Oh Really!

[cap]

Splitpin ---------My Scottish grandmother said the 'other kind' of Scotch was 'bilge-water' and since I never wanted to taste stuff from the gunnels of any ship, I resisted the urge........until Bangkok. It was one of four places that we could go for 'R & R' during military days and I'm still trying to make peace with my Scottish ancestoral ghosts over the kind of 'Scotch' I allowed to pass by my lips in those days........yuuuuuuuuuuk

 

 

.......and some slight corrections if I may.....******. I say that because it doesn't seem that long ago, but it was and I was part of a lot of it.....so allow me please.

 

The Bell 214 was Bell Helicopter's civilian version of something the American Army 'hot-rodded' together in Vietnam. Kind of hard to get your damaged Hueys slung anywhere, if all your bloody army has is 13 versions of what would later be known as the civilian Skycrane to sling them with. Ergo.......the Huey 'Tug'..........an idea put together by some Army maintenance guys who hailed from the land of 'hot-rods......California. So what you had was a Huey with an engine out of a Huey Cobra......let's going slingin' hot, high and humid. Later on, when the Army had their budgets increased, not much slinging of damaged Hueys took place then.............if they were severely damaged, a big 'ol bulldozer just came along and pushed them into another scrap heap of twisted metal over yonder.

 

Some 'low-foreheads' back home at Bell saw a cheap opportunity here and tried to do the exact same thing for the civilian market and the FAA, who had been waiting 'in the bush' for years to ambush them on exactly something like this.....said 'No way folks, back to the drawing boards on this one'. The result was the 214.

 

This was all very nice now, but the US military was now cancelling/not renewing contracts with Bell and it was in the time-frame when the civilian market could not absorb enough of these highly-priced medium helicopters to sustain production. So what do they do now? They pull numerous 'strings' with the American government and they in turn look towards their American-supported government of Iran, who are looking to modernize their army. They do their 'arm-twisting' with Tehran by using their Ambassador there who was recently also the Director of the CIA. Now you have an order for 400 yet-to-be-produced 214's, a signed contract with Bell/Textron International for instructors to do same and away we go.

 

The Shah of Iran got the 214's because he was 'helped' into signing the contract by the US Tehran Ambassador/ex-CIA Director William Colby and the American government as part of their aide/support package. Something the Shah of Iran 'layed-out'? The Shah couldn't have found his a*s with both hands and a flashlight. He got to 'like' what he was 'told to like' and he'll just have to step aside on that matter and allow some good ol' hot roddin' boys from California to take credit/a bow for the 214/Huey 'Tug'. They did it all with 'stink-all' for a budget and just a whole lot of midnight scrounging and trading-this-for-that to finally end up with one heck of a machine that they put together over in the corner over a number of weeks. So if someone is also thinking that their 204C or 205A+ or ++ is some new idea.....guess again.....back to late 60's Vietnam. Same then as now......."Necessity is the Mother of invention".

[old dog]

Splitpin ---------My Scottish grandmother said the 'other kind' of Scotch was 'bilge-water' and since I never wanted to taste stuff from the gunnels of any ship, I resisted the urge........until Bangkok. It was one of four places that we could go for 'R & R' during military days and I'm still trying to make peace with my Scottish ancestoral ghosts over the kind of 'Scotch' I allowed to pass by my lips in those days........yuuuuuuuuuuk

 

 

.......and some slight corrections if I may.....******. I say that because it doesn't seem that long ago, but it was and I was part of a lot of it.....so allow me please.

 

The Bell 214 was Bell Helicopter's civilian version of something the American Army 'hot-rodded' together in Vietnam. Kind of hard to get your damaged Hueys slung anywhere, if all your bloody army has is 13 versions of what would later be known as the civilian Skycrane to sling them with. Ergo.......the Huey 'Tug'..........an idea put together by some Army maintenance guys who hailed from the land of 'hot-rods......California. So what you had was a Huey with an engine out of a Huey Cobra......let's going slingin' hot, high and humid. Later on, when the Army had their budgets increased, not much slinging of damaged Hueys took place then.............if they were severely damaged, a big 'ol bulldozer just came along and pushed them into another scrap heap of twisted metal over yonder.

 

Some 'low-foreheads' back home at Bell saw a cheap opportunity here and tried to do the exact same thing for the civilian market and the FAA, who had been waiting 'in the bush' for years to ambush them on exactly something like this.....said 'No way folks, back to the drawing boards on this one'. The result was the 214.

 

This was all very nice now, but the US military was now cancelling/not renewing contracts with Bell and it was in the time-frame when the civilian market could not absorb enough of these highly-priced medium helicopters to sustain production. So what do they do now? They pull numerous 'strings' with the American government and they in turn look towards their American-supported government of Iran, who are looking to modernize their army. They do their 'arm-twisting' with Tehran by using their Ambassador there who was recently also the Director of the CIA. Now you have an order for 400 yet-to-be-produced 214's, a signed contract with Bell/Textron International for instructors to do same and away we go.

 

The Shah of Iran got the 214's because he was 'helped' into signing the contract by the US Tehran Ambassador/ex-CIA Director William Colby and the American government as part of their aide/support package. Something the Shah of Iran 'layed-out'? The Shah couldn't have found his a*s with both hands and a flashlight. He got to 'like' what he was 'told to like' and he'll just have to step aside on that matter and allow some good ol' hot roddin' boys from California to take credit/a bow for the 214/Huey 'Tug'. They did it all with 'stink-all' for a budget and just a whole lot of midnight scrounging and trading-this-for-that to finally end up with one heck of a machine that they put together over in the corner over a number of weeks. So if someone is also thinking that their 204C or 205A+ or ++ is some new idea.....guess again.....back to late 60's Vietnam. Same then as now......."Necessity is the Mother of invention".

 

This is what really happened.

 

The 214ST, which I flew at the very beginning of the Okanagan 214ST program, is another part of the Iranian connection.

 

 

 

[vortex]

I'm sure some guys did hot rod their 204's however dropping a -13 into a 204 and cranking up the N1 is a long way from a 2950hp, nodal beam suspension, 36" bladed, 3000 psi hydraulic system, SCAS and AFCS 140 kt hot rod that the Shah paid for Bell to develop. Bell may have got some ideas from some guys in the field but the two machines are quite different beasts.

[picapart]

If you go to Badr AFB in iran . The airport if full of 214's

coordinates 32 37 04 51 42 02

[scottyp1973]

this thread is getting interesting.

[Freefall]

So why do the 214B and 214ST have the same number? I can't imagine they have very many common parts.

[47B3]

If you go to Badr AFB in iran . The airport if full of 214's

coordinates 32 37 04 51 42 02

 

Google Earth - it looks like there's a bunch of tandem rotor machines on the ramp there too.

 

Wonder what they are ??

[Elvis]

[WTF_was_that]

a degree is just a piece of paper...... then again so is Money......

[old dog]

So why do the 214B and 214ST have the same number? I can't imagine they have very many common parts.

 

Much of the running gear is the same. For example, the blades are exactly the same, just a foot longer. Mast, swash plate & head are almost identical. Same tranny, just uprated to 2350 HP (from 2250), and same t/r running gear but with slightly different t/r blades. Same nodal beam set-up, servos, etc.

 

The engines are different. The ST uses two drop-dead totally wonderful Lycoming CT7's (1750 shp OEI each) driving into a separate combining gear box then via a short main drive shaft into the tranny.

 

The cabin is completely different. There are seats for 18 pax (2x5, 1x4, and 2x2 in each side-facing)+ 2 pilots, and was built by Beech in Wichita.

 

The stablization system (SCAS & AARS) is totally different, as well.