WHICH ROBINSON IS THE WEAKEST LINK?

[Earpiece]

Well Lu can you answer this one?

"keeping an ear to the ground"

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: Earpiece

Well it looks like you have discovered your lot in life. Since you can’t come up with a thread that stimulates the mind you have come up with three threads that get hits because of other peoples dislikes for the material contained in the Robinson threads. Have you noticed that your other threads have all gone off the end with minimal comment or possibly no comment. On one of your other threads I noticed that someone responded in order to give you an even three hits. Keep up the good work.

What the hell do you mean by which Robinson is the weakest link? I don’t have the answer. Can you please tell me what you think the answer should be?


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The Cat

[Fortyodd]

Looks like another thread about to go off the end....................

[Cyclic Hotline]

http://www.qwertyuiop.co.uk/gs/atoz/programmes/w/weakest_link/weakestlink_2.jpg

She's coming to get you! ;)

[helisphere]

We can't let this thread fall away just yet.

I would guess earpeace is asking is it the R44 or the R22.

Or maybe he meant, is it Frank or Barbara, or Kurt or maybe Roy or some other member of the Robinson family.

Weakest link to what though?

Oh well, I guess you guys are right. Who gives a dam.

[helidrvr]

Then again, maybe he's talking about a certain Swiss family and its impact on modern western culture???

http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/cool.gif

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HELIDRVR (http://www.helidrvr.homestead.com)

[SPS]

I beleive it is Derek Robinson, a Coventry
'businessman' who almost steered Jaguar to destruction in the 70's and then became politician - He was sacked after indiser trading to the tune of several million quid came to light.

Now there is one Robinson we don't need....

[Lu Zuckerman]

Based on the number of problems reported, I would say from a reliability point of view the weakest link is the R 44 Raven.

Case in point:

Posted by Phil (195.7.227.146) on January 14, 2001 at 04:49:42:

9 hours total, 3 hours since delivery and hydraulics failure.
I try to believe the sales pitch about reliability and am mindful of isolated mechanical failures, however there seems to be an awful lot of them reported.
Please let me know if yours has failed? Has it happened since the first time?
For those uninitiated, try flying (with an instructor who you trust with your life) with hydraulics turned off – you’ll only do it once.
A days flying lost and a nagging thought that it might happen again. Frank and me need to talk.

Me talking:

If the feed back forces are that great with hydraulics switched off, it appears that there has been a major modification in the flight controls to acommodate the hydraulics because a standard R 44 can be flown without that much trouble.


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The Cat

IP: Logged


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The Cat

[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 17 January 2001).]

[JoePilot]

These hydraulics did not FAIL - there was a leak.

Hovering an R44 with no hydraulics is easy - takes 10-20 mins to get used to it (with expert supervision only) - very impressive if you haven't tried it yet...

Of course it's stiffer Lu - you've got to move 'dead' hyralic fluid around!(the 'sloppy link' is pretty small though)

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: Joe Pilot

If a servo is properly designed the resistance to movement in an unpowered state should be minimized by the sizing of the bypass valve. Regarding the sloppy link or as it is correctly called, a mechanical disconnect, it is always small. It should take no more than .002" of movement to get the servo to move and, no more than .012" of movement to bottom it out in order to move the servo in an unpowered state.

REGARDING THE HYDRAULIC FAILURE, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT HAD FAILED BUT ONLY TO SHOW A NEW OWNERS FRUSTRATION REGARDING THE RELIABILITY OF THE R44 RAVEN.

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The Cat

[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 17 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 17 January 2001).]

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: Cyclic Hotline

Who is the lady in the picture?

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The Cat

[captaincrack]

Lu,

That lady is Ann Robinson, the question master (mistress) on an awful TV quiz show on UK TV.

Basically there is a group of contestents answer questions in turn for money. At the end of a set of questions, the contestents have to choose which of their colleagues are the "weakest link". The weakest link is then unceremoniusly dismissed with kurt goodbye from Ms Robinson.

Hope it makes a little better sense now!

[Earpiece]

Well done Lu....like the Mayflower it got there eventually!

"Keeping an ear to the ground"

[SPS]

Now I'm back in UK I have suffered misfortune already.....

I saw the ridiculous woman tongue lashing people far more intelligent than her.

What a lot of rubbish, even though it has ripped of some of the effects of the best game show in the world (the only one I'll watch).

Anyway, enough TV...

[John Eacott]

Down under, we have the misfortune to have our own "Weakest Link". The promos drive me nuts, now I know who we really have to blame :mad:

[HeliEng]

Lu:-

This Raven with the suspected Hydraulic failure. Where was this? What happened? Has any investigation taken place?

Would be interested to know!

'Some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue!'

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: HeliEng

The post was lifted from helicopters.uk.com

It was posted by Phil on 1-14-01. Thats all I know. I requested further information but he never followed up on my request.

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The Cat

[elpirata]

to Lu:

I have read all your stuff about Robinsons with interest, it seems to me that as you come to fly an aircraft either you have confidence in the machinery or you dont,
I have almost 1500 hours in Robinsons and (touching a lot of wood), the only problems to date have been a TR & MR chip illuminate in flight, one was fuzz one was the real thing, and the loss of the ERPM tacho,
I have much less time in Jetrangers and have had a variety of problems including "eng out" light in flight during an auto, thankfully it was only the light and not a flameout, however I can honestly say that I have slightly less confidence in the machinery than a basic R22, flown properly.

I always tell my students not to abuse a R22 and their shouldnt be a problem, I cant recognize the inherent design deficiencies of the rotor head in real life of which you have spoken eloquently and at length

stay lucky

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elpirata

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: HeliEng

Joe Pilot responded to my original posting and he stated that it was not equipment failure but that it was a leak in the system.

In your next post, address it to Joe Pilot as he might have more detailed information than I have.

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The Cat

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: Elpirata

I never questioned the reliability of the R22 and I made one post about the reliability of the R44 Raven Hydraulic system but that was just a repeat of another post on another forum. My main beef with the R22/R44 is that they are restricted from performing basic flight maneuvers that they were required to do in order to gain certification. Those flight maneuvers are flying out of trim and avoidance of sideslip. Because of that it was my contention that if the two helicopters were offered for certification at this point in time and they were not capable of performing those required maneuvers then they would not grant certification.

The other was the design of the rotorhead required an 18-degree offset when rigging the helicopter which with a 90-degree phase angle would cause the helicopter to fly left. I further contended that with the necessary cyclic input to counter the effects in inflow roll and possible blow back when the cyclic was finally at rest it would be to the right of the rigged neutral setting of the cyclic stick.

I further stated that with the cyclic being offset to compensate for the 18-degree offset at rigging the pilot would be placed in jeopardy if he /she encountered a zero G maneuver and he/she complied with the POH and pulled the cyclic straight back. In doing so the offset cyclic would cause an exacerbation of the right roll component and the pilot could possibly lose the helicopter.

If the Robinson is flown with care it can function as well and in some cases better than any other small helicopters. However, the built in design problems can kill you a lot faster than any other helicopter.



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The Cat