I'm doing research on R182's (the official designator). It seems that while they were in production (78-86) the FBI bought several of them, and used the heck out of them. This to the point that every 3500-4000 hours they were ground-up rebuilt (oddly enough by Executive Beechcraft)....I mean bulkheads, stringers, sheet metal pieces, brand new control surfaces, etc. to the tune of (reportedly) $100K per copy. I have one of the rebuild sheets and it's 13 single-space pages of new and overhauled parts. Some of the airframes (now being re-sold by the auction winners or subsequent owners) got up to 11K TT.

When the fleet was replaced with something else (unknown to me) some time (also unknown to me) ago, the R182s were sold at auction and came onto the private market loaded (for that time period)...full King Silver Crown, KFC 200 w/ flight director, StormScope, etc.

I'm not interested in any deep, dark government secrets, but does anybody know what they did with them? Were they abused that badly, or just another case of plenty of 'our' money to spend?

I saw one the other day and it did have a bullet hole (the peel off, press in place, clear plastic kind...no doubt an FBI inside joke from the day :-)

It's not keeping me up nights, but it does make me go, "Huh?"..... Anybody know the scoop? Inquiring minds...but not enough to send the black helicopters, please.

Jim