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Old 30th May 2008, 22:59
  #8 (permalink)  
Shawn Coyle
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Philadelphia PA
Age: 73
Posts: 1,835
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At the risk of reiterating points I may have raised before:
The helicopter has some serious issues for use as a training helicopter (unless this has been changed).
The throttle is in the overhead - and I don't know too many instructors who will like that for autorotations.
The fuel tank has no lateral baffles - if you roll into a turn, the nose will slice out of the turn about 5 degrees or so, a few seconds later as the fuel runs to the low side of the turn.
I don't believe PZL Swidniik completed certification to the full requirements of Part 27 (i.e. HV at 7,000' and max weight) among other things.
I believe the autorotation accident referred to earlier happened during the limited certification that was completed, and was due primarily to doing autorotations to the grass surfaces outside the factory (a pet peeve of mine if you haven't seen the articles in Vertical).
There was a longer list of things I debriefed the PZL Swidnik folks (and a potential UK investor on), but I've had too many sleeps since then.
Without a full Part 27 equivalent certification, this machine is not going anywhere outside the Polish military.
Shawn Coyle is offline