I do not know which design is safer.
I posted as the subject came up out of nowhere when no cause for this tragic accident has been found.
I will say that we always took a very good look at shaft and boots during the DI and at every refuelling during the day.
I never had a short shaft or FW unit problem with any 204, 205, 206 or 212/412 but still the incident history prompted a good look. We will not speak of the old “Oil Heads” remember those?
Yup you can do that on a 206L.
Long time since I flew any Bell product but always luved flying them ( best years of my career - flying was fun and ops manuals were thin, management was 100s if not 1000s of miles away.) .
Originally Posted by
SASless
So....which design is better...safer?
I recall looking at the short shaft on every preflight and maintenance break....checking for correct installation, condition of the boot, correctness of the locking wire and witness marks on the bolts on the couplings, signs of grease being slung....and turning it by hand to make sure it was right way to.....can you do that on the one in question on the 206L?
I recall some failures on UH-1's but after all we were flying millions of hours on them at one point in their service life in the US Military.
It is a fair question Albatross....did the change improve safety or did it bring along some new and different issues?
Noting is failure proof....unless you are suggesting this new design is.....is that why you ask the question you did?