PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Surprised this hasn't been deconstructed on here yet?
Old 21st November 2015 | 00:57
  #18 (permalink)  
John Eacott
 
Joined: Aug 1999
: ATP+Mil
Posts: 4,411
Likes: 83
From: Gold Coast, Australia
Originally Posted by [email protected]
I managed it quite well for nearly 2000 hours on the Lynx and I think you mean semi-rigid rotor since the whole point is that the titanium flexes to allow flapping.

Titanium is very strong but also very susceptible to damage which is why scratches can quickly lead to cracks and structural failure and why the heads are inspected so rigorously.
No, I meant rigid rotor: the Lynx has a semi rigid rotor system but the BK117 and Bo105 have rigid rotors. The only semi-rigid rotor on the BK or the Bo is the tail rotor.

I'm sure that we're all terribly glad that you managed quite well for 2,000 hours, but we lesser mortals with only 3,000 hours on a rigid rotor system found that care was/is necessary when carrying out sloping ground landings in the BK117, and a different technique is called for when compared to fully articulated heads.

Also, the MBB titanium head seems far more robust than the Westland one, since I have no recollection of scratches leading to cracks and structural failure. Maybe the construction is different: I do recall that the Lynx head was machined from a solid billet of titanium?
John Eacott is offline  
Reply