The R22 corner: Owning, flying & training questions

[Aerobot]

"Thanks Squeaks....I suspected as such.
Stringfellow / Aerobot / FSXPilot: any comments?"

I have, thank you for asking. I'd say that it's even more important to give the new kids the right answers straight off and that treating them as if they're not good enough to rate our time doesn't really advance anything except perhaps the stroking of our own insecure egos.

Furthermore, the nature of the question implies that this is not a situation in which one can say "R.T.F.M." Obviously this is a question from someone without a lot of experience, so to demand their qualifications for intruding on your time is disingenuous at best. If you don't feel they're worth your time do something else. But to spend your time telling them that they're not worth your time rather implies something other than what you might have intended.

If the fellow is still reading and hasn't been put off by TC, there are a few other things that it might just save his life to know: one is that, aside from my previous advice, piston engines often flutter just before dying. That was the case in my H269C. Practicing for 180-degree autos, the instructor rolled it off and it went "flutter-flutter-flutter, dead." As we discovered later when it was investigated (hours after my instructor took over the auto and brought us to a cold stop ten feet over the tarmac - BANG!) the fault was the absence of a cotter pin on the correlator, which allowed the butterfly valve to snap shut and choke off the engine.

So, unless it snaps a shaft or sucks a valve it will probably make some noise just before it quits - in fact I've heard of Lycomings sucking a valve and still flying home - complaining but flying.

But our newbie should not just worry about engine failures and the warnings thereof: of just as much import is the possibility of a drivetrain failure. The one time I experienced that there was no warning at all save a godawful BANG just behind my head as rotor RPM dove for the carpet.

The practical answer is that you will generally get about a second's worth of something going wierd just before it quits - but count on it happening only when you're not paying attention to it. So live with your left arm spring-loaded: anytime it does something the least bit strange - get the collective down. If you were just being an old woman you can always bring the power back in.