To: T'aint natural
Your opinion of me as a person or a technician really doesn’t matter because I will never have to come to you for a position. The English consultancy that you referenced most likely dealt with accident data published by your CAA or some other organizations. The point I made dealt with rotor loss or rotor incursion accidents and not fatal accidents in general. As I indicated there have been several in the UK and two in the USA in the years since that study was made. If you reference the rotor loss / rotor incursion accidents against the number of hours flown you will see that the Robinson accident rate is much higher than any other helicopter. I would suggest you refer to the statistics compiled by the NTSB and you will find that it is supportive of my statements
regarding the overall safety of the Robinson design.
If I am allowed to expound on my personal views I believe that the design of the rotorhead on the R22 and R44 is the major contributor (high flapping loads and the static droop stops) that lead to the high accident rate (rotor loss / rotor incursion). I believe that the restrictions placed on the flight envelope (out of trim and sideslip) are also related to the rotor design.
Now you can call me an idiot or whatever you want but I will continue on this quest until the testing of my theories is either proven or disproved. That hopefully will take place in the next several weeks.
The loss of a rotor or rotor incursion is comparable to the loss of a wing on a fixed wing aircraft. In some cases wing loss can result from maneuvering stress well in excess of design loads or improper maintenance but it does happen but it doesn’t happen at the frequency recorded by the Bell and Robinson designs.
What it all boils down to is safety is not design related it is how well the pilot follows the instructions. The problem is, the instructions are there to cover up a design flaw.
See you in a few weeks.