Bell 505 vs. Robinson R66 Comparison

Good morning everybody. In a couple minutes here the Bell 505, the new Bell 505 Jet Ranger X is going to be showing up here at our helipad and we're super excited to be able to give you guys a comprehensive review, hopefully a comprehensive comparison between the Bell 505 and the Robinson R66. Let's get this day started. I'm excited. All right here he comes you guys. Do you know a little bit? Yeah so I know the basics of it. You know as simplified as possible with all glass display but I mean as far as the rotor system goes and the entire drive system it's directly out of the 206 L4. Right. So it's proven it's got millions of hours on it. Yeah so the blades haven't haven't changed at all? Not at all. They're still the same 206 L4 blades. And what's the life overhaul on the blades? They're a life limit item so they're there's 3,600 hours. 3,600 okay. Yeah all right. Yeah so and like that's pretty low eh? For metal blades it's not too bad. Okay. Yeah we're talking about bringing them up to 4,000 actually for the for the 505. Okay because I remember the Schweitzer blades were 6,000 hours on those but yeah that's pretty that's lower than I thought. Okay but you know I mean so I mean we're still doing long-term fatigue testing on this aircraft. Right. Because you'll continue to do that for about five years even after you've initially introduced the aircraft sometimes even longer. Yeah. Because we started out with about 50 life limit items in chapter four now we're down to about 25. Okay. And we'll just keep continue to knock those out. Right. Until we get a respectable level to the point where you know that's as far as we can go. Yeah. You know. So this helicopter is kind of made in three modules. You've got actually a cabin module and the cabin module is got high speed machining keel beams that run through the floor. Okay. You know that's some of the system integration and the flight controls go through there. You can kind of see that right here. Okay. You know and then you've got sheet metal and then you've got a you can see when you come to the back of the aircraft actually if you look inside here you can actually see a tubular steel frame which is a mechanical truss. Okay. And that truss is in reality the backbone of the aircraft it picks up everything it picks up the entire drive system power plant and everything else and picks up the forward cabin and you can see there it attaches the tail boom. Okay. So that's part of the mechanical truss you can see there. And it goes right up to the top there. And it picks up on the aft cross tube and these panels these composite panels are removable. Okay. So the structure is inside. Yeah. So they're not structural if you're doing run-ups and maintenance or something like that theoretically those would be on for that. Yeah and we do that at the factory so you can do checks and that so. Right. And easily well just screws to remove them. They're just screwed on. Yeah. And then so that's the next big module for this aircraft and then you've got the tail boom module. Yeah. So which is a same as any 206. Right. 407 series. Yeah. Traditional. Now this one here is a little bit longer. Okay. Because you've got the L blades. Uh-huh. So to accommodate for the length but in reality it's uh it's very simple design. And it's uh. It's aluminum. Aluminum. Okay. Yeah. Aluminum alloy. Yeah. So like I said we've got a real mix of uh you know the mechanical truss that's a steel structure. Mm-hmm. Uh you know you got aluminum alloys you got composites you got some fiberglass you got titanium around the engine area. Yeah. So as far as materials go. Yeah. So that's uh that's basically makes the aircraft. This aircraft also comes in high gear which is another six and a half inches higher. Okay. You know we've got all kinds of kits that are you know being developed for the aircraft. Yeah I've been seeing those pop out. Yeah. So but I mean for you guys for training you would probably keep it fairly simple I would imagine. Yeah you probably don't even need bear paws because you'd be doing run on landings. Yeah exactly no it's true I mean. We're happy to have them because we land in the grass and yeah riverbeds and whatever else. Yeah exactly. We've actually been up in the snow. Yeah I mean we do lots of mountain training and stuff with the 66 as well. Yeah. Um so it's really great to have for that. Yeah. But um but yeah if you're going to be doing pull down landings and stuff. Um what are these things like for auto rotation? Similar to a jet ranger kind of thing? Tim can do an auto rotation with you guys they just float. Yeah. Yeah. Don't want to come home. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So uh anyway we also have for the first time a lithium ion battery. Okay. In there you know which is pretty cool it's uh actually it's a seven year replacement battery. Okay. Lasts for seven years. Nice. It's got a memory of its own. Okay. So it'll it'll actually preheat itself even in a cold day. