Those 412/212 Governor Switches.

[Red Wine]

Just building onto Blenderpilots observations regarding the Governor / FCU's selector switches on the Medium Bell Consule.

Many a Red Face has developed when the "Triangle"...or "Hexagonal" topped "Governor"switch is moved from the Auto to Manual whilst at anything above ground idle.......watch the flames and catch the wheels as they depart the smoking engine.
There for the grace of my Mentor goes I.....but others have not been so lucky........the Pratt Rebuilding Centre must love that little design......particularly as the switch[s] is conveniently adjacent to the Hydraulic Switches, which have the same throw action......great little trap after a long day at the stick.

And BHT's official respone..........No, we consider the design adequate...however if any operator wishes to protect the switches with a Safety Toggle Switch, then we will aprove that as well........the powers of litigation prevent even the Big Boys from issuing a sensible solution to such a nasty design.!!!

A great combination of aircraft and engine........but with a nasty streak...!!!!

I know in the last 20 years of at least 3 Pratts that have been sent to the factory with this problem...........anyone else with a few figures???

[Flare Dammit!]

Heh. Here's another of those "Gotcha!" stories. Not too long ago at PHI, two very experienced pilots landed their 412 and shut it down to take a lunch break. Inadvertently, one of them switched the fuel controls to "Manual" (instead of shutting off the fuel valves or whatever it was they were supposed to do).

On the next startup, the error wasn't caught. Everything went fine...until the rollup to 100%. Then, BOOM!...or whatever noise is made by two PT-6's going for the moon. Two very red-faced pilots with two very oversped/overtemped Pratts. If I recall, I think those guys got the dynamic components too. Very good job, fellas! Good design, Bell! Ahh, but in Bell's defense, the antique 412 was designed so long ago that people probably hadn't heard of "human factors" yet.

[Shawn Coyle]

I learned my lesson on those switches flying UH-1Ns in the Canadian Air Force.
One day I took my camera with my flying, and left it lying on the center console. Just as I picked it up, I noticed the strap had managed to snag itself on the triangle, and if I had pulled any further I would have put the engine into manual...
The other reason it's a gotcha is that on startup, if all you do is count caution lights instead of check which ones are actually on, you can miss the fact that the engines are in manual.
If I owned any Bell 212s I'd put a guarded switch on it in a heartbeat.
In fact, National Test Pilot School does own the only civil registered UH-1N (an ex-Canadian Air Force one), but we deliberately didn't change the switches so that budding student test pilots and flight test engineers can easily find things wrong with the cockpit, and if they don't we can show 'em a real problem. We also fly with the students all the time, and know the problem!
But if I owned a commercially operated fleet...

[SASless]

Shawn...

Last outfit I flew with finally figured out the difference in costs between relocating the panel with the hydraulic system switches to the left side of the console and well removed from the GOV switches.....beats the heck out of just one Ah! S--T! They also modified cockpit procedures so that the non-handling pilot touched, identified , and waited for the handling pilot to confirm the planned movement prior to making it. Bit awkward for the folks concerned...but beat the ramifications of selecting a GOV into MAN while at full throttle!