Bob Dengler, ambassadeur Bell 429 : chapitre deux

To me, there's only one helicopter in the world, and that's about it. I really love being an ambassador for Bell, because in my opinion, Bell helicopters look like helicopters, and the competition doesn't so much. This was the first Bell 429 sold to a Canadian customer. The helicopter is very easy to fly, everything is just so intuitive -- for example, all your pressures and temperatures are arranged in such a way, one glance and you see everything. It's really well thought out, this helicopter has Pratt and Whitney engines, it's super reliable, it's all carbon fiber, it is extremely fast, and one of the bonuses with this helicopter is it's also very quiet. A lot of people complain about the noise that helicopters make, and most of the noise comes from the tail rotor -- you'll notice on this helicopter it has twin tail rotors instead of just a single, so it turns slower and doesn't make as much noise. They were real pioneers developing that tail rotor system, so it makes it more efficient -- it has just tremendous tail rotor response. When you're flying, you barely touch the pedals, it's almost intuitive -- you just kind of push with your toe, and you can change the direction of the helicopter, that's how effective it is, and even at altitude -- I've been up to 12,000 feet, we did cross the mountains in California, and you don't lose any tail rotor effectiveness. But I take other people up, and they just cannot stop complimenting me about the helicopter, and that includes very experienced pilots -- I've had the opportunity to fly some of the competition, and they vibrate and they shake and they make more noise. This is the best -- you know, performs above everything else in its class, no question.