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And all the circuit breakers are remote now. Okay. There's nothing up front anymore. Okay. Anything that needs to be uh seen as far as any issues or or visibility is always on the G1000 Garmin displays. Okay. Yeah. So a couple more basic things. This is the baggage compartment. Okay. One thing you'll see about the baggage compartment and and this is a fuel cell down here. Okay. So you'll see the base compartment goes all the way through. Right. And it's directly under the mass. So as far as loading goes you never have to worry about your CAG. Okay. That's nice. And the fuel is the same thing. Yeah. You fill it up. The filler's on the other side. Yeah. And uh again you don't worry much about the CAG. Right. So a different different style of compartment but similar um capacity to a 66 from what I understand. Is that right? Uh it's the same. It's very similar. Yeah I think it is. Yeah. They're different. Your 66 door is a little bit larger than ours but as far This is more narrow but longer I think right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And uh we're also going to have a door on the other side so the nice thing is you'll be able to load from both sides. Okay. Yeah. That's coming out in the near future? Yeah. Okay. So the other unique thing about this aircraft is that you can do all your DI, your maintenance checks, it's all done from this side. Okay. So this is the only side you come up on. Interesting. So usually you step here you have this door open you step there here here. Yeah. You got a couple handles you can see all your oil levels. Okay. Your controls everything out there and check everything. Nothing to see on the other side. Nothing. Yeah. So again you know another thing from a pilot's perspective to simplify it. Yeah exactly. Yeah. Now on the the 100 hour inspections. Yeah. What's coming open like what's coming apart? The 100 hour is a very simple general visual inspection. Okay. The 300 hour is the bigger one. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So the 100 hour you're going to be looking at the the areas that take the most wear and tear like your landing gear assembly. Yeah. Your rotor system, your tail rotor system. Okay. You're going to concentrate in those areas. Okay. The 50 hour is a grease. Okay. You know. Just the grease of the rotor head. The two hubs. Yeah. Swash plate. That's it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. 300 hours when you get into the bigger inspection. Yeah. What's the inspection? The engine inspection is is I think it's a 300 hour to marry up with this. Yeah. Okay. So at the end of dual pedic engine which is a nice thing and you'll see that when Tim takes you through they do the starts and that. Yeah. All the seats are full attenuating so they meet all the latest requirements. Right. Including the the fuel cell. It's also crash resistant. Right. It has a bladder or. It's a bladder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then these are foldable or they have. You can get the utility seats that are foldable. They're a canvas seat. This is this because this is our demo we like to cover it in leather and make it a little fancier. Yeah. Exactly. Now one question I've had and I think a lot of people have as well is what's the purpose? Is it purely for legroom or what's the purpose for having the back of the seat so upright in the back seats? Because that's one thing I've heard from a lot of people and it's the first thing I noticed when I sat in the back of it. It's a very you feel like you're sitting straight up kind of thing. Is there is it simply just for the legroom of the aircraft or? I think it was just to simplify the design. Okay. Yeah. All right. Because I mean the seat is actually suspended off the aft bulkhead. Off the rails. Because there's nothing underneath. Right. Because if you're not sitting in the seat you could actually put something under the seat. Right. Right. Yeah. You do need to allow for at least four inches of stroking. Yeah. In the event of a you know hard landing or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But and the the seats this seat here for the crew moves forward into the flight position. Right. And locks in that position. Yeah. Now we're also going to make this rail so it can be locked in the aft position. Okay. For a larger percentile person. Okay. So that they so that they could fly here versus there. Right. You know all the pedals are individually adjustable. So you can adjust the pedals and the seat. Yeah and the seat. Yeah. But right now the seat is that's your position for the seat. Oh I see so you can't actually lock it back. Yeah not now but we're making a new rail that's going to have that option in the future. Yeah. So for egress you would move it back get in there move it forward and then have your pedals adjusted where you want to have them. Yeah. You know and the doors are also very simple you've got you know the same egress for the crew versus the passengers in the back. Okay. You got three latches here because this is a pretty big door. Yeah. So and you got the witness pins it's you you can see immediately that they're engaged and it's a slam door. I know people don't like slam doors but it is one. It is yeah. And now on this so on the original design they had the the folding so that door still folds. Yeah we can go around that side for a minute. Yeah. Yeah you got three landing lights in the front here. Okay. All led your air intake system. Yeah. Yeah this panel door hinges open. Yeah. And this is mechanical very simple. Okay. Yeah. All right. You know you can see it's a flat floor. These seats actually come out. Okay. Yeah. Might as well take it out so show you guys what that's all about. Fairly simple obviously. Just move the headset out of the way. Yeah. And then the seat is actually engaged on the on the bulkhead here and down here. Yeah. Which is a a structural portion of it and you just pull the pull the cable. Yeah. Tip it forward and just take the seat out. And these are full attenuating seats. Amazing. So they're pretty pretty lightweight. Yeah. What's the crash rating on them? They're rated for 16g. Yeah they meet all the latest requirements. I mean we have down, forward, aft, sideways. I mean they all have different g loadings but they meet all the requirements. Yeah. And so the 16 would be for down. Yeah. And then when you go sideways and forward you the g loadings actually go up. Okay. From that. All right. Yeah. Yeah it's amazing how much space you get. So yeah lots of space and the helicopter comes with uh you know tie down fittings. Uh-huh. So that's you know standard equipment. