"Rumour has it that there's been quite a few loss of torque cases found on the MGB BBQ mounts from various operators around the world. One big red herring in my opinion."
If you were logging with the machine or working in a high airframe cycle, (+20 cycles / hour) enviornment, then, yes.
IFR a/c, extremely unlikely.
While logging in CH in the mid '80's we had to implement a 25 hr tq check on the 36 mgbx/bbq plate bolts. The "new" AS/AH bbq plate to fuselage hardware is a 50 hour tq check.
This was based on our experience as well as info on Columbia Helicopters earlier logging experience with the AS332C.
Something that has been bothering me since the a/c went down with no warning. The rotor / epicy / mgbx moduls had been seperated and reassembled in the week (+/-) prior to the final flight?
Was the reassemble of all these components done outside of the airframe and on a 5 degree plate and then as a complete unit installed on the a/c?
Or was mrh assembly replaced on the a/c?
The question that is open for me, did the maintenance engineers use the 5 degree position on the mrh lifting jig to install the mrh/mast in the epicyclic upper case?
There was rumour running around in '83-'84 that in the Gulf of Alaska an AS332 landed on a deep water rig and had a bang during shut down. The epicyclic was damaged. The complete transmission assembly was replaced before the return flight. The fault was traced back to a mrh installation without the 5 degree setting on the mrh lifting jig.
Again, this was a rumour that was circulating at the time.
It is a fact that the epicyclic upper gears do not take kindly to rocking the mast into place without have the lifting jig positioned correctly.
I hope for sake of the engineers that last worked on this a/c that this is not the case.
Marcus