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Bell 47 CFI


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Some of us old farts qualify.

 

Flown and instructed in B47G, G2, G2A1, G3B, G5 and Soloy.

 

Seems like a lifetime ago now.

 

Mike

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I'm sure there are plenty of old farts who can fly it, but how many of them would take a teaching job? I wonder, in the past five years how many certs have been issued in a 47? Now I'm not saying I wish I'd gotten my ppc in one instead if the 22 (cause I love that little guy) but 20 hours of off airport landings and 180s in a Bell 47 for my commercial would have been awesome!

 

Got to find one (a bit closer than Texas) before they go the way of the Dodo!

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I'm sure there are plenty of old farts who can fly it, but how many of them would take a teaching job? I wonder, in the past five years how many certs have been issued in a 47? Now I'm not saying I wish I'd gotten my ppc in one instead if the 22 (cause I love that little guy) but 20 hours of off airport landings and 180s in a Bell 47 for my commercial would have been awesome!

 

Got to find one (a bit closer than Texas) before they go the way of the Dodo!

With the soloy conversion they will be around long enough for your grandchildren to fly them.

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I'm sure there are plenty of old farts who can fly it, but how many of them would take a teaching job? I wonder, in the past five years how many certs have been issued in a 47? Now I'm not saying I wish I'd gotten my ppc in one instead if the 22 (cause I love that little guy) but 20 hours of off airport landings and 180s in a Bell 47 for my commercial would have been awesome!

 

Got to find one (a bit closer than Texas) before they go the way of the Dodo!

 

There's a lot of them in Texas. 47's aren't "rare" at all, they just get worked daily like a tractor, not used to putt around a pattern like a Robbie.

 

I know of a few schools that still use a 47 for training. It's a perfect machine to train in if you have a 206 job waiting.

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I accumulated about 45 hours in a 47 just this year. Fun little ship to fly and you can pretend to be a part of history, but I didn't enjoy it too much. Damn thing scared the hell out of me on a couple of occasions. Glad for the opportunity and experience, but I don't plan on flying one again if I can avoid it. Lol

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I accumulated about 45 hours in a 47 just this year. Fun little ship to fly and you can pretend to be a part of history, but I didn't enjoy it too much. Damn thing scared the hell out of me on a couple of occasions. Glad for the opportunity and experience, but I don't plan on flying one again if I can avoid it. Lol

 

"Little ship"?? What big ships have you been flying?

 

What model was it?

 

What scared you?

Edited by Mikemv
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Ha. Sorry about the little ship comment. I haven't flown anything larger than an EC120 but the 47 only fits 3 and it's a bit squirrely. The 47 that I flew was a 47G-4 (I think). It had a turbo charger, and a Lycoming engine similar to a R44 and a carburetor. It had a fair amount of power, but flying it at altitude, high gross weight on a hot summer day really put the pressure on. The biggest stress came from the manual throttle without the aid of a governor. I got the hang of it, but there was a bit of lag between the throttle and the engine response leading to some moments of surprise when rolling on the throttle and not seeing a reaction or trying to make minor adjustments and under or over compensating. Hard to keep your eyes outside when it feels like keeping the needles in the green is a full time job all by itself.

 

Don't get me wrong, I loved the ship and it took really good care of me. It was a lot of fun to fly, but the extra work that comes with flying it takes away from the overall enjoyment of flying. By the time I got as many hours as I did I felt really comfortable and it had some of the smoothest touchdowns I've ever done.

 

Also, the controls seem to be built for a gorilla HA. Your arm will be fully extended to hold the cyclic for regular forward airspeed (no resting your elbow on your thigh) and even with the pedals at their max distance you'll still be flexing your right ankle at a weird backward angle when you input left pedal so you'll walk with a limp after a few hours of flying...

Edited by zippiesdrainage
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ZIPPIE, If your 47 had a turbocharged Lycoming engine it was either a G-3B, B-1 or B-2. The power lag was in the turbo charger. You have to lead the power to allow the turbocharger to build more boost pressure to the engine. That is the reason for the dual manifold pressure gauge, If you keep the turbo pressure higher than the engine pressure you are good to go.Some one should have schooled you on that. The control problems you encountered could have been cured with a simple re rigging to move the position of the cyclic and still maintain the control limits. The same is true with the pedals.

 

I'am glad you enjoyed your time in the 47, I flew them for 46 years and to me they are the most honest helicopter ever built . They always told you their limits in advance and warned you before something went wrong.

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Yep, everything Dragbrace said plus it likely had high inertia blades which emphasize the lag. I used to work hard to get students to pay attention to the sound. Once you tune into the sound of rpm you can catch it and respond long before it's a problem. I thought it was a great ship and loved having to actually pay attention to things like rpm instead of relying on governors and such. Between the 47 and many years in an S-55 I thought turbines were a little boring...

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It had a turbo charger, and a Lycoming engine similar to a R44 and a carburetor. It had a fair amount of power, but flying it at altitude, high gross weight on a hot summer day really put the pressure on. The biggest stress came from the manual throttle without the aid of a governor. I got the hang of it, but there was a bit of lag between the throttle and the engine response leading to some moments of surprise when rolling on the throttle and not seeing a reaction or trying to make minor adjustments and under or over compensating. Hard to keep your eyes outside when it feels like keeping the needles in the green is a full time job all by itself.

 

That right there is why I recommend every Robbie pilot gets some 47 time. I had about 80 hours in a 47 D1 when I climbed into the G3B1 with weighted blades and it humbled me. I picked it up within an hour because of my previous 47 experience. It took me a good 3 hours to really get ahead of it and that is the point here. Its like flying a jet in that you have to be thinking ahead always. What's load factor do when turning? It increases RRPM right ? so before you get to your turn take all the slack out of the throttle the the low side, roll into the turn check your RRPM with collective and maintain trim and pitch with eyes outside. Its a very forgiving machine but you constantly have to be thinking ahead of the game not just reacting to what is happening. In my humble opinion that makes you a much better pilot.

 

For a little perspective, I worked with a pilot a few years ago that would complain every day about how bad the governor sucked in a certain R44 machine. Having flown that machine many times I was like what ? After further questioning I found that the pilot got the RRPM horn every time she made a certain turn on a certain tour route. I asked, did you ever roll on throttle or reduce collective and she was like, what ? I'm not trying to bash Robbie pilots, I really like flying the 44 personally, but it seems the bottle fed governor babies just don't understand what is going on with the machine, in my experience anyhow.

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