Gazelle: Flying, operating, buying

[[email protected]]

Attila - I gues they must have been upgraded sometime in the 80s then. Yes, unstabilised aircraft in the dark over water - no thanks!

[ShyTorque]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

Attila - I gues they must have been upgraded sometime in the 80s then. Yes, unstabilised aircraft in the dark over water - no thanks!

Crab, you were a bit too young to fly the Whirlwind (which of course, as you well know, was a mainstay of RAF SAR).
Certain "Floppy stick" AS355s, which had the SAS removed to get the weight down so they could fit the necessary police equipment, were a bit of a handful over the dark hills, too.

[diginagain]

Originally Posted by CRAN

Guys,

Does anybody have any experience of the UK Gazelle AH1, with the upward pointing exhaust, as shown below?


Were there any drains in place to prevent the engine from filling with water in the case of shutting down in the rain?

Many thanks,
CRAN

ISTR that the upturned exhaust was connected to the oil cooler extraction duct which drained into the oil cooler bay, which had drains. Or it filled the LWNA doppler box. Just as it did with the standard offset exhaust.

[SASless]

Attila - I gues they must have been upgraded sometime in the 80s then. Yes, unstabilised aircraft in the dark over water - no thanks!

Dear Boy....where is your sense of adventure?

Remember in the Good Old Days....SAS had not found its way back into helicopters!

[[email protected]]

In my time at Wallop I flew the AAC AH1 Gazelles quite a lot - SPIFR, NVG, NOE, all without the aid of SAS (not fitted to AAC) but it doesn't mean it is a good thing - give me a proper 4-axis AP any day

Diginanain - oh no, you reminded me of the joys of the LWNA - double slew up anyone?

[Si Clik]

Hi Sam
I helped my Aussie boss buy an ex RN Gazelle in 2016 for £220k. From my perspective (I'm still flying them) a good one should be no more than £250k. Engines are key though for PtF.
Simon

[carlmeek]

I own G-BZYD, ex army gazelle with up pointing exhaust (and SAS!). Water just drains straight through. All the rearward pointing ones cover the jetpipe when parked ourdoors but the upward pointing one doesn’t. No need, and no known problems.

And SAS is brilliant, I love it and find it a brilliant workload helper. Best tip is to keep it turned off during all take off and landings or it just acts as a nuisance.

[diginagain]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

In my time at Wallop I flew the AAC AH1 Gazelles quite a lot - SPIFR, NVG, NOE, all without the aid of SAS (not fitted to AAC) but it doesn't mean it is a good thing - give me a proper 4-axis AP any day

Diginanain - oh no, you reminded me of the joys of the LWNA - double slew up anyone?

We got LWNA, GOA, hand-held moving map display the size of a large laptop that used hand-cut map sections manually loaded and indexed, and a hand-held BATCO decoder that needed both hands, all about the same time. Then AR5 came along.

[206Fan]

Gazelle helicopter (SA341HT2) test flight (youtube.com)

[MCR01]

Such a shame the video audio effectively ends at 6 minutes; it would have been so good to hear the exchanges between the pilot during the flight. A fascinating video even for a simple fixed wing pilot who has only once been in a helicopter. Any chance of the video being edited to provide audio?

[PPRuNeUser445748]

Re: "Stick feel" and "SAS" in the Gazelle

Can someone here tell me the procedure for using them, ie are they "on" for takeoff and landing etc.

All i can find online is this from an accident report

thanks

[Lala Steady]

The SAS and stick feel are selected on before take off (the stick feel usually during pre-start checks), there are 4 switches that all need to be selected to the UP/ON position, the left had one is the SAS master and the other 3 are the pitch roll and yaw actuators.

For take off, the stick feel release button is depressed on the cyclic and released once in the steady hover.

The SAS and stick feel are used throughout the flight envelope, the SAS gives rate damping and the stick feel allows the pilot to trim to an attitude and release the cyclic (if needed) but it is not an attitude hold.

[Flying Bull]

Originally Posted by johni

Re: "Stick feel" and "SAS" in the Gazelle

Can someone here tell me the procedure for using them, ie are they "on" for takeoff and landing etc.

All i can find online is this from an accident report

thanks

long long time ago.....
was switched on start up.
For lifting into the hover or when changing attitude, you would press the trim release, which would allow total free movement without resistance.
Without trim release not pressed, you would work against spring tension.
On my first solo the system failed on me with the stick trimmed forward to accelerate ....
I managed to land but needed quite a lot of force, to hold the stick, the springs wanted it to move forward.
The instructor came to me and even so I explained the problem, when he said, he has control and I released my back pressure , he was surprised and we tilted a litte bit forward...
We flew back together to Culdrose, where the technician came out and reseted a circuit breaker in the foot area....

[Ben koso]

Long time ago for me too, what a lovely rotorcraft but watch out for the corrosion of the rotor torsion beams, I remember the entire fleet was grounded in 2001 for this reason!

[[email protected]]

Originally Posted by Ben koso

Long time ago for me too, what a lovely rotorcraft but watch out for the corrosion of the rotor torsion beams, I remember the entire fleet was grounded in 2001 for this reason!

If you mean the tie bars that hold the blades to the hub then yes, that is an item that needs to be carefully monitored and have accurate and complete paperwork.

[Jeff Hom]

Corrosion has always and will remain a challenging topic for helicopter, even the new types face strong corrosion issues (AW139/189, H175). I don’t know how helicopter manufacturer are improving that.

[SilsoeSid]

I believe this is the reason for the 2001 fleet grounding...
https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/65037

The helicopter had suffered a tie bar failure twenty five minutes after take off from a school in Taunton and was returning to Middle Wallop.

RiP Capt. Simon Hill.

[SilsoeSid]

Originally Posted by johni

Re: "Stick feel" and "SAS" in the Gazelle

Can someone here tell me the procedure for using them, ie are they "on" for takeoff and landing etc.

Hi Johni, I hope these pics are of some help...

[Non-Driver]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hom

Corrosion has always and will remain a challenging topic for helicopter, even the new types face strong corrosion issues (AW139/189, H175). I don’t know how helicopter manufacturer are improving that.

Having seen a 1 year old H175 with dissimilar metal corrosion recently I strongly believe the industry (not just rotary) is losing basic muscle memory rather than systematically improving. I think design/maintenance safety peaked about 10-15 years ago. Similar with the car industry.

[Ben koso]

Originally Posted by SilsoeSid

I believe this is the reason for the 2001 fleet grounding...
https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/65037



RiP Capt. Simon Hill.

Indeed, painful memories