Seats in the front row may face forward or rearward (to create a club-seating arrangement). With slightly wider 18.5-inch seats and even wider 21.5-inch VIP seats with armrests and a console between them, the cabin can carry four. The 204-cubic-foot cabin (including the 74-cubic-foot baggage area) has room for six passengers in seats that are 15.5 inches wide. Along with six fuselage doors-one hinged and one integrated sliding door on each side of the cabin (providing openings almost five feet wide) and one for each pilot-the cabin configuration offers flexibility and spaciousness that is unmatched in other Bells and that rivals what you'll find in similarly sized competing helicopters. All other Bells have partitions and structures separating the cockpit from the cabin or obstructing the cabin. But Bell has designed its new light twin in ways that make it particularly well suited for executive use, too.Ĭompared with other Bell helicopters, the 429's most noticeable features are its large, open cabin and flat floor-two attributes that EMS operators demanded and VIPs will appreciate. So it is with the twin-turbine Bell 429, which the Bell Helicopter Company has targeted primarily for emergency medical services (EMS) and offshore-oil and law-enforcement operations. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since utility operators tend to put more wear-and-tear and flight time on their aircraft than executive and charter operators do, and the manufacturers build to accommodate this higher and tougher usage. The manufacturers know this, of course, so most helicopter models, unlike business aircraft, are designed with non-corporate roles as their primary functions. Nonetheless, most helicopters fly utility missions. In large metropolitan areas, for example, travelers can take a helicopter from the burbs to a center-city heliport and save hours that would otherwise be lost on congested roadways. Quite simply, if you need to depart from or land in an area where you can't operate an airplane or you need to hover someplace in between, you need a helicopter. Compared with an airplane of similar size, a helicopter costs more to buy, lease, rent, charter and operate. You need good reasons to travel by helicopter.
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