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Thread: Rotorway Corner
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Old 31st Oct 2001, 00:20
  #37 (permalink)  
chips_with_everything
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Faulconbridge, New South Wales, Oz
Posts: 64
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Talking

I can add further.

Regarding the Rotorway blades- they had problems in the past, compounded by an owner losing one after a bodgy (unapproved) repair. Rotorway have had a strengthening fix out there for a while involving lots of additional riveting which appears to have worked.

Many owners prefer to use 3rd party composite blades from Waitman. These are good, but allegedly can be off balance on occasion from absorbed moisture. When they dry out they are normal again.

As for other aspects... the RW is a nice looking and nice flying helicopter which does get you into building and maintaining yourself at a very reasonable price. There is lots of maintenance to do by the way.

However in my opinion (also some others who own and fly them) it is only suitable for operation in areas where you can be sure that there is a suitable site for an autorotation below.

Engine failures occur, and tranmission failures are disturbingly common.

They have had many instances secondary shaft breakages, other modes of failure include slipping and breaking V belts and bearing overheats. There is a second or third iteration at fixing that secondary shaft problem being trialled presently, which looks good.

The statistics are unreliable, making comparison with manufactured aircraft difficult. Many of the transmission failures for instance have gone unreported and do not appear in FAA/NTSB data.

I have obtained my information from existing Rotorway owners, in particular from the www.rotorway.org forum mentioned earlier in this thread.

I urge anyone thinking of building, owning or flying a Rotorway to apply to join www.rotorway.org where you will get a much more reliable and complete picture than you would get from the factory and sales network.
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