On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:00:51 -0800, wrote:

I've seen mention of this several times over the last few months. Frank
Robinson always denies that they're working on a turbine ship. Yet, the
rumor continues... It will be interesting to see if anything actually
comes of it.

From a business perspective, I can't see the point in Robinson doing
this, unless they can somehow bring in a competitive ship at a
significantly lower price and DOC.. They seem to be doing just fine,
building as many R44s as they can, and maintaining a many-month
backlog. Frank seems to've found his niche building three-person,
reasonably fast helicopters - why would he want to try to delve into the
turbine world?

Dave Blevins

He doesn't. That new Raven-II is a jewel to fly. The hydraulic
actuator control system is wonderful. It's 35 knots faster than the
Jet Ranger and burns half the fuel, plus it's 100 low lead. Now that
they have put some altitude performance into it, I doubt that Frank is
thinking about a turbine at all.

Hell, the R-44 is almost maintenance free for the first 1000 hours.
The Lycocoming 540 is derated to the point it's not being taxed and if
treated right, will go to TBO with ease. Why would Frank want to
screw with a winning equation? There is a 5 month wait on the new
Raven-II (R-44) right now. Frank can't build em fast enough. And at
$350,000 a pop, they are really a good deal for a 130 knot ship that
carries 3 big people and will hover at 10,000 feet.

I like it so much, I wish I had one. It's really the answer to a lot
of dreams for many applications. Silver State Helicopters here in
Vegas is working on some really interesting proposals using that ship.
It will be interesting to see what Jerry comes up with. He has one
with a FLIR on it, a loud PA system and a 10 million candle power
light. It's used for police work right now and there are many other
applications for it that are just around the corner. Just watch.
That ship will outrun, and out perform a 206 for many applications.

BWB