Rotor Blade Manufacturing

[Jez]

Dear All

Does anyone know which companies manufacture rotor blades?

I know that there are several companies in the business of rotor blade repair but don't know of the companies that actually manufacture.

Nick Lappos (if you're reading this) - how about Sikorsky?

Many thanks.:cool:

[jeppsbore]

Jez

Certainly Robinson produce all their own blades and I'm sure Bell and Eurocopter do the same.
MD / Hughes still make some blades for current machines but are somewhat slow for producing them for older 500 models hence a company in the states, HTC if memory serves me right make excellent main and tail rotor blades for these earlier models, all STC'd, better quality, cheaper and available!

Hope this helps.

JB

[rwm]

there are several companies making blades for homebuilt helicopters. Other wise use factory approved blades for a factory machine.

[Nick Lappos]

Jez,
We make our blades at Sikorsky, of three types. The Aluminum blades for the H-3/S-61 and 53, the Titanuim blades for the H-60/S-76 and the Composite blads for the S/H-92 and H-60.

It is Sikorsky's philosophy to design, research and make all the rotating stuff, transmissions, blades heads and the like. It is the essence of the helicopter, and the "family jewels" so to speak. We do farm out gears and of course buy the bearings from the houses that specialize in that stuff (Lord elastomers, for example).

We do not make blades for anyone else's machines.

I know that kaman made blades for Cobras for a while (they gave lots more performance than the older Bell design) and Bell, Boeing Philly and McD/Boeing make their own blades, as far as I know. So does Robinson.

Carson Helicopters just certified a new composite blade for the S-61 which has a new airfoil that significantly improves performance over the old 0012 airfoil on the original blades.

[Lu Zuckerman]

QUOTE: "It is Sikorsky's philosophy to design, research and make all the rotating stuff, transmissions, blades heads and the like. It is the essence of the helicopter, and the "family jewels" so to speak. We do farm out gears and of course buy the bearings from the houses that specialize in that stuff (Lord elastomers, for example)".

This has not always been the case. Sikorsky used to purchase their gear boxes including the gears and castings from Indiana gear Works in kit form and their rotorheads were made by a machining firm located in Connecticut and delivered as a kit (I don't remember their name). I believe their clutches (for helicopters using recip engines) were also farmed out and delivered as a kit for assembly by Sikorsky.

I believe that during the height of the Vietnam conflict Sikorsky farmed out the manufacturer of some of their blades. The company that built the blades also built blades for Vertol (later Boeing Vertol) and the two blade types were built on adjacent production lines. Sikorsky had nothing to gain by spying on the Vertol production line but the Vertol engineers had a field day spying on the Sikorsky production line.


:uhoh:

[Dave Jackson]

Jez

If there's no intention to get out of 'Ground Contact' :D, you might like to glance at Vortech (http://www.prismz.com/blades/index.html)

[Jez]

Thanks Boys!

As always, a wealth of knowledge from Rotorheads.

Safe flying.

Jez

[Lu Zuckerman]

To: Dave Jackson

The fact that the blades are of continuous extrusion the vertical members behind the spar element would make the blade extremely stiff and resistant to bending. The blades have to be able to bend because of the nature of the installed main rotor, which is similar to a Bell head. The aerodynamic and centrifugal (centripetal) loading must balance out which means that the blade will be operating under a very high stress load as the tip wants to rise relative to the root (cone) but the blade design will not allow it. In my opinion any helicopter with these blades installed is an accident waiting to happen.

These same vertical elements will limit any tendency for spanwise bending which will add additional stresses.

:eek:

[Dave Jackson]

Hi Lu:

A small (unnamed) manufacture of homebuilt helicopters developed a UAV using these blades. They did not want to pay for the extruded spar, which goes inside, so they inserted brass bars and affixed them with epoxy. During a demonstration before some segment of the US military, the centrifugal effect caused one of the blades to toss a bar.

It was not mentioned if the military rejected the craft or accepted it as a new type of weapon. :)
___________________

Un-actually, it's very lucky that there was no pilot onboard. If the lose bar had been subjected to centripetal effect instead of centrifugal, the bar would have been tossed inward toward the pilot. :eek:

[Lu Zuckerman]

Thanks Dave. I needed that.

:ok:

[B Sousa]

Speaking of rotor blades. Since the OH-58 has hit the streets and the Military really has nor more, there is a need for some new blades.( They are different than the B206 blades. )
Theres money to be made out there, but it will take a bit of an investment to get things rolling with a "Blade Manufacturer". I think Bell farms this out to a sub-contracter.
Again it was so nice of the U.S. Governemnt to destroy all those taxpayer dollars to please the folks at Bell.

[Lu Zuckerman]

A note to Danny:

This little character :ok: :ok: :ok: :ok: might prove to be offensive to our Middle Eastern members. In their area of the world this gesture is the same as giving someone the "bird".

:rolleyes:

[B Sousa]

:ok: And I always thought Saddam was telling us how nice We were.......:ok: :ok: :ok: :ok:

[Lu Zuckerman]

Bert,

There was a picture in TIME showing two prisoners being led away by two Israeli guards. One was giving the thumbs up sign while the other had his thumb and fore finger making a circle. The caption read that the prisoners must have been very happy as they were making gestures that to Americans meant nice going or everything is OK. We already know what the thumbs up gesture means the other when shown to a person intimates that that person is an A** Hole.

These gestures are very common in aircraft operations but when I was in Iran they had to strike them from the ops procedurers in ground handling of aircraft and helicopters.

There was a European firm that made adhesive bandages and their logo was a little boy with his hand held high with his thumb outstretched. They didn't sell many bandages in Iran.

This has nothing to do with rotor blades but is both amusing and interesting.

:ok: I couldn't resist

[Dave Jackson]

Lu,

Are you subtly suggesting that the participants on this forum, which share a common language, can have the occasional misunderstanding? :D

:ok: Viva L'Irak libre. :ok: ` . ` . :confused: :confused: