Bell has tried several incarnations of a twin-engine version of its successful
Bell 206 series. The
TwinRanger name dates back to the mid-1980s when Bell first considered developing a twin-engine version of the LongRanger. The
Bell 400 TwinRanger featured a reprofiled fuselage, two
Allison 250 turboshafts, the
OH-58D Kiowa's four-bladed main rotor, and a new
shrouded tail rotor. Bell also planned the single-engine
400A, and the
440 twin with a larger fuselage made possible by a high degree of composites. The Bell 400 first flew on April 4, 1984. Bell suspended development of the 400/440 family in the late 1980s as it felt unable to achieve a profitable production rate of 120 units a year.
Successors After the success of Tridair's Gemini ST twin-engine conversions of the 206L in the early 1990s, Bell produced the equivalent
Bell 206LT TwinRanger based on the 206L-4. Only 13 206LTs were built between 1994 and 1997. The 206LT was replaced in Bell's lineup by the
Bell 427, a mostly-new development of the
Bell 407, itself a four-bladed single-engine derivative of the 206L. ==Variants==