I was wrong. I checked with Bell and they will indeed field a new
articulated rotor. The design gives superior CG range compared to the
limited flapping of the 430 type head.

"Jim Burt" wrote in message
...
Bob M wrote:

Thanks for the info. You can see that they are virtual clones. Still
very creative and extremely simple. I must have misread the article, I
thought that it said that they intended to design a brand new
articulated rotor. I can't understand why when like you said they have
a BMR from the 430 that they could retrofit.

They may very well intend to design a new articulated rotor, but I doubt
it.
The current rotor is semi-articulated witha composite yoke. They may just
try to scale it up, but the stacked hub bearingless rotor from the 430 is
a
mature technology now with the scaled up versions implemented on the UH-1Y
and AH-1Z. On the other hand, no one has actually built a yoke like that
for a mast as skinny as the one on the 427. Still, once it's implemented
and successful in practice, look to see it ported to the 407 -- although
that would necessitate redundant hydraulics for the 407. Great ship, if
it
were just a little easier boost off.