Corrosion
Hi Fracturelines,
Further to the 'rust' you speak of, I guess you mean corrosion beneath the painted aluminium of the airframe.
My first machine, a brand new 2005 Raven 2, Did not have the 'additional corrosion proofing' that was offered, as my Agent told me there had never been any corrosion issues.
After 11 months, bubbles began to appear along the tailboom, around the tail surfaces and the fuel tanks.
I was told afterwards that RHC had changed their paint processes for environmental reasons and mine was one of those quickly affected by corrosion beneath the overlapped joints in the various sections.
RHC refused to accept any liability 'due to the vagiaries of the English weather', despite my telling them that it had only done a few hours and lived in an airconditioned hangar.
All they did was say 'send the corroded bits back and we'll repaint them for you or send the paint, as you prefer'.
If it had been a corrosion carbunkle on the bonnet of a brand new Skoda I would have had it all sorted under warranty and been given a loaner.
However, spend $0.5M on a helicopter....
It cost me £thousands to sort, simply because it was less costly in both £'s and downtime to get it done here, i.e. I would have had to pay the crating & freight charges etc.
My 2008 machine seems OK, they must have got the paint sorted prior to its m/f.
HP