Bell Model 206L « TexasRanger » gunship

[RavenOne]

Please can anyone shed more light on this proposed development back in 81, have tried Wikipedia and got a brief paragraph and pic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TexasRanger-N206L.jpg

Also tried airliners.net and got this one below

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Bell-206L-LongRanger/1252886/L/&sid=95c48a0530876403ed94cf5d63d8b41e

Also does anyone have pics of it in flight stateside from the factory or when it went on show / tour ?

Cheers

 

[CostasTT]

I have this photo from weapons trials (firing TOW missile):

 

[airman]

here more information !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_206

the "son" of bell 206 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_407
other "son" of bell 206
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_400
other unfortunate deveploment from bell 206
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_ARH-70

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Greetings All -

A recent donation to the Museum had a 1983/84 Bell Helicopter Textron Reference Guide which included the attached on the Texas Ranger.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[Stargazer]

Three promotional photos of the Bell TexasRanger.

Now of course, if Bell had had Chuck Norris back then, they could have sold millions of it...

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

What was the reason that the TexasRanger never caught on? Was it lack of interest, or a lack of Chuck Norris? In all seriousness, this seems to be a decent helicopter, based off of a hugely successful product, it should have sold like wildfire. I am assuming that the modifications were too expensive, poor marketing and large amounts of competition all lead to its failure. Is that true? What weapons did it carry? Did it in any way influence the Bell 407GX? (an armed variant of the Bell 407)

 

[yasotay]

I am going to venture a guess that it did not catch on because anti-tank helicopters, even in the early 80's, were not well proven war machines. Even though the United States and the Soviet Union were investing in this capability, it was still unproven in the main stream. Also most countries that we think of as flush with petro-dollars today were not in the early 80's. Since flying machines were status symbols, a helicopter that was not being flown by a major power was "other peoples" machines. Europe had plenty of capable helicopters that would become good anti-tank machines in their own right. Another course of action might be that Bell, hearing the lament of U.S. Air Cavalry scout pilots at not being able to shot with more than a snub nose revolver (really), took an opportunity to build on speculation that the U.S. Army might be interested in an inexpensive shooting scout to replace the already aging OH-58A/C.
Finally Chuck was not the demigod of greatness and kick-butt that most western-western hemisphere people acknowledge today.

 

[jsport]

long live the TexasRanger Gunship

 

[500 Fan]

The only helicopter that I can think of with a comparable missile load and role was the Hughes 500M-D TOW Defender. This didn't sell in huge numbers but did capture much of the market for those who wanted an anti-armour helicopter that was less-expensive than an AH-1S Cobra (Israel, Kenya and S. Korea). The Defender was available to potential customers a few years before the Texas Ranger became available and the only TOW-armed Bell 206/406 sold around that time period was the Bell 406 purchased by Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980's.

Hughes beat it to the draw! (Apologies! Appalling pun!)

500 Fan.