Reminds me of an incident in the late nineties.
A helicopter manufacturer had placed an aircraft with a major operator for training and the sale of 2 aircraft.
On returning from leave I was told by one of the pilots converting to type that there had been an incident on the ground that had lead to both engines putting out a 12 foot plume of flame and that the temps had gone off the clock.
On inquiring further I was told that the aircraft had been flown to it's normal base by the manufacturers crew been inspected and declared serviceable.
This I found difficult to believe, however my return coincided with the arrival of a new manufacturers tech rep. I told him the story and he said that all the exceedences would be logged in the computer and he could download them for us to look at.
After downloading his first words were oh s**t.
One engine had exceeded its max temperature and the other was within by 1.5 degrees.
To prove a point the engine was run and it failed its power assurance check.
So I then helped him change the engine.
It turned out that after the overtemp the aircraft had flown almost 50 hours crew training.
The operator cancelled the contract and told them to bugger off with their aircraft!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by ericferret; 16th Jan 2009 at 11:14.