THE HELICOPTER, "THE BELL 47" DESCRIBED BY LAWRENCE "LARRY" DALE BELL, FOUNDER OF BELL AIRCRAFT CORP. "IN HIS OWN WORDS"

Priceless in terms of the author, writer, and a historicaly significant artifact of civilian, military, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, and aviation history in general. -------- "The Helicopter" -------- Original hand written note of Larry Bell, founder of Bell Aircraft Company, ( today known as Bell Helicopter, a Division of Textron ) ---- 68 year old, hand written by his wife, Lucille M. Bell, ( of 6 Lagomar Road, Palm Beach, Florida), in pencil, on spiral notebook paper --- found, folded up, inside her copy of "Science and Health with key to the Scriptures" (1938) --------Lucille was a secretary by profession ------- digital version of this 2 page note below -- (as exactly written) -- (dictated to Lucille by Larry Bell)--(1948)------ In his own words, Larry Bell describes the helicopter, how it is made, and how to fly the helicopter, takeoff, hovering and landing. (the early pre-production bell 47 helicopter) ------------(tap on the above high diff. pictures and magnify to examine and follow along.)--------------------------------------------------------------- In flight it looks like a tiny cabin in the sky, with 4 wheels for cornerstones. Thats because there are no fixed wings, no propellers in the ordenary sense and no engine nacelles. ---------- The cabins up in the nose. It's about 7 1/2 feet deep, & there's plexiglass on top, forward, at each side & at your feet. When one is used to doggin around wings & propellers, or 2, the visibility is most alarming. ---------- A slender tail boom extends 20 feet back from the cabin, and it's purpose is to support a small anti-torque propeller - this keeps it from whirling around in the opposite direction from the rotorblades - and to assist in making right hand turns. A 178 h.p. 6 cylinder opposed Franklin engine is mounted inside the fusilage behind the cabin and directly under the 2 rotor blades that do all the magic. ---------- The rotor blades are 35 ft. 6 in., over all. They are mounted in a straight line above the cabin, parallel to the fuselage. They take the place of both wings and a standard propeller. In motion they create a sort of a disk. If you want to go forward, you tilt the disk forward; to go backward you tilt the disc backward, if you want to hover you level off. ---------- To take off, rev up the rotor, increase it's pitch and it lifts off the ground. A few feet in the air the take off ends and you start to travel. ---------- To land, you just let her down gently from a hovering position, nothing to it but the hovering and that is different. In the beginning you need at least 3 eyes and 3 arms. ---------- In case of motor failure, lower the the pitch angle of the rotor blades to make them windmill, and at the same time point the nose down to keep a 50 mile an hour speed - when about 30 ft. the ground pull the stick back to kill off air speed through inertia, ease descent by using pitch lever. Land lightly at #5 mi per hour. ----- END ------------- research is on going ---in conjunction with research on the p-39 airacobra fighter airplane diamond and platinum brooch and the "SILVER BULLET' , p-39 airacobra brooch. ----------- W. H. Long ---- whlong2715@gmail.com