Aviation News Item: 04619

1st Feb 2010

Source: bjtonline.com

You need good reasons to travel by helicopter. Compared with an airplane of similar size, a helicopter costs more to buy, lease, rent, charter and operate. So why bother with one?

Quite simply, if you need to depart from or land in an area where you can't operate an airplane or you need to hover someplace in between, you need a helicopter. Time adds another reason. In large metropolitan areas, for example, travelers can take a helicopter from the burbs to a center-city heliport and save hours that would otherwise be lost on congested roadways.

Nonetheless, most helicopters fly utility missions. The manufacturers know this, of course, so most helicopter models, unlike business aircraft, are designed with non-corporate roles as their primary functions. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since utility operators tend to put more wear-and-tear and flight time on their aircraft than executive and charter operators do, and the manufacturers build to accommodate this higher and tougher usage.

So it is with the twin-turbine Bell 429, which the Bell Helicopter Company has targeted primarily for emergency medical services (EMS) and offshore-oil and law-enforcement operations. But Bell has designed its new light twin in ways that make it particularly well suited for executive use, too.

Compared with other Bell helicopters, the 429's most noticeable features are its large, open cabin and flat floor-two attributes that EMS operators demanded and VIPs will appreciate. All other Bells have partitions and structures separating the cockpit from the cabin or obstructing the cabin. Not so in the 429. Along with six fuselage doors-one hinged and one integrated sliding door on each side of the cabin (providing openings almost five feet wide) and one for each pilot-the cabin configuration offers flexibility and spaciousness that is unmatched in other Bells and that rivals what you'll find in similarly sized competing helicopters.

The 204-cubic-foot cabin (including the 74-cubic-foot baggage area) has room for six passengers in seats that are 15.5 inches wide. With slightly wider 18.5-inch seats and even wider 21.5-inch VIP seats with armrests and a console between them, the cabin can carry four. Seats in the front row may face forward or rearward (to create a club-seating arrangement). A removable partition behind the back row isolates the baggage compartment, which can be accessed externally through a small door on the right side. An optional 40-gallon fuel tank can be mounted in the baggage area, adding to the 368-nautical-mile range (no reserve) that the 429's standard 215 gallons provides.

As for the quality of the ride, live-mount vibration dampers on the helicopter's main gearbox do an efficient job of reducing vibration so that flying at 140 knots is almost as smooth as riding in a jet. Even at 150 knots, which is the 429's maximum cruising speed (Vne, the never-exceed speed, is 155 knots), the ride is acceptable, although in this writer's estimation the slightly stronger vibrations at this speed may become fatiguing after an hour or so. (While one can fly some knots faster in a few other helicopters, 150 knots is about the upper limit for a comfortable ride in any of them.) The noise level in the 429's cabin, while requiring headsets, is noticeably less than the level in the cockpit. The field-of-view from the cabin windows is superb.

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