Overspeeds who pays Hirer or school

[helicam]

Having worked at sevaral schools in the U.K, I have seen my fair share of SFH overspeeds..some have admitted it and some have not. In every school that I have worked the SFH conditions have stated that the Hirer must pay for the first £5000 in the event of any damage to the aircraft..other than cabair who offer the hirer the chance to insurer this down to £1000.

In every instance that this has happened the hirer has avoided paying the £5000 due to the fact that the contract that the Hirer signs would never "stand up in court" leaving the school to foot the bill, does anyone know of any pilot that has had to foot the bill for this insurance excess, as if this is not to be policed then we as schools should take it out of our terms and conditions. and rely on the hirer bringing the aircraft back in a safe condition with the potential risk to us of a nasty insurance bill

[206 jock]

I think you'll find it's neither: it's usually the owner that has to pay.

I had an R22 that needed spindle bearings replaced, that I'm convinced is due to students/low hours pilots raising the collective with the Governor off: the correlator simply keeps raising the revs. By the time the plonker notices, damage is done. And it's not until 'some time later' that the problem gets noticed.

I think the damage clause is more associated with bent metal (or on a turbine, a hot start - if indeed said machine is fitted with a hot start indicator light): much easier to prove than a rotor overspeed.

[cyclic flare]

The fact is that overspeeds very rarely get reported, the obvious one is the the govenor off raising the lever as already said.

What about the sprag clutch check, snap it shut quickly to see the needles split, opps wrong way. Now thats a proper overspeed with no load on the blades.

[AllJeep]

I'm sure even if a CFI was sitting in the hanger and some one rolled the throttle the wrong way during a sprag clutch check the CFI would hear it.

[helicopter-redeye]

Unfortunately, it is usually the owner who gets the bill and it will be an uninsured loss at this stage because it comes to light at maintenance.

What you need is:-

(a). a 'cough' (it woz me guv); or

(b). good supervision and briefing on every flight so that those risk points (throttle shut on start/ SCC/ govenor on prior to lift into the hover and auto-rotations) do not happen.

The confession can be brought on by having a low charge on damage and careful selection of SFH pilots. Charging them £1k to confess (or even no K) is less than £30K for the repairs plus the added insurance premium next time around. When it happens more than once, you can see the case for charge them nothing.

On supervision, I have been concerned how many resellers (flying schools reselling to SFH for a margin) do not brief students on these risk points.

Many people also do not use the check list, which encourges ill discipline in flying.

An owner can try to contract a reseller for any damage that occurs, but then the reseller will probably go and find another mug who does not understand these points and just signs up for a promise of lots of revenue.

So "caveat emptor" as the Romans use to say. Make sure people know where the risk points line; monitor flyers risk profiles; brief each flight; use the checklist; supervise effectively and only resell through reputable organisations that you can trust.


H-R


:{ :\ :*

[HOSS 1]

Seems to me there's a market for a simple "usage monitor" system for SFH helicopters. Especially, the R22.

I'm envisioning a simple system that would be housed in a small black box. It could be mounted in a seat well / baggage area, for example. The system would passively record date & time, MRRPM, Engine RPM, and maybe some temperatures (oil, cyl, etc). Also, it would be very easy to incorporate a GPS sensor to record lat/lon. One of the new "altimeter on a chip" could also be added.

All the data is held in non-volatile memory (maybe a memory card), that is easily downloaded to a PC for review. Combined with the rental log, you'll be able to easily see who did what, and where they went !

Think a student would be less apt to do the ever popular "buzz job" if he knew "big brother" was recording his every move?

Heck, maybe just an empty box that says it does all of the above would be enough of a deterrent.

[Delta Julliet Golf]

If a student is flying I think it's the responsiblity of the school and his/her instructor. I can't imagine a student will do these things on purpose and he/she should be briefed (like every other training flight) in advance. Since you're dealing with low time pilots, there will always be some extra risks involved .

Rental is another isue. I assume that the flight school first checks a pilot out if he/she is allowed to fly with their equipment (at my flight school this was common)?

DJG

[RobboRider]

It's easy to say "shouldn't happen" and "should give students warnings and instruction" but in the real world all it takes is a distraction or some unusual small event to interupt a pilots train of thought and - zip - done in an instant.

A friend of mine managed to do it in his own machine when he was 500+ hours experienced. Simple distraction at the time - can't recall the full details but enough of an overspeed to have to have the engine pulled out.

Don't know what the answer is, but I know it isn't just instruction or checking out the pilot beforehand. Instruction etc stops them doing it 99.99% of the time but you need a 100% system.

The sticker probably isn't the answer cos there are a number of times when it can happen so you'd need a sticker for every situation (and with all the stickers we have to have I don't think I've got room for any more:ugh: )

[pilotwolf]

Many people also do not use the check list, which encourges ill discipline in flying.

Couldn't agree more! I ALWAYS use checklist on all the a/c I fly.

Yet I have been ridiculed by fellow pilots that "I should know how to start it by now", pax asked "you using that - don't you know what you re doing?"

I know the R22/R44/206/etc is a bit simpler than a 747/757/A320/etc, but I wonder if those who question checklist use would challenge the pilots of these a/c?

