To: Arkroyal
You asked,” Talking of the Lynx (which I didn't fly), can anyone confirm that when Westlands trialled the reverse direction T/R (Clockwise from the left instead of the earlier anti-clock), they forgot to alter the spiral groove oil feed to the outer bearing and seized the thing”?
This was the subject on another thread. My response at that time was that if Sikorsky could do it then I was sure that Westland could be guilty of the same error. During the design of the H 37, Sikorsky found that the tail rotor drive shaft was contacting a part of the primary structure. In order to correct this condition they had to lower the drive shaft. This involved putting an additional gear set on the main transmission causing the tail rotor to turn in the wrong direction. They modified the intermediate gearbox and the tail rotor gearbox by reversing the pitch on the gears. In the process, they forgot about the Archamedes (sp) pump on the outboard end of the tail rotor drive spindle and instead of delivering oil to the outboard bearing is actually took oil away from the bearing. In light of that, I would say that the Lynx story is true.
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The Cat