Bell 400

The Bell 400 TwinRanger was a prototype four-bladed, twin-engine civil helicopter developed by Bell Helicopter in the 1980s. Both the TwinRanger and another planned version, the ''Bell 440'', were attempts to market a twin-engine development of the Model 206L LongRanger . The ''Bell 400A'' was a planned single-engine version of the 400. TwinRanger development was canceled when Bell could not acquire enough orders for production. The TwinRanger name was later used for a twin-engine version of the LongRanger produced from 1994 to 1997.

Development

Bell has tried several incarnations of a twin version of its successful Bell 206 series. The ''TwinRanger'' name dates back to the mid 1980s when Bell first considered developing a twin engine version of the LongRanger.

The Bell 400 TwinRanger featured a reprofiled fuselage, two Allison 250 turboshafts, the OH-58D Kiowa 's four blade main rotor, and a new shrouded tail rotor. Bell also planned the single-engined 400A, and the 440 twin with a larger fuselage made possible by a high degree of composites. The Bell 400 first flew on April 4 1984. Bell suspended development of the 400/440 family in the late 1980s as it felt unable to achieve a protifable production rate of 120 units a year.

Successors

After the success of Tridair's Gemini ST twin engine conversions of the 206L in the early 1990s, Bell produced the equivalent Bell 206LT TwinRanger based on the 206L-4. Only 13 206LTs were built between 1994 and 1997. The 206LT was replaced in Bell's line-up by the Bell 427 , a mostly-new development of the Bell 407 , itself a four-bladed single-engine derivative of the 206L.

Variants

Bell 400

Bell 400A

Projected model to be powered by one PW209T turboshaft of 937 shp.

Bell 440