Perfect For Your Blue Thunder Remake

Perfect For Your Blue Thunder Remake

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., Jun. 20 2011 at 12:14 PM

I was going to post about something else presently up for grabs on Lone Star Auctioneers' website ... till I ran into this: The city of Dallas is auctioning off a Bell Helicopter Model 407, with the current bid sitting at $987,500. Sounds nice: "The engine is a Rolls Royce model 250-C47B, total engine time to date is 1928 flight hours." I see KRLD noted last week it would make the perfect Father's Day item --- for Mark Cuban, I guess. Alas, tricked-out though it may be right now, Dallas Police will strip a few of the add-ons before letting it go, including the Spectrolab SX16 Nightsun and the Avalex Mapping System. And the buyer will be required to white-out "Dallas Police." Still, I now know what I'm watching tonight.

Update: I've since been told this is the biggest chopper in the DPD's small fleet of helicopters -- the only one actually capable of delivering officers to a crime scene.

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Titus Groan

Can I ask a stupid question. If this is the biggest, best chopper, why get rid of it? Get rid of some of the older birds if you need the money...

TimCov

Because it is probably the one least used or most expensive to use and maintain. Most police helicopter work involves spotting people from the air. That can be done more cheaply from a 2 person helicopter. I can't recall a single story about Dallas rescuing people or getting officers to a location using a helicopter. To be honest, if they need that capability, they can probably rent a big enough helicopter in plenty of time.

craftsman dave

I want a ride on it before I buy. I want them to shampoo the seats to get them clean and get a professional homeless person to suck the farts out of the seats, BEFORE I make an important decision such as this. That, plus I was wondering, do they take weekly payments? The End.

Kevin Kirby

Hey Robert: Want to read something insane? This is the original draft of Blue Thunder:

http://airwing.uplink.com.au/b...

No conspiracy plot, but Murphy is flat-out psycho in it.

Bettyculbreath

Why are they selling Copter if only one with capacity to deliver Officers to crime scene?

craftsman dave

Because they have been trained to jump out of the other ones in the fleet from very high altitudes and surprise the evil criminals. A very cost-effective solution in order to save YOU, the taxpayer, money. This has ben a public service message from a totally insane observer of the Observer. The End.

John_McKee

This was the one we bought after 9/11 to chopper people on and off of downtown highrises, right?

Andy

So I take it this aircraft isn't going to be replaced and is being sold for budget reasons? I seem to remember some talk of DPD eliminating its helicopter division to cut costs, which surprised me as aerial supports seems like a fairly important tool to have on hand.

I'm curious if Dallas County or some other agency has helicopters that DPD can request assistance from if needed.

El Rey

Maybe they are going to buy drones. Cheaper and the technology risk of self-awareness isn't there yet...

NewsDog

Isn't this also one of the newer aircraft DPD has? I vaguely remember a story about them scrapping another aircraft a couple years ago?

El Rey

I have a bit of experience with this type of aircraft and I gave this airframe a very critical look-see a few years ago. Dallas PD really does great maintenance on these birds. Just make sure you do a good dye-penetrant test on the tailboom donut.

Also, for your Blue Thunder remake: http://www.indyhelis.com/bluet...(I'm currently trying to convince my wife I need this for my birthday: http://www.indyhelis.com/apach... )

Robert

It's got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas