Australian Aviation - July 2018

70 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

warning about using space under the
rear cabin seats with passengers.
But there is no access to the
baggage area from inside the main
cabin. The rear cabin wall is a
structural item which the passenger
seats hang off and it looks like the
designers have left it intact rather than
have that internal/inflight access to
the baggage area.
Finally, you can dial your baggage
weight up on the Garmin 1000H and
it will calculate centre of gravity (CoG)

• more on which later.

Drivetrain
While the 505 sports an all-new cabin,
its drivetrain – main rotor blades,
transmission, tail rotor drive shaft, tail
rotor gearbox and tail rotor assembly

• is borrowed from the 206L4
  LongRanger. (Where we put the
  aircraft to bed in the hangar in Sydney
  it sits right alongside a LongRanger
  which makes the comparison very
  easy. Visually the components look
  completely interchangeable and
  familiar.)
  The lighter weight of the 505
  slung under the LongRanger’s blades
  provides a reduced disc loading. In
  terms of flight characteristics rotor
  inertia and tail rotor authority is
  similar to current model LongRangers.
  The completely exposed tail rotor
  gearbox looks out of place with
  the rest of the helicopter, even if
  passengers are unlikely to notice and
  it does make inspection easy. And Bell
  does have an aerodynamic tail cone kit
  in development.
  The 505’s vertical fin looks identical
  to the current 206L4’s, while the
  underslung-mounted horizontal
  stabiliser was arrived at after a
  number of positions were trialled
  during testing. It does look like an
  afterthought but no doubt it is easy to
  fit and remove and there are no spars
  protruding through the tail boom.
  The horizontal stabiliser’s reverse
  aerofoil design, like in almost all
  helicopters, produces a downward
  force on the tail in forward flight
  resulting in a more level attitude
  and increased forward CoG range. It
  has a slotted leading edge which is a
  new feature to the Jet Ranger design
  which acts to delay airflow separation
  at higher angles of attack that the
  horizontal stabiliser might experience
  in a climb.
  The other notable tail section
  hardware feature is the vibration
  dampening counterweights. These
  are square plate weights mounted to
  the end of the tail boom with a stiff

wire coil bracket that work to dampen

airframe vibration. This would also be

the attachment location for any ballast

weights and being so far back on the

tail allows for very small weights to be

used to adjust center of gravity.

Skids

The skids and crosstubes are pretty

standard construction. The skids are

comparatively short while the toes

canter in a little at the front as they

angle up and are topped by a flat step

to assist with entering the cabin.

The Nautilus-owned Bell 505

on display at Rotortech was fitted

with popout floats and the rear skid

extension, which gives the skids more

‘normal’ looking proportions. A high

skids option is expected at the end of

2018, which will provide another 15cm

of lift.

From the pilot’s seat the toe ends

are behind your seating position – in

line with the rear of the front seats.

To see them in the hover requires a

small head tilt outboard and a glance

slightly rear.

Startup

Getting started and going is very

simple, thanks to the Garmin 1000H

multi function displays and the

Safran Arrius 2R’s dual FADEC (full

authority digital engine control)

system.

Once power is on the G1000H

takes about 10 seconds to complete its

internal boot and system test. Then

the next step is to enter passenger

and cargo weights into the weight and

balance page (it pulls in fuel quantity

from the fuel sensor). This page is very

similar to a number of mobile or tablet

apps which allow you to wargame

different loading configurations vs

CoG and AUW limits.

After a control check and clearing

the area starting the engine is just a

matter of selecting the engine switch

to on. From here the FADEC takes

over with no pilot input needed –

fuel introduction, throttling, hot

start shutdown are all handled by

the system. The engine start takes

approx 40 seconds to idle. If it is a

consecutive start after a short stop

then the FADEC will motor the engine

if needed to cool before igniting.

(It will be interesting to see if there

are insurance premium reductions

over older machines now that pilot

experience and turbine hours no

longer have a bearing on hot start

protection.)

There is a small amount of ground

bounce evident that is cleared

by pulling in a little collective or

repositioning the cyclic.

With hydraulic control checks out

of the way you then select ‘fly’ with the

thumb switch on the collective head.

Five seconds later you are at flight

RPM.

I was able to learn more about the

505’s FADEC setup after a subsequent

chat with Alan Whitten, a field rep for

Safran Helicopter Engines Australia.

He explained that the dual channels

are continuously online, and that at

each consecutive start the primary

active FADEC alternates. If a start

cycle fails to complete for any reason

and is aborted by the system then it

will automatically go for one more

start attempt before calling it quits.

In the event of the active FADEC

channel suffering a high or low side

failure the changeover to the standby

channel is almost instantaneous

and no RPM change would be seen,

Alan indicated. Surge and flameout

protection is handled automatically

by the system but it won’t limit fuel

AIR TEST Bell 505

VH-HRH at Armidale.MICK CULLEN