Sanus could you or someone in the engineering community help me with this ...
We all know that achieving redundancy with MGBs and MRHs by it's very nature is in most respects impossible. So we take the view that we must engineer it until the point that failure becomes "extremely improbable"
The three suspension bars that are getting a lot of attention at the moment accept, as I understand it, >11 to of lift forces. They also are subjected to downward loading resulting from the mass of the helicopter itself.
Some types are engineered so as some of the lift forces are taken by the MGB casing (which I guess would have both safety advantages and disadvantages compared to using the suspension bars) but that isn't the case with the Puma - is that true?
Is is also a fact that the failure of a single one of the three suspension bars or associated components could really lead to this?
I appreciate that it is "extremely improbable" for this to happen as I am not aware of any tragedies (including this one so far) that have been found to have this as the primary cause. But there are a number of possible failure modes including ...
1. Maintenance
2. Manufacture
3. External damage
and certainly more.
If something can happen it probably will ... and maybe ,extremely improbably, it has ...
So what is the redundancy? - if one goes west is a catastrophe inevitable?
Is it impossible to build in redundancy? Is there redundancy already built in? or are we relying on extreme improbability?
The views of someone with a decent Puma engineering background would be appreciated.
Last edited by birmingham; 25th May 2016 at 11:21.