R22 blades
407
That looks like only half the pic, what did the drag brace area look like?
Heard of an incident many moons ago from a company in east OZ. They had a fruit loop (aren’t we all?) driving a 12E in mustering mode. Hero hits a tree and did more damage than your pic and decided to hack saw the offending bent areas off, about nine inches or so. The story of course does not stop there, our hero turned engineer all of sudden and reckons that he needs to balance the system so cuts the same amount off of the other but so far unblemished blade and flies around for another fifty or so hours until the next 100. Rumour has it that our hero left his place of employ on foot, at a very fast clip, without even picking up his check when confronted by the boss.
Twin huey
I am with you too, if your gut feeling is nogo, then I don’t go, contracts don’t pay for expensive holes in the ground.
Acsj
You’re onto it, but the price of fuel gees every drop saved counts, or maybe you could suggest to Frank he could use a scaled model of one of those two mentioned types of blades on the R22. Hmmmm an 269 series blade onto the R22 series, given the history of why-for the R22, that would stir a real ruckus in Torrance HQ!!
Slowrotor
From the MM sect 9.130 h) 1. “Blades must be tap tested using a 1965 (or later US quarter in good condition.” (Really, yep a bloody 1965 quater! I read that a few times to make sure. Did HAA hang that one on him and did one qrtr each get sent with all of the exported models?)
Allowable; “no single void larger than .10 square inch.” I read that as 1 inch long a tenth of an inch deep. That is not much. I could easily stand to be corrected!
Section 9.130 is called up by section 2.410 Item 13. (Part of the 100 hourly)
Make sure that no-one does a tap test until referring to the diagrams or they are well briefed as to where the bonded areas are. If they tap outside a bonded area they’re liable to U.S. the blade. BE CAREFUL THEY ARE FRAGILE.
So far I am hearing that they are all early production blades but that is being checked.
No doubt Torrance HQ is working around the clock on this, after all the viability of 4,000 helicopters hangs on a viable operational outcome quite soon.
Not to mention that a multitude of operators in North Australia who have been delayed on their mustering season start because of so much cyclonic activity and the entire north Australian cattle industry who also depend on these helicopters.
If these defects have been known for a while one might have thought that there could/should be a daily inspection both visual and tap test required by now by Robinson and or CASA, FAA and NZ CAA. That is assuming all authorities received Defect reports!
There is of course already a requirement in the POH to visually check the blades for cracks; however a special purpose AD or SB would be a good idea at least to clarify –is it or isn’t it OK- do you know????
How many people really check for cracks when doing a daily, or even venture up toward the head? There are only three things in a daily that will kill you if you miss them no matter how big or small the aircraft.
They are the three C’s. 1. CRACK, 2. CHAFING, 3 CORROSION and the little S, for Security.
Re cost, the MM states also that; “Voids or debonds are NOT field repairable.”
This means return to factory, it should mean return to approved service centre for approved repair. The time and cost to ship blades across a continent and then the Pacific Ocean and back again all without being damaged would be monumental. If necessary it would be much better and cheaper to have a Robinson senior technician attend and supervise these repairs at some of the major service centres.
IMABELL paints a horrible financial picture if the blade security is not attended to quickly. Fair enough!