www.brantly.info

One of the members saw that I was selling my Enstrom and asked if I could write a comparison of the Brantly vs. Enstrom since I have owned both. Well, since I like to talk about helicopters, I will oblige

Power: The Enstrom does much better in high density altitude conditions given that it is turbo charged. On a hot, humid Texas day near max gross weight, I would have to manage power very carefully in the Brantly. I could not do max performance take offs and had to do fairly shallow angle standard take offs. I also think the tail rotor authority on the Enstrom is better. I never had an issue in my Brantly, but others have reported occasional lack of tail rotor authority. The additional power in the Enstrom did not come at the expense of much more fuel. Burn rate is only about 1 more gallon per hour, if that, in the Enstrom.

Flexibility: A three seat is of course much more flexible than a two seat. However, I can count on one hand the number of times I had three people in my Enstrom. I don't think the passenger in the middle seat would be very comfortable on a long flight. For two people, the Enstrom is very spacious and I like the seating position much better, seats are higher and not sitting on the floor like in the Brantly.

Maintenance: I spent a lot more on maintenance in my Brantly than the Enstrom. I had a quick start one time when I installed the wrong starter and it ruined two blades. Ouch! The fact you have to manually engage the clutch in the Enstrom is a much safer and more reliable system. I do like the fact the Brantly has a rotor brake, but the blades are so high on the Enstrom it is not as necessary, but for safety operating manual still says not to enter or exit while blades are turning.

Fun: To be honest, the Brantly is more fun to fly. The Enstrom is more work. My Enstrom is not correlated, although newer models are. You can add correlation to my model, but it is about $7K for parts. So, there is a lot of throttle work, and more pedal adjustments to make. Also, you need to make regular adjustments to the trim on the Enstrom unless you have more muscles than I do . With the Brantly, I set the trim and forgot about it. Practicing autos is much easier in the Brantly since you just have to lower the collective since it is correlated. With the Enstrom, you have to chop the throttle and I worry about getting RPMs to low on the engine. Just something else to worry about. But like anything else, it becomes second nature once you get used to it.

Ron Spiker has a lot of experience in Enstroms, including helping me fly mine to Texas from New York. He also just made a coast-to-coast trip in an Enstrom, so Ron, please weigh in as well.

Steve

Thank you Steve, I hope we get some input from Ron Spiker.

Thanks again,
Mark

Hi Guys. I don't claim to be an expert in either helicopter, so my comments are just my opinion or experience with the several Brantlys and Enstroms that I've flown. I have made two long cross country trips in the Enstrom and many in the Brantly, I've owned and trained in a Brantly for several years, and for the last few months I've been flying and training regularly in both the Brantly and Enstrom 280C.

I agree completely with Steve's comments. I really like the extra power of the Enstrom. Coming across the mountains out west we'd regularly see 5-6-7000'+ density altitude when landing for fuel. With full fuel and full baggage there was never a lack of power. The interior room for two people is very nice. Not crowded whatsoever. I have flown with 3 people once and it was crowded, but not too bad for short flights (depending on the size of the people, of course). The Enstrom is more work to fly though, except in cruise, where it's very nice. The controls are much heavier (collective and cyclic), but it's nice having the coolie hat on the cyclic to keep adjusting the trim as needed so you're not using so much arm strength. Like Steve said, the fuel burn on the Enstrom does only seem to be 1-2 GPH more than the Brantly, which was nice, for the heavier, bigger and more powerful helicopter.

I too think the Brantly is easier and more fun to fly, but I have a lot more time in the Brantly so its handling is just second nature to me. If you have ever seen Dennis Kenyon's helicopter aerobatics in an Enstrom, he can make the thing dance.

On the Enstrom I do not like the infamous rocking on startup. It's just uncomfortable to be sitting there doing your warm up checklist while rocking fore and aft. Then, if the dampers and/or oleos are not just right, you get pretty significant shaking just when pulling pitch before the skids clear the ground. Even when the dampers get bled (for air) and the oleos get their pressure set right to take care of this, it can come back. I really dislike popping the helicopter off the ground too quick. I like a nice smooth lift off so you can feel for a stuck skid or a control setting slightly off or whatever. It only takes a second to get into dynamic rollover. I don't particularly care for the squeeling of the belt as you're engaging the clutch on the Enstrom. Many passengers want to know what's wrong. But you also don't risk the blades taking off on a fast start like you do in a Brantly. Pros and cons to both.

I'm sure there are others on the forum with experience with both helicopters too. Hopefully more guys will weigh in on the topic.

Steve,

What was your experience with with routine maintenance on the Enstrom? I've worked on a few and can say they are not my favorite by a long shot. As I recall there was a lot more maintenance required than the other makes. One of the local FBO's down south used to be an Enstrom dealer and a lot of the guys are still around. Most are more than happy to tell you how much they detested working on the Enstroms. Of course lots of Robinson guys hate working on the Schweizers while I am the other way round. I suppose it's all what you are used to.

Overall the Enstrom has very few time life components compared to other pistons heli's and the parts prices used to be reasonable. I like the high altitude capability of the Enstrom for sure. To me the control feel is very much like a 500 as you have to always trim to whatever flight regime you are in. I always liked the look of the Shark, perhaps one day I'll look into trading up. Ultimately I'd like be able to own a 480B unless of course I can find a reasonable OH-6.

Only maintenance I did was adding air to the tires and oil to the engine. I left it up to East Texas Flying Service to do all of the maintenance, including routine stuff. However, I had no complaints about any difficulty, although they did complain about changing the oil in the Brantly sometimes

I agree with Ron about the shake at start up if you don't have things adjusted right in the struts, dampers, etc. This was never too bad in mine, but there was some in between annuals. I would just run it up fairly quickly to 2000 rpms after the clutch was engaged and not let it linger too long at lower rpms, and that took most of it away.

How is it on auto rotation com paired to brantly.

Enstrom beats the Brantly there. Very smooth auto, lots of inertia in the blades. Much stopping power left over at the bottom. Brantly's auto is nice, but the Enstrom is basically a non-event.