Originally Posted by
Robbo Jock
Not sure there's any other way to check the tail rotor flex coupling than by turning the tail rotor blades and looking through the sight glass.
aa777888, interesting point. I wonder what the stresses are on the blades in flight? Longitudinally, I'd guess they're enormous, laterally, they'll be huge. But lead/lag, wonder where they fit in?
Yes, exactly: it's not easy to do a thorough pre-flight without rotating the entire drive-train in order to inspect it properly. You can do it, but there is a lot of squinting and peering and flashlights and stuff. It's a lot easier and probably more thorough to rotate the entire mess. It's a lot easier to inspect and touch everything that way. I will push on the upper belt sheave to get things moving around in the transmission area. I will grab the *hub* of the tail rotor and rotate it to get a better look at all of the main and tail rotor components. That way I don't have to drag a ladder around to both sides, and it's the only way to really look at both sides of the main rotor assembly without a ladder since you can only climb up the helicopter on one side. And I'm sufficiently OCD that I only rotate the drive-train in the direction it normally goes
