Originally Posted by
SASless
The FAA did ground the Robbie over some blade delaminations and also required special training for the R-22 which some 16,000+ pilots have undergone since the FAA Ruling.
Actually, SFAR 73 applies to both the R22 and R44. Interestingly, it does not apply to the R66, which is a) a bit odd and perhaps a bad oversight because it has the same basic flying qualities as the R44, b) or the FAA figures that the problem is mostly associated with training of which there is little in the R66, c) or the FAA figures that anyone getting into an R66 will already be more experienced and therefore not require the additional training associated with SFAR 73.
Originally Posted by
Bell_ringer
You have the wrong end of the stick.It is also far easier to have a larger number of fatalities in a Huey than a 22, so the comparison being drawn was grossly over simplified to manipulate statistics.
This latter point is untrue. You simply assumed that was the case. However, to clarify: the stat's I posted above represent the total number of events with fatalities, not the total number of fatalities. I.e., the 66 Robinson events with fatalities actually resulted in more than 66 fatalities, and, as you point out, that is not a good way of looking at things.
Again, someone show us all the hours from a reasonably unimpeachable source. If the Bell fleet is significantly more hours than the Robinson fleet, I will gladly bow to that statistic. Still not seeing the data, though. I did find one news article that showed some fleet hours, but every other fact check I did on that article showed it to be badly wrong, so I don't trust the hours quoted in that article.