www.brantly.info

Greetings,

I'm PPL(H) slowly working on commercial, instrument, and CFI. Anyway, all of my training was done in the R-22 and I've been looking at private ownership as a cost effective method of building time. I've never even seen a Brantly in person, so I wanted to learn from some of your experiences as Brantly owners. I've read every post on this site and looked at the Brantly website. Hopefully, some of you can fill in the gaps.

I'm concerned about DA limitations at altitude in the Brantly, but then I realized that I usually fly at or below 3000 MSL anyway. I live in Gaithersburg, Maryland. So, what are the maintenance requirements like? I couldn't get much information about the instruments and options available for the Brantly. What are your favorite third-party products / add-ons, if any.

Thank you for your replies,
R2

First, welcome to the forum RDRickster. Its great to have new interest here.

In my opinion, the Brantly is a great ride, and probably the lowest cost certificated helicopter you can use to build your time in, considering initial purchase price, operating costs, high component times, and no 12-year timeout.

On my recent trip I loaded full fuel at each stop, had about 30 lbs in the storage compartment, and pilot and passenger weight came to about 275. We ran into no power problems at all, and the temps were in the 80's each day. I don't recall what the DA was though. With the instructor we probably had 350 lbs or so in the seats and still 10 lbs in the storage and I didn't notice any problems. Working a little harder, perhaps, but we still had power available for everything we worked on.

I understand that the B2's are weak when they're loaded up and its hot, but in my limited experience the B-2B has the power available for my needs. I flew for a while last night and purposefully put the ship into conditions requiring extra power, and had no problems at all.

Just my opinion, mind you.

I checked into all makes of helicopters. I almost bought a rotorway, but instead bought a B2A. I had never flown helicopters so I started in a B2. Dont listen to the guys who say a B2A is underpowered and gets hot because mine doesnt do either. As I am responding I am doing my finish up training in a 2000 B2B near Vernon, TX. I see no more responsiveness with the fuel injection as in the carb model.. You can buy a nice B2A under $50,000. I have flown mine with no problems so far with 50hrs. I am glad to answer any questions you might have.