Photograph:
Canadian Home Rotors Baby Belle VH-HTB (c/n BB1005) at Darling Harbour, Sydney in 2000 (David C Eyre)
Country of origin:
Canada
Description:
Two-seat light sport helicopter
Power Plant:
One 119 kw (160 hp) Lycoming O-320 four-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine
Specifications:
- Rotor diameter: 7.62 m (25 ft)
- Length: 9.04 m (29 ft 8 in)
- Height: 2.43 m (8 ft)
- Max speed: 161 km/h (100 mph)
- Cruising speed: 137 km/h (85 mph)
- Rate of climb: 305 m/min (1,000 ft/min)
- Service ceiling: 3,048 m (10,000 ft)
- Hovering ceiling in ground effect: 2.134 m (7,000 ft)
- Range: 370 km (230 miles)
- Empty weight: 417 kg (920 lb)
- Loaded weight: 657 kg (1,450 lb)
History:
The Canadian Home Rotors Baby Belle first flew in 1990 and was developed as a scaled down replica of the well known Bell 47 series of helicopters, being of rugged construction and able to fly all-year round. Construction was mainly of metal, with stainless steel tail rotor blades. Marketed by Canadian Home Rotors Inc of Ear Falls, Ontario, it was available in kit form. More than 100 examples have been sold around the world.
Its history dates back to 1979 when a Canadian, Murray Sweet, bought and constructed a kit known as the Commuter IIB from International Helicopters of Mayville, New York. At about this time he purchased the marketing rights for Canada, and made some modifications to save weight, lessen maintenance, and increase reliability. Later Tamarind International bought International Helicopters and the company developed to be Canadian Home Rotors. In 1992 the first Baby Belle was displayed at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) event at Oshkosh in Wisconsin. In 2000 the name of the aircraft was changed as Bell Helicopters complained about the use of the name Bell, the machine becoming the Canadian Home Rotors Safari.
Two examples were registered in Australasia in late 1999, VH-AUF (c/n V322) in November and VH-YBB (c/n BB2054) in October. Since then further examples have been registered, including VH-MEZ (c/n BB2065), VH-CPG (c/n BB2063), VH-ESG (c/n BB2074), VH-AQQ (c/n BB0199), VH-VDB (c/n BB2062), VH-HTB (c/n BB1005), VH-LMK (c/n BB2012), VH-TKE (c/n 0307N), VH-MPS (c/n 0493N), VH-RTR5 (c/n 92072) and VH-TGK³ (c/n 52169) the latter two both registered in December 2016.
Examples in New Zealand have included ZK-HXJ (c/n XJ0301N), ZK-HIV (c/n 0488N), ZK-IRH (c/n 0493N) and ZK-ISH (c/n 0515N).
The helicopter has been distributed in Australasia by Safari Helicopters located in Teawamotu, New Zealand. By 2016 the model available was the Safari 400, either as a kit or as a complete aircraft, fitted with a Custom Aero Sport O-360 engine. A further upgraded variant was the Bellbird 500.