Piles of sh*t!

[Giovanni Cento Nove]

Whatever your background in the biz, some of us move on, get to fly other types, hopefully get grey, cynical, fat, lethargic etc.................. Magazine articles never ever dis helicopters. Why not? It would appear that all helicopters are wonderful - not. This is complete crap. List the duffers - ............ go on, it's anon here, fill your boots. Let it rip. Would you actually part cash for one of these things? List away, been boring here for a few weeks anyway. Forget the flames, I've flown and fixed these things for 20 odd years, so just concentrate on the issue here. Piston machines are a bit limited as well if you think about it so can we limit it to turbine equipment.

Let the manufacturers know, here - cheap market survey for them, we all know they lurk, hey I could even be one of them.

[rwm]

Bell 212/412. If i had my choice i prefer the 212. Hate the engine firewalls. Labour intensive. Wished Bell would come up with a new idea other than that tilt rotor. I think that will be a real piece of crap. But then I also used to work on Fokkers, and they came up with the name honostly.

[CaptainEagle]

what about the piece of sh!t car schwiezer 300? not only does it look like it's about to fall apart in mid-air, it has done, which wouldnt inspire confidence in prospective students, but its noisy, slow, sits at a silly pitch-down angle, its slow, noisy, has 3 rotors so it makes what is a small helicopter hard to put in a hangar. man what i piece of crap. who in their right mind would buy a 300 when you can buy an r22? You'd want to be plain cracked.

[Lowlevldevl]

Cracked you say. Cracked rotor blades maybe?

[Autorotate]

How about the ole Mini 500, doesnt that have more fatalities to its credit than most other types.

And you have to admit that the Schweizer 330 and 333 are butt ugly helicopters.

:E

[B Sousa]

A Different view.........
Unless one works for some individual who has deep pockets or is the Corporate B.Boy for a major money maker, Most of us end up working for small companies. (say 6-10 machines)
Prefacing that NOT ALL, but for the most part Helicopter companies are on the edge of survival. Sometimes to the point of payday is iffy this week.
Look at the B206L or the AS350 on the ramp and its advertised as a Million Dollar piece of machinery when you as the pilot know its a bucket of bolts, that used to be a Million Dollar piece of machinery. Thats not saying they are unsafe, its just they they have been and will continue to be used for the job at hand and all the niceties are unnecesary to bring in the cash.......
Bottom line, I dont think its as much the manufacturer as it is the owner trying to scrape every penny from wherever he can to pay for his SUV.....(agreeing also with the above regarding A models)

[EESDL]

Having just gone on-line for a charter company a few years ago now, eagerly awaiting my airframe allocation for my first Silverstone - the cynic in me thought that I would get the 'dog' and guess what, I did. Of course now days, although the dog is still with us, someone else gets it!!

[SASless]

Slow and noisy ? Sounds like any Chief Pilot I ever worked for!

[rwm]

Most of the Mini 500 crashes were engine related to the rotax engine installed that rotax stated not to run a particular rpm range due to a possible sudden stopage. The Mini 500 rrpm makes the engine rpm in the red band for that engine, and therefore many sudden stopages and subsequent crashes. Of the other crashes that I have read about they were mainly attributed to inexperiance pilots, or substituting unapproved componets inplace of what the manufacturer sugests.

[NickLappos]

Giovanni Cento Nove,

I guess it like grading sex, the worst time I ever had was just fine, thank you.

Seriously, I think the opinions of us drivers are nice, but taken in the big picture, most helos are fine, able to do their jobs, quite safe enough to get us home, and with the control necessary to stay out of trouble when we keep them within their limits. I have flown about 100 different types, and seriously evaluated maybe 75 of those. Of those that are certified (and therefore built to some real standard) I think there are no real turkeys.

We sell aircraft on the difference between pretty good and excellent, I think, and few of the machines produced by the free market are pieces of S**t.

I find it a bit amusing when someone here (or ever so more so in Rec Aviation Rotorcraft) thinks because an aircraft is awkward to get into or less than perfect in some way that it should be burned in place.

BTW, nice troll!!

[Lu Zuckerman]

Two pieces of Sh!t come to mind. However, they didn’t have to fall into that classification but due to the US Government (Navy and Army) they eventually fell into the Sh!t category.

The first was the Sikorsky S-52 (HO5-S) which was by design a very good helicopter. The US Navy kept adding electronics systems, which made the helicopter, underpowered. Sikorsky wanted to upgrade the powerplant but the Navy refused saying that they had a surplus of engines, which were used in Bell helicopters. When the S-52 finally entered service it was vastly underpowered, it could not carry the full compliment of passengers and with a pilot and Co-pilot it could not sustain flight with one magneto inoperative. The Marines and the Coast Guard pulled them from service and placed them in long term storage.

The second was the Cheyenne. Because the US Army kept adding weight to the helicopter Lockheed requested that they be able to increase the rotor diameter to compensate for the increased weight. The Army refused the change so Lockheed designed the blades to improve their lift characteristics. The blade design was a far cry from standard blade design in that the blades had an unsymmetrical airfoil and that the shape of the airfoil changed at different blade stations. This caused the blades to become unstable with unpredictable phase angles resulting in the loss of two helicopters. It took several years to design a system that would compensate for the changes in phase angle but by that time the Army cancelled the program.

[BlenderPilot]

Mmmh, these are not bad helicopters but altitude makes them sad and nearly useless useless machines.

I once heard a Bell Demo pilot say, "All our helicopters are really good until we bring them up to Mexico City" he said this after landing in a 430 at a pad we have which is at 8,000 with a usual DA of around 10,500, and realizing you could carry more people further in single 407 than in the twin 430, its a fact that many multimillon twin engined machines are outperformed by newer singles such as the 407.

The Bell 222 pilot on board and 45 minutes fuel was all you could use without having to roll for takeoff, then once airborne, if you make steep turns in the wrong direction, the TQ goes up like crazy and you could overtorque!? you could carry more in the 206A. The 230 is also very limited.

S-76, the ones I have seen up here could only depart an elevated pad with 3 on board (pilot included) with about 50 minutes fuel to tanks dry, again you could carry more in a 206A.

EC120 performance is ridiculous at this altitude for a newer generation machine.

Same for the MD600N, athough its nicely quiet.

Agusta 109, (all of them except the K2 and Power) takes real guts to depart an elevated pad with no wind around here, at any weight!

206 L4's are great but have a very dangerous characteristic at altitude, they will run out of pedal in a normal T.O. and have you spinning in a second, this is if you are near their limit or get the slightest wrong slde crosswind. (the ones with the Std. T.R.)

Could think of more.

And I know you mentioned only turbines, but I really dislike the R22, I can't belive they let them get away with those dangerous flight characteristics, especially when its flown mostly by new pilots.

[SASless]

Ever try to leave a pilot's door open on a Bell 204-5-212-412.....without having to prop it open with your foot? Ever notice the similarity between the useless pilots seat cushion on the 206 series and the 412? Ever wonder why the ADI and HSI are offset inboard on the instrument panel of the 212-412? Did you notice the one great common feature all Bells have.....like the tailboom falling off...till mod'd...then the tailrotor gearboxes start departing...till mod'd...etc.

[Dave_Jackson]

When equating the features of helicopters, such as safety, two different perspectives might be considered. One is the comparative safety between different makes and models of helicopters. The other is the comparative safety between helicopters and other modes of air travel.

The primary difference between the airplane and the helicopter is the direction that the 'wings' move. The power required to hover in a helicopter is not much more than the power required to fly in an airplane; if the helicopter were designed solely for hover. This small difference in power is demonstrated by the fact that a man-powered airplane has been flown, and a number of intelligent people are out to prove that it is possible to build a man-powered helicopter.

One excellent possibility for improving rotorcraft is the unifying of slow turning large chord rigid rotors with a horizontal thrust device, somewhat similar to a plane.

IMHO it's time for the helicopter industry to spend more money in their engineering departments developing better craft, and spend less money in their marketing and legal departments, promoting inadequate products and inhibiting progress.


Then again perhaps it can't be done. Perhaps today's management, particularly in America, is more concerned with the next day's stock price then the next decade's product line.:ugh:

[GLSNightPilot]

Perhaps today's management, particularly in America, is more concerned with the next day's stock price then the next decade's product line. No, Dave, I really think they look further ahead than that. I think many look as far ahead as the end of the current quarter. :(

[SASless]

GLS.....shame on you sir! Don't you know that stock options and bonuses are today's issue....next quarter might as well be the Second Coming! Heaven's knows....the wage/benefit demand a certain group of pilots is seeking will bankrupt the company.

