so looks like this Sioux is destined to remain grounded.

No new 206 blades???
 

What!?!

Elaborate! No new blades to have?

/per

Thanks Helimarshaller. There's a Bell 47 been sat out at Cordoba Spain for a number of years it might be worth something for the parts by the sound of it.

New blades for 206 are still being made by bell $64,000.

My 1967 issue of Flying Annual shows the 47G-5 selling for US$39,500. Perhaps someone can do the inflationary numbers but it's a lot cheaper than the cost of many of to-day's 47 component prices.
A local community college has a 47 J-2. Perhaps they might want to part it out or sell the whole thing for a decent price. If anyone is interested please PM me. However, it sat outside for a long time and then was moved indoors in 1985.

Bell 47 spares pricing explosion
 

BELL SPARES PRICE LIST 2008 VERSUS 2009

2008
-----
047-110-250-021 BLADE,MR (HR) EA US$42,640.00

2009
-----
047-110-250-021 BLADE,MR (HR) EA US$179,047.00

ie US$179,047 per blade. 4.2 times the 2008 cost. A 320% increase

Has my 47 gone up in value or just in insurance premiums.
Bell wants us gone. I bet most 47 owners could never afford a current Bell product. Time to part it out perhaps. My blades are half life US$179000 for the pair! (more than I paid for the whole machine :)

OOW

Cost vs. Worth.
 

Just because they cost $USD179,000 does not mean they are worth $USD179,000. Each. I have a feeling composite blades aren't too far away.

You could get the blades made for fraction of that price, but they aren't certified so the ship would be illegal to fly.

Who will stump up the cost of certifying 3rd party blades?

bell 47
 

If you go on to peterstoys.com their is a 47 for sale on their good luck

Mash Bell 47
 

I was watching an old episode and they had pilot and passenger on the aircraft and then they loaded 2 people on the Litters. Is this possible with the Bell 47 ?

This would be dependent on which model of the Bell 47 you are talking about, the operating conditions (Altitude and temperature) and the weight of the various people and equipment.
From my own experiences, operating a Bell 47 G2 in the UK many years ago under failry standard ISO conditions, we were very challenged to get airborne at all with two reasonably large people on board (me and the student!)

If I recall properly.... A long, long time ago in another galaxy, we used to lift about 600LBS of chemical with about 10 gallons of fuel for short sector high volume spraying...... So, if those figures are near accurate ( brain damage set in years ago) IT WOULD BE FEASIBLE for short distances, if the guys don't share my waistline!! :ok: