Disabling a Bell 206

July 2, 2006

Even though it might be an unusual event and low risk to have a Bell 206 stolen, does anyone have any good & simple methods to disable a parked 206? I've considered putting a padded cable around the T/R, etc. to "slow them down".

What about doing something to make it not startable (beyond disconnecting the battery..), removing a critical part that could make it non-operable (and would not allow it to start, etc.), etc?

I suspect if we made it dangerous to fly and the thieves were injured we could be liable to them & their families for all their medical bills, pain & suffering, future lost income ("they were just stealing it to pay for their future Harvard or M IT college tuition to become nuclear physicists and save the world, etc.") ...

We don't have hull coverage and it gets parked sometimes for a couple of days where it is at some risk... Unfortunately, there have been some stolen aircraft in this area...

July 3, 2006

Wow, never heard of helicopters being stolen before. Guess thieves are getting better training these days!

Just off the top of my head....

- Remove the battery vs simply disconnecting it

- Unplug the fuel quantity gauge. A pain in the butt, but even a bandit pilot won't dare steal a helicopter showing nothing in the tanks

- Remove the TR pedals

DO NOT wrap anything around any blades to make it a less appealing target. Say you do and Joe Shmoe comes looking to steal the machine, and tries fighting to get your padded cable off. While trying to get it off the thief may cause damage to the rotor system that isn't apparent until bits and pieces start flying off in flight, either with him at the helm... or you a few days later if he gives up trying in the first place. Or you might forget to remove the cable before your next flight. Sounds silly, but how many here have started a machine with the blades still tied! You either have, or you haven't yet.

Wonder if you could get a "Club" that would stretch from the cyclic to the pedals? That would be the easiest way to do it if it could reach.

Anyone else got any ideas?

July 3, 2006

without going into much more than west coaster, take out the battery(s) shut the igniters off, ie pull the breakers or remove them. much more than that requires more than you want/need to do

July 3, 2006

Bolt it to the ground?

July 3, 2006

Had experience with vandalized machines before...best remedy is to put up fake cameras and lots of signs sayin they're real. (or spring for real ones, a garmin 430 is worth $9,000...tempting)

July 3, 2006

We had a recent experience with thieves at a local airport stealing avionics.

The thieves didn’t touch the high end Garmin equipment. They all know you can’t resell a stolen unit to a legitimate used avionics dealer because of the ESN numbers embedded into the software (easily traceable). They only took the older stuff that is still in high demand. Fortunately one guy was able to buy back his stolen transponder, and the FBI tracked part of the ring down. I am more worried about vandals breaking glass on the runway or damaging aircraft.

RW

July 3, 2006

unfortunately, if someone wants it bad enough?----& parked for couple of days?..... not much ya can do to protect it. Get a B I G dawg & come by to feed him twice a day, & maybe get the dawg a friend OR 2,,,,,

I take it this is a "remote" location you park it?

July 3, 2006

No battery means it won't start, and casual thieves don't carry around spare 206 batteries. Anyone that dedicated can get the helicopter in any case.

There have been cases of stolen helicopters. One was stolen from Evergreen in Galveston, TX a few years ago, and used in a bank robbery. It was found later in Oklahoma, and one of the idiots left a prescription medicine bottle in it, with his name and fingerprints. They all went to prison, but Evergreen had to practically rebuild the helicopter, because there was no way to know how it had been treated - possible overtorques, overtemps, or any other overages. They replaced just about everything before it could go back on 135 service. Having one stolen is very, very expensive.

July 4, 2006

One stolen avionics ring that was going years ago was pretty interesting.....

They would steal a good radio (like a KX155 or something), then break into another airplane and switch it out with identical radio--and maybe even switch it out a third time. Chances are the second guy would never know his radio got swapped out unless he sent it into be serviced and the s/n came up stolen. By that time, who knows where his radio ended up.

July 22, 2006

...take out the battery(s) shut the igniters off...

Not much of a deterent. Any 24 VDC battery and a jumper cable will get you started and you don't need a battery to fly away. If they know how to steal it, pulling the igniter CB's won't do any good.

The above will certainly help in keeping the vandels from doing damage perhaps - ie: leaving master switch on, boost pumps, radios and and perhaps an attempted start by some one who doesn't know what they are doing.

But if someone wants to steal it, and knows what they are doing, it tough to prevent it, short of removing tail rotor, starter gen, etc., or chaining it up.

Insurance will be cheap if anyone ever tries to take it...

July 24, 2006

Thanks for the ideas. I wish we had hull insurance (another topic...) but we can't buy 'not-in-motion' coverage without purchasing the whole hull insurance package or paying a huge premium for the 'not -in-motion' coverage w/o hull 'in-motion'.

I actually think using a top quality thick-cable lock that is well padded with soft clear rubber tubing and using it around the T/R driveshaft and having the m/r tiedown loop through it may work at least to discourage someone. They will see it is in place when they try to remove the m/r tie down.

Still open to ideas...