Why the 8.5 million dollar per annum increase will destroy the company....why , gosh...gee... the 8 senior management types will not take home the 18.5 million dollars in bonuses like last year. Just what are those guys thinking...really?

[Blue Rotor Ronin]

Capt Eagle must have had is wings clipped and be well and truly hooded. R22 over the ****zer, are you mad? I've flown both, as well as a few others and the t-bar robbie is the twitchy ted bundy of the blade slashing world. The ****zer is a solid, forgiving helo, which as everyone remembers is fairly important in newbie aviation. The robbie is, and should'nt be a L-plates helo, simply due to its lever down in engine failure mode....1.25 secs.
Like all things, bean counters rule..... and that's why the R22's around, no other.
:ok:

[ferrydude]

Anybody remember the early Lyc powered 222's and Dolphins? Usually could get about 50 hours max between teardowns for carbon seal replacements

[Bladestrike]

Yupp, lots of time flogging around in those deuces (222A)! Besides the small payload, the only problem I had with the engines was one go back to idle with a cracked P3 line. Lots of inspections though!

What drives me nuts, doesn't matter if its an R44, 206, 222, 76 or 61, is everytime you get abit of rain, myself and most of the electronics get a steady dose of H20. I have yet to fly an aircraft that didn't leak. Wet pants, wet charts, lost comms and false warning lights, lotsa fun in the soup!

[ferrydude]

How about the Astar and Twinstar debuts in the Gulf of Meheeco?
Now there were some Beauties

[CaptainEagle]

Maybe the 22 is twitchy and difficult to fly and unforgiving but learning on a machine like that makes you a better pilot because when you get to fly larger machines the knack comes a lot easier because your used to flying the 22. Who's with me? Also, from a PR point of view when you lead a student out to a 300 they look at you and they are like "this thing flies?" I mean look at the thing, it looks like someone just decided to build it in a scrap yard after a night on the town because it seemed like a good idea. While no doubt it flies lovely, they could make it look a bit sleeker and stop the airframe from cracking in mid-air, that is a feature that no helicopter should have in my opinion.

[CaptainEagle]

yeah what is the story with the leaking? our 44 is 2 years old and its not too bad, havent really had any leaks in it. the 22 is a joke though, if you don't lean forward in the rain you get really wet! all part of the experience though eh?

[Lu Zuckerman]

The 214 in its’ original incarnation was a real piece of sh!t. The build quality was horrendous. The pull pins in the Cherry rivets were dropping out. The transmission deck was out of a Huey and it had the same vibratory problems as the Huey that resulted in cracking.

The vibration was so extreme that the trannie deck contacted a small oil transfer line on the engine causing it to fracture with the attendant loss of oil.

The transmission was mounted on a Nodamatic suspension, which allowed the transmission to move in relation to the engine. This relative movement caused the short shaft couplings to pump grease. This grease would plate out on the inlet bell of the engine and attract sand and other small debris. This build up of FOD on the inlet bell caused a combustion instability, which caused compressor stalls, which resulted in a lot of maintenance and the change-out of many dynamic components.

The rotors were a bitch to balance and even with Chadwick-Helmuth it still took several hours. The rotorheads were almost impossible to balance using the Marvel balancer. In most cases the allowable balance weights were not able to bring the rotorheads into balance.

Finally the masts would magnetize and cause the standby compasses to lock up and not move when the aircraft started to maneuver. It also effected the VORs.

:ooh:

[autosync]

If Mr Robinson says he wouldn't let a member of his own family in an R22 unless the PIC has at least 300 hours on type, well then that says it all.
They are Dangerous pieces of crap.
You would get more power from a hair dryer. Then you would from one of those cramped up deathtraps.

[zalt]

GCN asked: "Magazine articles never ever dis helicopters. Why not?"

Answer: 3 parts advertising revenue to 1 part enticing more offers of free flights

[Autorotate]

Zalt - tend to disagree on that one. There was a recent article out about the tail boom separations from the old model 300s and it was not the most favourable article about the older 300 series. The idea was started after reading about Dennis Kenyons loss. Schweizer was right annoyed when they read it.


:E

[CaptainEagle]

Touchy. Everyone is entitled to their opinion though. You think the 22 is dangerous, I think it revolutionized helicopter flying and opened it up to a great number of people. Even if the doors leak!