(Shaber CJ) wrote in message ...
The 427 rotor was ported over virtually unchanged from the 407. It was
originally designed for the Bell Model 400 back in the '70s, a design that
was never fielded but was very similar to the unlamented Soloy Twin Ranger,
was produced in quantity for the OH-58D, and was maxed out in terms of disc
loading and gross weight capacity before the 427 came along. The 427 will
never have competitive range and payload with the current rotor, something
that was obvious when it was still on paper 7 years ago. Bell's late, great
Ed Covington, Chief Engineer for rotor design, calculated in the spring of
'97 that the 430 hub could be ported to the 427 with little change. It
should have been done then.
Jim, thanks for the information. It is rather a same that American Helicopter
manufacturers are not competitive with Europe. Maybe a clean sheet of paper
would help. It seems the B206 has been recertified enough. It is just poor
engineering and poor management to have to re-rotor already certified
helicopters.

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.