A highly customized Bell 505 Jet Ranger X, N505GT will be on display at static Booth #C08 at the 2019 Heli Expo in Atlanta, GA next to Bell Helicopter’s Booth. SureFlight’s Bell 505 GT Package includes, Custom paint, seats, headliner, metal gaspers, carpet, and repainted interior doors and a baggage compartment liner. SureFlight is a Garmin Avionics dealer and is also the first to offer an XM Weather option integrated with the Garmin G1000H flight deck with the Bell 505.
Owen Watkins, President of SureFlight, and owner/pilot of Bell N505GT remarked, “The stock interior of the Bell 505 is quite spartan, which is understandable with Bell’s price point on the 505. Likewise, the paint options are somewhat limited. At press time, Bell is offering 19 exterior colors, but further customizing is limited to a rather basic accent stripe and a decal logo.
As an owner/pilot of a Bell 505 I believe it gives me a unique perspective on what other owner/pilots may be looking for in customizing their Bell 505.”
Owen continued, “The paint portion of it is really straight forward. I wanted something that was special and stood out. And It does!
When designing the GT interior, great attention was made to strike a proper balance between cost, weight, and aesthetics.” Owen was adamant that an owner/pilot is only going to pay so much for an interior on an entry level turbine helicopter.
SureFlight’s solution with their GT package is a refined solution. SureFlight streamlined the upholstery on the crew seats providing an elegant rear close-out with a Bell Logo embroidery. The front of the headrest is smooth and contoured. All five of the seats employ a custom diamond stitching with accents matching the custom exterior paint scheme.
To cover the raw composite roof of the Bell 505, SureFlight created a very thin headliner that rests directly against the inner contour of the roof. This was purposeful to make sure rear head room was not impeded so tall passengers can still sit comfortably like in a stock Bell 505. The headliner can be covered with the customer’s choice of fabric or ultra-leather.
Remaining interior touches include replacing the air conditions plastic vents with metal gaspers, full carpet, repainted door interiors to better hide the raw composite finish, and a baggage compartment liner.
The final GT Package mod is an addition of XM Weather to the G1000H flight deck. The 505 can be ordered with Synthetic Vision, Active Traffic, and HTAWS terrain avoidance, but integrated weather options are not available from Bell at press time. SureFlight has added this missing feature so that XM Weather (and radio) can be received on the Garmin G1000H Flight Deck.