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But yeah. Basic empty weight is 21 no what is it 2180? 2180. 2180. I'm not gonna lie to you. Yeah it's right here. Yeah and the gross weight is 3680 I think right? This one's a little heavier because we have uh you know obviously wire stripes uh in there. We got the leather seats. We got a from assembly which is the anti-vibration damper. Okay. Uh we got air conditioning in this. Uh we put the extra headliner in it. Right. You know we put some extra stuff in it so we can show the aircraft. Yeah. We put a hard hard uh point in the back which is a uh a mount for speakers, nights on. Okay. You know all kinds of equipment that you want to mount on there. Yeah. Yeah. This empty weight is 2400. 2400. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay so might as well put this back in. Yeah. Cargo hook is available. Yeah. Position lights are off. Okay. Anti-collision lights on. PFD um MFD. If you had an issue the garment's going to automatically re-index so that it would populate all the information on one. If you wanted to do it yourself you do it right there. Okay. Generator and battery are both off. The panel lights are set to auto. Hydraulics are on. Engines start run crank switch. So when it's time to start you simply push it in rotate it to start and then we just monitor it. Okay. If you felt like it was going to over temp on you. Yeah. You could just push it in rotate it back to crank. Okay. Bleed air. Rotor brakes up. Fuel valve handle is in. Lock wire is installed. Okay. And you can turn the battery switch on. Everything starts running through its own bit at this point. Standby attitude module. The garments and the phatic. Okay. As they complete their bits you're going to start hearing the different alarms going off. Okay. And you mute those with the R tool. Okay. So they'll continue unless until you mute them. Yeah. Okay. And then this one has a um ability to do a weight and balance on it. It does. Correct? Okay. Brings up the weight and balance page. You're about 160. About 150. Yep. Cam you about 160. So it's only as accurate as what you put in. You'll see fuel on board sink and you'll see longitudinally we're going to be a little bit forward on the CG. That's the limit or where where's the limit? So I'll continue to let's say we put. So that's telling me that five pounds that if we got down to five pounds of fuel we're going to be out of our CG. Okay. I see. As soon as you go forward of it it turns red. Goes red. Okay. So this helicopter I was explaining to the guys in the back. This is ballasted so that I can carry an average of 180 pounds up front. Okay. Or I can go by myself with a suitcase. Okay. Ballasted uh where's the ballast weight? On the tail. Okay. So fuel on board sink it saves or it accommodates or accounts for the fuel. Okay. You have no exceedances. Is that that's our fuel there? 305? Yep. 305 pounds. Okay. We have a gross weight of 3455 when we take off so about 230 pounds below max gross weight. Okay. Confirm the weight and balance it saves it on this card. Okay. So if there's ever a question of you know post-incident whether or not the weight and balance was done it's there. There is H-TOS. I'm going to turn it off because it it'll just continue to bark at us. Yeah. You can inhibit or you can inhibit it or say reduce performance. Reduce performance is going to announce obstacles within 160 feet of the earth. Okay. Bring up the engine page. I'll start with the left and we'll work to the right. So caution warning and advisories I can have up to 18 on this displayed on this side. Okay. And then I would get some toggles down here in these soft keys. Okay. I have up to 12 on your side. It's a lot. Yeah. Hopefully you're probably not flying for very long. Power situation indicator. As long as it's green you're good. Okay. This is going to be tied to whatever's box whether it's torque MGT or MG. Uh-huh. These are the legitimate values. Yep. However this is only a percentage of continuous. Okay. Right. So at a hundred that's not a hundred percent temperature. It's a hundred percent continuous temperature. Okay. If it turns yellow you have a five minute window. Okay. And then this will be yellow with black numbers. Okay. Placed if it turns red you'll get the uh an audio alert to turn that transient or that exceedance. Okay. Rotor is always in that normal flight RPM is 104 in this helicopter rather than 100. Okay. Long needle is rotor short needle is N2. Your engine transmission electric and fuel information is all right here. Okay. Pounds per hour displayed in 10 pound increments. Okay. The total fuel is displayed in five pounds. Okay. This information is always there so if I bring up the map you always have your engine information here and you've got your fluid and electrical information right here. Okay. So a couple other tests. Audio test. This is you hear where all the alarms are. Yep. This runs a continuity check with chip detector and fire detection the whole time that the aircraft has power. So if you had a transmission chip that went not picking up various particles but if it was no longer reading the system you'd get a CDN off. It'll tell you which one once you land. Right. Okay. All right. So I hit that one. Yep. Right. So we're going to crank. Yep. Okay. Is that too loud? Yeah. Check. Check. All right. Yeah. Um yeah. Well when you lift off. Yeah. Once we lift off that's fine. Okay. So throttles. Can you hear me now? Yep. Can you hear us? Nope. I can't hear you. You can't use this one. You can't use that one. He's putting that into the rear. I'll just use the headset. What about now? Use the headset. Are you fine? You can hear. Can you hear us now? Check. Check. Yeah. We still hear you. All right. Cuts out. That's weird. Just throwing a headset in. All right. All right. So as soon as. Oh so throttles. So we don't have a traditional twist grip. It's a it's a two position switch idle and fly. Yeah. You can start this helicopter and fly as long as you know the engine oil temperature is above 40 degrees. Okay. Um the pilot on the control is the only one that'll have to the throttle and fly. Okay. That always gives the pilot on the controls the ability to go to idle. Okay. All right. So as soon as. Go ahead. So on it's not the same on both sides. It is the same on both sides. Yep. But it's fail safe to the on position. So it's an electrically inhibited. I see. It's electrically held in idle. Okay. So for instance during the start. Yeah. If you lost all electrical power. Yeah. The engine still has a. So the helicopter is still going to start. But if we lost electronic electricity in the cockpit. Yeah. It's just going to go right to fly. Okay. So if you put it in a you know practice auto rotation type of profile. Yeah. And you lost the electrical power. It's automatically going to go back to fly. Okay. Rather than you having to deal with no visual no audio and. All right. So as soon as you are ready. Yep. Just push it in and rotate to start. Okay. So when ready. Push it in and rotate to. Yep. Rotate and start. Don't hold it or anything. Nope. Get a start triangle. Yep. Start engage. Yep. Blades turning. Temperatures rising. Full pressure. You have two levels of the theta or three. But for the start you've got a channel A and channel B. Yeah. Both running parallel. So if there was a problem the phytic would abort the start. Okay. If you didn't like the rate you can always push it in and rotate. Push it back to crank. Okay. Now we'll turn the generator on. Okay. So gen on. We picked up a load. Good. All right. And as soon as you're ready. So have you flown to 206? Yeah. So you know at flat pitch there's negative pitch on the blades. That's right. So when you roll this from idle to fly you get that negative. A little bit of a hop. I normally bring in about a millimeter of collective. Okay. Okay. So now you're saying. Sure. The acceleration rate was. Is the RPM because I. Low rotor comes on at 85 and off at 95. Okay. The acceleration rate was tested in Maribel on ice. There's enough friction that if it's on ice it's not going to spin on you. Yeah. Over here you can bring up. Is this my friction? Yes. For the cyclic and then collectives right down here. There's about five pounds of pre-loaded friction on the cyclic. Okay. But because right now it feels like if I try and loosen it it's very tight. So is it all the way loose right now? It's only about a quarter turn travel. Okay. So it was all the way loose. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can bring up nearest. You can bring up a timer. You can bring up a traffic map on that side. I'll kind of talk to the traffic maps as we go. Yeah. So you've got airspeed, altitude, and then an attitude indicator here. Yep. You've got your engine information, ground speed, indicated airspeed. Okay. Once we're flying you'll get a wind vector right here. They'll show you where the winds are from. Okay. Radar altimeter, normal barometric altimeter. Okay. 3024. All right. Okay. Unless they ate us. We see that you have information echo. Echo. So now if you want to go back to tower on your push to talk. Uh-huh. Push up and say mic one. Mic one. So the new Garmin's. Yeah. Probably coming out later this year will be the Garmin NXI rather than the Garmin 1000H. Yep. This second radio will be incorporated into the Garmin's. Okay. And then you could voice activate these as well. Okay. Nice. All right. So we're over. This is the active? That is correct. Okay. So we need to get to ground. How do I swap it here? So yep. Just push. Okay. Abbotsford ground. Good day. It's helicopter. Bell 505. November 505. Charlie Yankee. November 505. Charlie Yankee. Abbotsford ground. Good day. 5 Charlie Yankee is on the ground at BC Helicopters with the information looking for a northwest departure. 5 Charlie Yankee. Roger. What type did you say you were? That's a bell 505. 5 Charlie Yankee. Roger. Altimeter 3024. 7146 for 5 Charlie Yankee. All right. Excellent. So over we go. Is there, there's no swap on here? No. Not yet. I'd hope there would be. Someday. Yeah. Okay. So what's our takeoff checks look like? So caution warning advisories. We have three advisories on right now. Battery's charging. We're okay to shut down and wait on gear. Okay. Fluids and temperatures are all within limits. We're at 104. Okay. Excellent. And we're clear all around. Doors are all closed. Seatbelts are on. Yep. Okay. Let's come up. Yeah. You can definitely feel there's quite a bit of stiffness on those pedals. It takes a couple hours to get used to them. Yeah. I know the 66 is a bit of stiffness as well, but I don't know if it's this much. We'll see. Okay. All clear on that side. Runway 01 to the infield and your discretion. They're sitting at about 85%. 