Bell 407 challenge

[kullery]

Helicopter guys we have a new challenge for people to try. The published ceiling of the 407 18,600ft.

I believe the 18,600 ceiling is actually a "hovering ceiling" (I have one flight manual that shows hovering ceiling of 19,170).

The "service ceiling" is only specified as 20,000+

[David Gilbert]

Very interesting Ken! We were flying from the Crystal the other day to French Valley (or at least that was the plan) and figured the easiest way to do that was to climb above 10,000ft so as to be above all the complex airspace. On the way up I was thinking I wonder how high this 407 could get to. I was on the network at the time so stopped at around 17,000ft but the way she was still easily doing 1,000 fpm I figured she could go a lot lot higher which is where the challenge came from.

[Keith Smith]

FWIW, it's much more common with helicopters to go under the airspace than it is to go above it, but I could be wrong!

[pilot7369]

Yeah sure, we were just having some fun jumping over the Charlies.