Originally Posted by
lelebebbel
... In other words, the gauge is inaccurate. It's like an oil pressure gauge that may not indicate if you have low oil pressure. What's the point?
On the carburetor R44 they put the probe in the right spot, why was that not possible on the R22 in all these years?
Exactly, the assist does not work very well, and the fully manual heat of the beta is even more likely to be forgotten by someone not used to it. They have in 40 years still not installed a real solution to something that has demonstrably killed dozens of people. Why is there no AD.
I too have many thousand hours of R22 and R44 time all over the globe, more than I care to admit really. I've never had one stop due to icing, but really - you and I don't know how close we've come. Because the combination of the governor and the non accurate gauges makes it impossible to know for sure when- or if ice could be forming. Maybe I've never had any significant ice (doubt it), maybe I've been 30 seconds away from a stoppage when I happened to decide to add some heat. Twice in my career I was airborne in an R22 when I heard fixed wings declare mayday due to engine failure over the same field I was at. Both of which were later found to be caused by carb icing.
Well yes there's a 100hr pilot in a relatively high work load scenario over water and (nearly?) at night. My point is that there is a second underlying cause, and that is the very poor design of the machine he was in. I could jump into any of the other types I'm also not current in right now, and provided I'd remember how to start them, there most likely wouldn't be any issues afterwards. The R22 is the only one where I'd really have to be worried about an engine failure due to distraction.
Unless you've heard something I haven't in six trips to the Robinson Safety Course, the 22's carb heat guage is only inaccurate below 18" of MAP, and full heat seems to fix the issue,...and since there isn't an AD to "fix it", it seems the carb ice induced engine failure accident rate and the FAA agree.