85% continuous. Continuous. Yep. When you're ready to go, let's do a max performance takeoff. Just pull it right to the top of the green. Sure. At tower, it's 5 Charlie Yankee ready for departure. 5 Charlie Yankee tower, depart DC helicopter to your discretion. Track northbound until I advise. Remain east of runway 01. Okay. Track northbound until you advise for 5 Charlie Yankee. And tower, November 812, Valsir is holding short of 01 at Charlie, ready for departure. And so trim ball would be here. Yep. Okay. It's like a sailboat. Step on the boat, put it under the sail. Yeah. Tower, Papa Bravo Charlie on downwind for a touch and go. So now your wind vector popped up. It's GPS based, so when you get low and slow and when you lose your airspeed indicator, you lose that as well. Okay. 5 Charlie Yankee, make left turn directly across the departure path at runway 01. Okay. Left turn directly across the departure path. Clear left. 5 Charlie Yankee. Papa Bravo Charlie, number two, follow us to 1-5-2. All clear. All right. Do you mind if I do a couple of banks and stuff? Nope. See how she performs? Yeah. Yeah, very smooth. Incredibly smooth. It's still a two-bladed rotor system, so you have that inherent two-bladed rotor system hop. Right. This transmission is mounted in the airframe with what we call a live mount. Okay. We started that with the 429, and it's basically a cartridge that has elastomerics with a glycol material under a nitrogen charge. So the transmission moves, the fluid moves to counteract the movement of the transmission. Okay. So it's got a lot better tail than a 206 does. Right. If you want to bring it to a stop and just do an out of ground effect pedal turn just to kind of assess it. You want to do that? Yeah. Sure. It's rated for 25 knots. Okay. I've had it doing a 25 knot pedal turn. Okay. It does pretty well. Notice you slow back and you lose your wind data. You still have your ground speed, so it'll kind of give you an indicator of when you're at a stable hover. They do feel stiff. Yep. Oh yeah, good control. We're only at like 88% there. And right now it's looking at torque, and we're at 70% torque. You have up to 100% before you enter the transient. Then you go on up to 105 for five seconds. Okay. And how do they do in high turbulence situations? Have you guys had them out in the mountains in high turbulence? Absolutely. I mean, it's a light helicopter. But if I'm comparing it to a 66, it's a heavy helicopter, right? Yeah. So we flew around the world trip back through Alaska and had some pretty severe turbulence, and it wasn't pleasant, I'll tell you that much. I've had it... It really kind of sucks when you're by yourself and you're light, and it'll kind of surprise you. The worst turbulence I felt, I was flying up the Adirondack Mountains after one of the hurricanes last year that kind of brushed the northeast of the U.S., and it would go from calm, and then you hit a pass, and it would absolutely be... And it gets your attention. I wouldn't want to do it for very long. But I've had it in the Andes, down in South America. I had no issues with the turbulence there. I've had it in Nepal. I didn't have any problems with the turbulence there. Those are probably the two most extreme places I've had it. You mind if we do a confined area up here? No, absolutely. When you get close to the ground, and you know, the last probably six inches, you're going to feel like you're reaching. Like you're which, sorry? Like you're reaching for the ground. Just the shape of the windscreen makes it feel like you should be sitting down before you actually do. Okay, so you got a ways to go, and you feel like you're getting close. Okay. Is that your spot right there? Yeah, and you can tell me what you think of the size and stuff once we get in there. I'm more so doing the spot like this just to see visibility and see how it feels coming in. See what I mean? Yeah, I mean. It's just a perspective thing. This is a perspective thing, yeah. Quite a bit of Robinson. It's actually not that bad. So how often do you have to get up and shut the helicopter off, and then go again? Fairly often. So if you don't mind, if you can pull forward someplace where it's not going to rock back, we'll shut it off, and we'll start it again real quick. Okay. So as soon as you're ready, just go to idle. Okay, and leaving the collective up to the air. Just until it gets down, yeah. Turn the air off. Yeah. It's going to tell us when it's okay to shut down. Okay. What's the average length of time? 30 seconds once the collective gets down. Okay. Below a certain percentile. Yeah. So it says okay to shut down, so go ahead and turn the generator off. Okay, and then the engine. And then just to here? Yep, just push and turn to left. Engine out. Engine out. So I'm going to compare it to a 206 or a 407, a Rolls-Royce engine. Yeah. There's no way that we could get away with letting the blade stop and then start it again. Right. The only key to this is the volts have to be above 25.7 to start. Okay. Oh wow, so there's a full stop so you know, okay, that's the amount of pressure. And it's all the way forward, and then just to keep from chattering, I normally back it off. Yeah, back it off at the end. All right. All right, so no issues. As soon as you're ready, go ahead. So we're still on idle. Start triangle appears. Start. Oh, that's nice. Blades turn. Yep. So about 750 is kind of where it's hanging out for its start. 