Originally Posted by
kansarasc
Since the owner of the company/helicopter himself perished in the accident I do not believe that neglected maintenance to save few bucks would have been an issue. What else a pilot can do other than report discrepancy to mechanic and go flying when he/she says everything is good.
I disagree with both of these statements. Look, nobody is going to dispatch a machine they
know is going to crash. But people have an amazing ability to rationalize situations so that they can tell themselves that although
it isn't right, that it will be okay. Owners can be the worst in this sense, because they tend to be the one hurt economically when the machine is grounded, but pilots and mechanics are guilty as well. We pilots
want to go flying! And vibrations are the worst because we can be more or less sensitive to vibrations on different days ( like on windy days versus smooth days ). And vibrations, while arguably the hardest to quantify, can also be indicative of the most dangerous problems. A blade that can be balanced but is soon vibrating again can be indicative of a cracked blade. Vibrations from transmissions... Well that doesn't even need to be mentioned how serious that can be. And yet, what do all helicopters do? Vibrate! It can be difficult to determine which are the normal vibrations, and which are indicative of the problem that is about to kill you.
What else can a pilot do when they feel something isn't right, but the mechanic says it's fine? Lots ( depending on your situation ). I've called both Bell and Robinson myself when I've been unsatisfied with what the maintenance people are telling me. The technical support people can give you ideas about what might be wrong, as well as things you might try to further diagnose the problem. Also, having a senior person with lots of time in type fly it can help validate ( or repudiate ) what you think you're feeling. I'm not talking about the local CFI although they can be helpful, I'm talking someone with over a thousand hours in type... They can often pick up on smaller anomalies that a less experienced pilot won't.
I was flying with one client in an R44 and I could tell there was a subtle engine problem... we were pulling just a little too much power and there was a tiny but detectable torque kick in the hover. I told them to get it checked, but the maintenance shop said there wasn’t a problem. The next time I flew it, the problem was worse, but they still couldn’t feel what I was feeling. I told them to take it back to the shop and
insist that the shop look further. Sure enough an exhaust valve was sticking. Nothing that would take you out of the air, but the point is that someone with a lot of time in type will be able to detect things ( and often know the cause ) that a less experienced pilot won’t even feel. It’s good to have access to someone like that when you aren’t sure about something. Even better is someone that can work with the maintenance people to figure out what is wrong.
Another issue you may encounter as someone who only flies one particular aircraft ( not type, but one particular aircraft, like a private owner tends to do ) is that you will just accept that a machine flies a certain way. I had a different client with an R44, and I could tell that there was a rigging issue from the way the machine did hover autos and touchdowns. The owner just accepted it because it was the only aircraft he regularly flew. I worked with the mechanic and we determined that the swashplate was grossly misrigged when it was overhauled ( by someone who didn't know what they were doing, based on all the other problems we found, in this case
mounting the swashplate in the wrong location! ). It wasn't really a safety issue in that it wasn't going to come apart or anything, it just couldn't do a hover auto from more than 2 feet, versus the 5-6 feet of a normal R44, let alone do good touchdown autos. If you didn't fly other aircraft of the same type, you might just think that's how R44s did autos...
You should try to emulate the helicopter pilots Harry Reasoner ( the TV reporter ) was describing when he said:
"This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to."