Kaman Seasprite rotor questions

[Rarr]

Can anyone with experience with the Kaman Seasprite answer the following questions?

1. Did the servoflap rotor control make any difference in how the helicopter handled versus conventional rotor blade feathering?
2. Can you list the pro's and con's of servoflap rotor control?
3. Is a servoflap system easier to maintain? It seems there would be less highly stressed components.
4. Since Kaman's patents have long expired why don't other manufacturers use servoflaps?

I would be very interested in any comments others may have on the benefits or liabilities of servoflap rotor control. If you would prefer to discuss this offline please email me.

Thanks,
Rene

[Spaced]

I was lucky enough to have a good chat with a couple of K-Max pilots. I know they arent sea sprites but they both use the servo flaps.
As far as maintenance goes I cant really answer that one, but both pilots seemed to like the system. But I beleive that the rotor blades can be tracked by using the flaps.
On the plus side the control loads are greatly reduced so there is no need for hydraulics. The actual control linkages look like something off the R22. The system reduces the complexity of the rotor head and reduces weight.
On the down side the trim was a little slow and they would set the trim for the hover and push against it to go forward.
As far as why nobody else uses it, stuffed if I know. Probably just one of those things where that company only wants to use stuff that they have designed.
Hope this helps a bit.

[Autorotate]

Couple of years ago I got to have a fly around the Hartford area in the Huskie that Kaman have their for their Kmax pilot training and was shown the attributes of the servo flap.

Was actually pretty cool. Could smooth the thing out amazingly well while in flight and was also shown how rough it could become when it was placed out of whack.

The guys logging with the Kmaxs have said that the servo flap allows them to basically retrim the aircraft if and when they like without having to go back into the hangar and have an engineer look at it.

:E