640 degrees. Oh, okay. So remember, this is just a percentage of continuous. That's your actual temp. Okay. Yeah, I was looking there, not there. It's that dual-channel fatigue. They did a good job with that. Yeah, they really did. So how do we know when we're at proper idle now? Like when it's fully... 64. Okay, 64. 64% NR is how this engine is. You can turn the generator on. Picked up our load. Yep. And as soon as you're ready, you can go to fly. Wow. Incredible. So if you have to, you know, if you want to land and help your passengers out or whatever. Yep. And then how many starts do you get per engine overhaul? So the way that Safran is doing it now, that's hard to explain because they count the engine cycles differently than just a crank. So it's passing through a certain NG speed is how they count it. Okay. And I would be lying to you if you have no idea. I know that our two... the two ships we've got at our training academy have been running for two years and haven't had an issue. I mean, they do probably eight starts a day. Okay. Over the two years. That's pretty good, yeah. Okay, so no warning checks. We've got temps and pressures, so we're good to go flying. Yep. Clear to left. Yep. It's a funny habit because I feel myself double-checking that throttle is all the way on. Yeah, because it has the same feel as a jet ranger. Yep. And so I have that feel of like, okay, yeah, throttle's all the way open. So go to idle. It's a pretty easy helicopter to figure out. It is. Yeah, it really is. It's a pleasure to fly. It's really, really enjoyable. I like it. The systems are incredibly simple, but yet there's so much there, which is awesome. There is a ton of information and it takes a few hours to get used to where you need to look. Yep. And then you start kind of playing around with what you want to look at. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. And it's so customizable, right? So you let people go in your machines, do their solo flights and stuff. Yep. Your customers can't go out and hide what they've done to your machine. Okay. So for instance, you know, in a jet ranger, you've got an over-torque and over-temperature and nobody's ever going to know. Right. Absolute honesty on your own part. Yep. With this, everything's recorded. Yep. This is going to show us all of the cautions that we had on this last battery run. So when we shut down, all of those things pop up. Yep. If we had an exceedance or we had a legitimate fatigue or whatever issue. Yep. All the data that you need or maintenance needs to dictate their maintenance functions is here. All right, you guys, that flight was amazing. I was actually really impressed with the flight controls of the helicopter. So just to give you guys an idea, this is base price, just over $1.3 million. So I think it was 1.315 or so. So that's base. The way this one's sitting with air conditioning, with the leather seats, with the wire strike kit and with the Garmin G1000, it's sitting at just over 1.4,000. I think they said 1.45,000. So it just gives you an idea of that. And then we were just talking about operating costs. It's about $550 US, all included, everything included for operating costs. That would include the fuel and the insurance as well. So it burns about 130 liters per hour on fuel. So it's quite a bit of fuel compared to the R66, but it's a big performing helicopter for that amount of fuel as well. So we'll let them fire up and get out of here and we'll go check out the R66. All right, guys. So now it is time to switch on over to the old R66. This is the baby that we took around the world. We're a little bit nostalgic about this one, but we're going to keep this as practical as we can of a review between the two helicopters, see what our thoughts are. So we're going to hop in there. We're going to try and keep it as equal as possible with each aircraft. So this one we're going to fill up. We're actually going to put a little bit more fuel in this one. So the 505 was set to about 60% fuel. And so this one we're going to fill right up. We're going to put four people in it with about the same amount of weights. And then we're going to go do similar exercises. So let's get going. Okay. So one of the differences you guys are going to see right off the bat, have a look at the instrument panel here. It's a little more of the old school style. So we don't really have much glass here, but we are using an iPad to assist us a little bit. One of the nice features of the Bell 505 was that it had a weight and balance built right into the Garmin G1000. But we're just going to use the Geronimo app here. So we've put in all the weights. So I'm 150 pounds, Sanchez beside me, he's about 150 pounds as well. Tay's in the back seat, 195. We're going to be bringing somebody else along in a minute here. He's about 190 pounds. So we're going to have four of us. So right now you can see our weight and balance is nicely inside. This is a full fuel, empty fuel. I've got it set to full fuel right now. So that's 493 pounds of fuel. And so you can see that our max gross weight is 2700 pounds. Our takeoff weight is going to be 2528. So we still got almost another 200 pounds to go, about 170 pounds to go. If we wanted to put a third person in the middle, they couldn't be more than 170 pounds. So that's good to know. And so then comparing that to the 505, we've got three hours worth of fuel in this thing. In the 505, an interesting factor when you're full fuel, so it's full fuel on that thing is 320 liters. You actually only get 2.6 hours of endurance if you're doing normal cruise, normal