Woke up!
During a family dinner the other night we experienced a scene from ‘Modern Family’. Our sons are rapidly converting two chickens, a field of potatoes and enough carrots to fuel night vision goggles into calories, while we planned the week ahead.
Barry a local contractor is the subject at hand. Barry is a super handy bloke with a small excavator towed behind his Toyota Landcruiser (that size you can pull with a Bell 205A1++ for those who know diggers) and I have both an aversion to digging and a dirt moving problem.
The talk of hard labor has the boys listening but strategically avoiding eye contact lest they be conscripted to shoveling as part of a cost cutting initiative when abruptly the 16-year-old paused between tearing and swallowing, looked up and muttered...
“I’ve got a Barry in my class. He used to be Rebecca”
Chewing stopped like an airbag had gone off, followed by silence like that which follows a loud fart in church.
This is a tactical subject diversion from the teenager. He knows we can’t avoid that juicy bait and the proceeding group interrogation of the matter eventually ended in one question only one person on earth could answer.
If you’re only sixteen and deciding to indulge in a new gender, what would possess you to run with the name Barry? It’s a fine name but it’s not particularly edgy and the immediate mental picture is exactly what you are thinking:
The middle age, possibly balding, probably overweight white guy you see in the mirror.
I haven’t stopped thinking about Baz (most Barry’s are Baz down under) and it occurred to me that our eclectic offering of pre-owned aircraft could be compared to the diversity of identity in 2023.
We have a mixed breed right now with an arrogant Eurocopter AS350B2 that sports a bloodline so authentically French, that there’s literally not a word of English in the records.
Our gang of immigrant AB/Leonardo Jet Rangers insist they are “Italian” but once nude their anatomy is 100% “Made In America” and we're sheltering an MD900 - it’s been the victim of so much inbreeding that it was born with one too many engines and no tail rotor.
And tucked away (yuk yuk) in Austin is our unmolested Bell 505X Jet Ranger which I rescued from a life of indulgence after a King decided the Princess had enough other helicopters to fly.
It is a perplexing helicopter with a great back story and now affectionately called ‘Baz’... because I think it might just be the queer one of the family.
Let’s delve back to a time before the Bell 505, a time before men competed as women in the Olympics, kids identified as furries and Bud Light commercials were simply about beer.
Between the GFC and the Virus the light turbine helicopter market was pretty useless. MD500 production was verging on extinction, EC120B proponents were trying to make lemonade from what life had given them, nobody was taking the R66 seriously and BELL had built the last all rivet Jet Ranger. The light turbine market had room and in an expeditious manner not seen for a LONG time, BELL birthed the Jet Ranger 505X.
The pre-delivery slots were well subscribed as the 505X addressed what the market wanted. Indoor outdoor flow through the cabin, big screen TV’s to show you the way home, a knob to start and stop the engine, the perfect number of rotor blades and a robust driveline that any mechanic can wrench on.
The missing tail rotor driveshaft cover and engine choice perplexed and despite being certified with a cargo hook, there was no specialised role equipment for operations like Agricultural Spraying. Ag Spraying is demanding and for knitting up and down fields at low level, the original 206 Jet Ranger (did I just dead name?) and Longranger are coveted for their excellent swath and productivity.
The foundation of their success is the exact same main rotor system the 505X sports.
As the first 505s’ arrived in 2017 the world was starting to worry about which restroom to use and sadly the Jetranger 505X was a bit much for white cis males.
The blend of so many individually great ideas was a challenge to understand and at the time we didn’t know where it fitted but in non-binary 2023, it’s fair to say that the 505 identifies as a card-carrying member of the LGBTS community (Longranger, Garmin, BELL, Textron, SAFRAN)
It also landed at a time when the residual value of the AS350B2 had tanked courtesy of a glut of used EMS ships being dumped into the market, and the SME utility operator had the choice of a 505X for $1.35M USD or an AS350B2 for $900K with a fresh 12Y inspection.
Tossing a light turbine in the octagon with an intermediate was a first round TKO to Airbus until Putin rolled into town armed with inflation and supply chain issues. A rising tide lifts all ships and there was value to be found in the 505 market which rebounded hard out of COVID until suddenly you couldn’t find one to buy.
Today factory slots are pushed out into late 2024 but operators have now realised that the heterogeneous DNA of the 505X is actually it’s secret weapon.
The genderless compilation of it’s being, is actually a significant value add because having cables, trellis frames, sheet metal, rivets, titanium and composites blended together promotes an affordable and resilient supply chain spread across continents. Domestic repairs are available everywhere and that SAFRAN Arrius 2R turbine goes the distance and is also not oversubscribed like those of the Arriel series.
The familiar Bell 206L4 driveline makes for a ready supply of used parts and off-the-shelf GARMIN avionics makes me sleep well at night. Just ask any S76C or MD900 owner how hard (infer expensive) it is to find/repair/replace their Honeywell IIDS screens today.
As a light helicopter the 505X is slick thanks to the low parasite drag and when it arrives at altitude, it exploits the efficiency of the 206L4 Main and Tail Rotor coupled to that dual FADEC SAFRAN Arriel 2R.
SAFRAN turbines love hot and high thanks to consistently strong compressors and the GARMIN 1000 glass cockpit provides a single ‘Limit’ (FLI) indication plus aural tones to help avoid exceedances. Cabin visibility makes you feel like a fish in a tank and if the mission is longlining, you can choose the left or right front seats for command. What a great idea!
The baggage compartment is useful, it’s climate controlled, easy to fit in the shed and I predict that the residual value of pre-owned BELL 505’s are going to hold or escalate over the next few years.
Why?
ISOLAIR will soon FAA certify their 505X Agricultural Spray Gear and there is a space in the sector for a “super” light helicopter which outperforms the L4 (try finding an L4)
The 505X will take on everything up to the AS350B2 and with inflated operating costs for AS350’s plus recent sales prices of +$1.2M USD for 15 year old airframes, then I’m predicting that with the right equipment finally available - Agricultural Spray Operations are going to embrace the 505X, strap on that tank and plow those corn rows.
Baz is parked in Austin, TX with only 28 hours of careful handling by a Princess, it needs a new hangar and a new name...
DISCLAIMER: If you've read this far, you're well aware this isn’t your typical banal "buy my helicopter" mass email. It’s what 30 years of brain damage from Aviation produces and its categorically not tolerated by my university educated daughters nor fact checked by my long suffering wife. Nothing is sanctioned by the board of Volation, so don’t bother cancelling us because nobody cares and I’m just trying to come up with something that will make you laugh and maybe, just maybe you’ll go crazy and buy a really nice helicopter from a company that really knows helicopters.