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Old 15th April 2007 | 12:26
  #9 (permalink)  
rotornut
 
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,852
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From: Canada
If you are worried get Blade Erosion Tape as mentioned above, its not great, but its cheap enough, and (if approved for your Type)
Make sure it's approved for your type!
A few years ago I was with a outfit that had a Hughes 300.The leading edges of the blades showed signs of erosion so the engineer put a NON type approved blade erosion tape on them.
The machine performed normally and the tape seemed to work well. However, a few days later I flew through a rain squall. After I landed the machine I noticed the tape was shattered but I didn't think anything of it as the performance seemed about the same. However, shortly after that I picked up a passenger who asked me to hover about 200 ft. over part of a dense forest. The machine started to lose RRPM. I desperately pumped the collective but it wouldn't stay in the air. Fortunately I was able to put it down in a swamp and suffered no damage - except to my ego. Later on the engineer removed the tape and performance was back to normal. It was a very cheap lesson!
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