operations. So a little bit less on the endurance for the 505, whereas this one you can get a good solid three hours out of it. So let's jump on to the start process. Excellent. You guys are going to notice it's going to take a little bit longer to start this thing up. There's a couple more things to be checking. So rotor brake is disengaged. So the rotor brake's up here. Our circuit breakers are all in. Circuit breakers are down by the passengers' feet, whereas in the Bell 505, it's in the back storage compartment. Not in the storage compartment, in the engine compartment. So cabin heat or anti-ice and pitot heat. We don't have pitot heat on this one, but anti-ice and cabin heat are both off. Landing light is off. Avionics generator switch is off. Altimeter is set. That looks good. Our hydraulic switch is on. So that's over here. We can turn the battery and the strobe lights on. There's battery and strobe. We want the igniter key turned to ignite or enable. We want to make sure that our fuel is pulled all the way out. Our throttle is all the way closed and then we're ready to push the start button. So I'm just going to check that it's clear all around. Clear. And we're ready to hit the start button. So I'm going to put the checklist down here. So I'm hitting the start button, which is on the collective. And now we're watching that our N1 is going to come up to 15%. MGT is staying cool, which is good. We're at 15%. Already turning. Keeping your hand on the mixture control. Okay. So I'm just going to do the final checks here. We're going to raise the collective a little bit. Just want to get the warning horn. I'm going to push the enunciator light test and check that our EMU and everything is good. You hold that for three seconds, as long as the EMU doesn't stay on and the computer hasn't recorded any exceedances. And then we're going to do a hydraulic check. So double check that the hydraulic system works back on and we're good. So we're going to roll it up and let's get out of here. Okay. So we're just lifting off here. So we've got four people on board now. And so let's have a look at our power setting as we lift it off. There's about 85%. And we're just coming out of a bit of a private residence here. So I'm going to pull it to 95 and you're going to see... All right. So climbing out here about 92% now. And as I gain some speed, that's good. Coming through 80 now. Excellent. All right, Tay. So you're the numbers guy. Let's talk numbers here on this thing while we're heading out of the Northwest route. So we were just looking at comparison for operating costs. So we were trying to compare apples to apples. So the bill manual is saying $440 an hour operating cost, US dollars. But if you add insurance into that, you're looking at about $550 an hour, depending on how many hours you're going to do a year on it. So the Robinson price was $340 an hour. Is that correct? $380. $380 an hour. $380 US an hour. And so a little bit of a difference on there. Now base purchase price on a 66 like this, you'd be looking at about $920,000 US. If you want to get a Garmin G1000 or two Garmin G1000s, an autopilot in this thing, in the R66, you're looking at about $1.1 million. When you're looking at the 505 base, $1.31 million. And then basically decked out the way you guys just saw it with the Garmin G1000, you're looking at about $1.45 million. They don't at this moment have an autopilot feature on the 505, but I'm sure that that's going to be something that's not going to be too far in the future coming out. So that's kind of the raw numbers on it from an operating cost and a purchase point of view. Okay. So one of the interesting things that they did with us is he wanted us to get into an out of ground effect cover. So we're just up here at 2000 feet right now. We have quite a bit more wind. This is a couple of days later here now that we're doing this, but quite a bit more wind than we had on the flight with the 505. But essentially the idea is they wanted us to get to zero and just do an out of ground effect pedal turn. Not something that you would normally do, but we're going to do that here. So we're down to zero right now and they just wanted to show controllability. So we're going to do that with this thing as well. We're all leveled off and we've got full control, all directions. A little bit of a tailwind here now. I'm just pushing through that. We're using about 72%. Now something that's interesting, this one, our torque gauge is showing us percent of a hundred percent. So like right now it's 75% of a hundred. Whereas on the, I think they call it the FLI, the first limit indicator on the 505, it's showing you percentage of max continuous. So right now we're basically at a hundred percent max continuous. You can see us bump down into wind there again. So we're at 75%, about 82 or so there would be our max continuous. So slightly different. It's very intuitive in the 505. It's basically just showing you whatever your max limit is of that moment, whether it's your N1 MGT or your torque, it's showing you that instantaneously. So on the gauge there, that's really nice. And it's showing you a hundred percent to your continuous, and then you can go into the yellow from there. So kind of cool. Okay. So we're just going to come into that same confined area that we were in, in the 505. And I won't be shutting it down, starting it back up again, but that was one thing that really impressed the heck out of me with that 505. Not only how easy it is to shut it down and start it up, but how quickly you can do it and how you don't have to