Not beeping down to 97% for cruise in the 412
Hi Guys,
- Amazed to find so many people still beeping down in the 412! Old habits (like helicopter pilots) die hard!
I will indeed attempt to find the communication from Bell about this although it was some three years ago!
However, at that time we did approach Bell directly with regards to over-fast wear/way-short life expectancy experienced on the rotating head components' of our new 412 EPs at that time and they came back with the very definite advice and recommendations that they considered it unwise and quite uneccesary to beep down to less than 100% NR for cruise flight in any model 412, and particularly in the EP Variant, which would definitiely sustain excessive wear - particularly during sustained climbs at less than 100%NR.
Meanwhile, I must say that removing such cruise reductions from our company checklists and SOPs has made the whole excessive wear issue go away and also made for much easier day-to-day operations, particularly as this outfit doesn't rate-time their N2 beep actuators (as we used to do in my old 205 and 212 Fleet).
I am sure that some of you will already have been shocked at the 2-nanosecond min-to-max beep rates on some new actuator units! I have actually had one so bad after instalation that it turned the aircraft on its skids on the ground in less than 2 seconds! By removing the beeping up and down during each flight, my heart-attack rate has subsequently been reduced - as newbies seem to insist on holding the beep-up button (rather than tapping at it gently) whilst tooling along at 79% Mast Torque at full chat, thereby exceeding the 'top of the green' Mast Torque Limitation above 105 KIAS. Such exceedences were commonplace before we lost the 97% NR cruise, and we are therefore saving ourselves wear an tear from that angle as well as from the obvious transient torque-spike transmission wear during 'savage' beep actuator operations. Life is FAR more sedate and comfortable now, - and the fuel saving was never really noticeable over a 200 mile sector in the 412 anyhow!
One thing I should add though (as my single random 'duty brain cell' suddenly kicks in) is that part of our change to continuous 100% NR operations (twin-engine) in our 412 fleet was that we had to change our engineering practices and air test schedules to reflect the fact that our FRAM Dampers would now be re-tuned to 100% so that RADS workups and in-flight-tracking would reflect our cruise speed requirements (although we do still check the RADS at 97% to ensure there are no naughty vibes in the OEI range!). All of our 412s subsequently display red cockpit decals on either side showing 'FRAM DAMPER TUNED TO 100%NR'.
I'll see if I can dig out the original response from Bell from way back and get back to thee if I am successful!
Happy Beeping meanwhile!
Cheers,
'O'