PW

[helicopter-redeye]

Thanks to PilotWolf for agreeing.

On the black box question, I recall Q mentioned this about 18 months ago in the context of overspeeds and had some kind of product in consideration/ development.

Anything would need licensing, but a device that recorded (say) Engine or Rotor RPM for a flight and a time of occurence that could be downloaded to PC for analysis daily/ weekly/ etc would not be a big technology leap, just an add on to the volatile memory of the instruments that exist in these machines today.

Sort of a CO2 warning patch for engines.

Bet the aircraft change certification bodies will make a meal of it though ... ...

:cool:

[HOSS 1]

The more I thought about this today, the more refined the idea got.

Someone asked "who's going to pay for the R&D". the answer is , *I* would. If it meant I owned the rights to the product, it would easily make financial sense.

You are right, it would be very difficult to get a device that taps into the rotor and engine rpm signals approved. That's why the box should have a good accelerometer installed with a fast enough processor to do a real time fourier transfer and pick out the engine and rotor RPM from the airframe vibrations. Any mechanical engineering grad student could gin this up, I'm sure. Then, the legal issues are greatly reduced. Just solidly mounting a box.

You don't think most flight schools or lease-back owners would pay $1,000 for such a box? Sure they would. Pays for itself with one overspeed.

[helmet fire]

Hoss, run a search function on your idea in pprune, as it has already been discussed and developed (or is undergoing development) - specifically for the R22, but applicable across other types. I seem to remember it was developed from a race car monitor idea at around 20% the cost of aviation special devices. Perhaps you could contact them and offer financial backing/US agents rights, etc.

[Gaseous]

Products for exactly this sort of monitoring exist and are marketed as digital engine monitors. I have one fitted to my Enstrom which monitors and records the following parameters.
Engine rpm, individual cylinder head temps and exhaust gas temps, fuel flow, manifold pressure, OAT, oil temp. All sorts of sensors can be bolted on to theses devices. Overspeeds and overtemps are recorded. It cost me £1500 plus fitting.
It has an STC for most aircraft types.

See:
http://www.buy-ei.com/EI_Mux-8A_Data_Recorder.htm

[helicopter-redeye]

Questions:-

1. Is the data collected volatile or does it record the overspeed the way a CO2 detector goes black so you know you've had the problem?

2. Any probs getting it certifed by CAA?

3. Have you seen one on a R44?

h-r

[helicam]

What about the overspeed kits being fitted to the current 300cbi same engine i think as the beta II

I think they should be mandatory on all R22s the problem would then hopefully go away heard a R44 go bang last month not a pretty sound .......

[Gaseous]

H-Redeye,

The data stored in the data logger is non volatile for about 300 hours of flight. As long as you download it onto a PC within 300 hours the gory details are there. The unit can be programmed to record exceeded limits in detail by monitoring the warning line to the light/Horn which gives warning to the pilot of the limit bust. The limits can be programed so a margin of safety can be built into the warning system. This warns the pilot he is heading towards exceeding a limit. (very handy). The STC (supplimentary type certificate) means that it has been tested and approved with the aircraft on the AML (Approved models list - I think) so shouldn't be a problem with the CAA. I had no probs convincing my engineer it was a good idea. I have on old AML (1999) which shows approval for the R22 but not the R44. If you are interested contact E.I. and ask them if the 44 is now on the list.

[Whirlybird]

I ALWAYS use checklist on all the a/c I fly.

Yet I have been ridiculed by fellow pilots that "I should know how to start it by now", pax asked "you using that - don't you know what you re doing?"

I always use a checklist unless I'm flying extremely regularly. I used one yesterday for my first trial lesson of the day, since I hadn't flown for nearly a month, and said, without being asked: "Of course I know all this, but as the airline pilots do, we use a checklist every time as a safety precaution". All true, and a student or pax is unlikely to argue with that. As for fellow pilots - anyone who ridicules me I don't fly with again; I don't need that.

But as for preventing overspeeds, I doubt it would make any difference. As has been said before, its distraction, overload, fatigue, or a combination of those. We're all human and mistakes will happen.

[helicopter-redeye]

Thanks to Gaseous on the data. I'll get my engineering support on to this right away.

After two 'untraceable' overspeeds £1500 is good money to track who did what and when (and be able to prove it in court).

On the checklists front, what we do need is a re-write of certain H checklists to pick out the key items that need to be checked with more vigour that other items (hence BOLD FACE) because some things do need that element of doublechecking to ensure that the (e.g.) the throttle is closed and the gov. on before lifting.

And anybody can make the mistake of forgetting, but a written and CLEAR checklist can reduce the risk.

If everybody used this approach then we would reduce unneccesary damage to aircraft, of that I am certain.

I always use a checklist, as do Her Majesty's best.

h-r

On Whirly\'s point of not preventing overspeeds etc.

It may reduce them because of the increased discipline and the self supervision/ awareness.

h-r

[hell a copter]

Lots of talk here about recording data such as overspeeds.
Larry Perkins of Perkins Enigineering at Moorabin Airport, Melbourne Australia has just the thing, A black box that records and alerts you to exceeding most parameters, I think he has it certified for alot of types.