worry as much about the temperatures. So on that thing, it's usually about a, it tells you when it's ready to shut down, but it's usually about a 30 second cool down. Whereas in this thing, it's a two minute cool down. So, you know, fairly substantial difference. And then basically as soon as those blades are stopped, you can fire that thing back up and you're not going to have any concern about over-temping it. This one, you're going to have to be fairly cautious. I'll show you that in a second, as soon as we touch down here, you're going to have to be fairly cautious that you're not going to have an over-temp. So you could still do that. You could shut it down and start it right back up again, but we have to be careful of is that you have a good strong battery. And then when you go ahead and fire, you're watching your N1 coming up, the MGT has to get below 150. As long as you get your MGT below 150, then you're going to be good to fire it up right away again. Even though this guy here will probably climb probably 17, 18% before you get that MGT down below 150. But once it is, in goes your fuel and you can fire it back up again. It's just going to take you a little bit longer for the process. And you have to be more mindful of that because it would be very easy to over-temp this thing if you had just shut it down and then you're trying to start it back up again. Okay, so just coming out of the confined area here. We've got 80%, 85%, nice strong climb. There's 90%. So again, this is four people and full tank of fuel. Got about 95% fuel right now. Good and coming off. Now, one thing let's talk quickly about average fuel burn in the 505 is about 130 litres per hour. In the R66, under the same conditions, you're looking at about 88 litres an hour. So a little bit difference on your fuel burn right there. Alright, so one last comparison I want to do here is just power setting for cruise and then what kind of speed we're getting out of it. So right now I'm sitting about 75%, which is about what I was cruising in the Bell 505. Indicated airspeed, looking at just about, I'm just in a tiny climb, basically there's 100 knots. And then if I'm looking at my ground speed, we got a bit of headwind right now, but 84 knots on the ground speed. So I would say very similar when you're comparing speed, equal power to equal speed, but 100 knots cruise is kind of what they're both doing. Okay, you guys, so there you have it. That's the comparison. We didn't get to do everything I was originally hoping. When I originally had this in mind, I thought the flight was going to be a little bit longer and we were going to be able to go up into the mountains and really test this thing out with five people on board, full tanks of fuel, get it up to the top of Mount Robbie and see what these things are like comparison side by side. Wasn't able to do that unfortunately, but there was lots of great things that we were able to compare. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I'm not going to give you any opinions really, other than I think the 505 is an amazing, amazing helicopter to fly from a pilot's point of view, really, really incredible, smooth on the controls, really soft. You really feel like you're flying kind of like the equivalent of a Mercedes when you're flying one of those, which I think is really, really awesome. You really see that attention to detail. They definitely put a lot of effort in that. So that was really nice. The R66 is an incredible helicopter to fly as well. You're not going to feel that same refinement in the controls and the way that it flies. It is smooth. It is beautiful to fly, but it's just not quite to that same level like a Mercedes is, but you're sacrificing costs. So I'm going to let you guys decide what your purpose is for flying. I think the 505 is a slightly higher class as far as power goes. I think it will outperform an R66, but that being said, if you compared it with full tanks of fuel with as much fuel as you can put in an R66 to fly for three hours, hard to say. I really would like to do that comparison. Not that you really can. I guess you would have to put the 505 full on fuel and then take a leave a bit of fuel out of the R66 to get an equal comparison and then go do a high altitude test on that. There definitely is more horsepower, 505 horsepower in the Bell 505. So I think you are going to get a little bit better performance out of it overall, but definitely there is a cost difference. Now in a 505, you're going to be able to charge it out for a higher rate. The sales guys were saying basically that a going industry rate right now is about $1,500 an hour for the Bell 505. I personally think that might be a little on the high side, but that's kind of how much you have to charge to be able to make it affordable and to be able to actually make any money with it. Whereas I believe an industry rate for a 66 would be anywhere between $1,000-$1,100 an hour. From a training point of view, I think for a student it's going to be a little bit easier. If they wanted to get into sort of an entry level turbine endorsement, it's going to be a little bit easier getting into an R66, just cost wise for that. So yeah, there's pros and cons to each I think. I think it was amazing to fly the 505. I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for Bell to come out here and do the demo test flights with us. That was really, really appreciated. I hope you guys enjoyed this comparison of the two helicopters. If you did, give this video a thumbs up and we're going to talk to you on the next one. See ya.