R22 Corner

[Autorotate]

Imabell - Have to agree with your comments re the way mustering guys fly the machines. I said in another post I spent a week out with Heli Muster at VRD and was out with them every day. Most of the time it was with John Armstrong and we flew both the R-22 and for a trip back in time, the last 47 they had there.

Now I got photos of the old and the new ways of mustering and they are like chalk and cheese. In the old days it used to be flying around rip !!!! bust but now, after the majority of pilots attended a course from some US cowboy about low stress mustering techniques, they are flown in a cool calm and collected manner. When I first got there I thought I would see machines being stood on their nose and tail and on 45% angles through trees, how wrong could I have been. With the introduction of the new techniques its a softly softly approach and only when cattle were being stubborn or hiding under the trees would they go in and encourage them to move. Most of the time they stand off and the noise of the helicopter keeps the animals on the move.

In my opinion the reason they crashed so many Robbies, and even John A said it, was the lack of situational awareness. Getting into downwind situations, not watching where your tail rotor is when working down amongst the trees etc. I think if it was all Bell 47s or 300Cs being used the stats would be the same for them and people would be bagging them, but in reality it wouldnt matter what machine was being used in 99% of the accidents.

If Lu or anyone else goes back and looks at the stats I am sure you will find that it was one of the above mentioned causes that resulted in the accident, and nothing to do with the blades or the actual design of the R-22. Anyway to sum up my thoughts on that I would say that the R-22 is being unfairly blamed in this case. Now I am not a big fan of them and not an avid supporter. If they do the job, and do it properly then use them, if they dont get rid of them. Same goes for 300, Enstrom, whatever. Does mustering cause undue stress on the Robbies - nope. Do uneducated stock hands who learn to fly a helicopter and as Imabell said, treat it like a motorbike, cause problems - yep.

Again in my opinion I think the mustering industry created that problem for themselves, but out of necessity. They needed people who knew how to handle cattle and the fresh faced CPL didnt have a clue, so they had to do the next best thing, get someone from the bush who had an interest in wanting to fly. Problem solved but also problem created.

Now if you want to talk about Robbies being pushed beyond their limits, lets look at the guys here in Kiwiland that use them for venison recovery. Ever seen a R-22 with two heavy animals slung underneath dragging them to the side of a 2000ft drop and then hoping to hell that the machine will fly. Then when it gets off the edge the blades look like they are going to clap hands. NOW that is overstressing the machine.

Anyway thats my three cents worth.

[Hilico]

Nulian - if it's the same program I saw in the UK on Christmas Eve, I think it's called Dead Man's Curve. Obviously the producers named it after that spot in the graph where 'most' of the mustering flying is done.

Mr Zuckerman has a point about the control movements. From (very very limited) experience, I know that if I can see the movement then I'm overdoing it, but the in-cockpit footage shows the collective being whanged up and down and the cyclic leaving weals on the pilot's legs.

As usual with Discovery, it keeps coming round.

[Happy Landing !]

On a slightly different note, Frank (well the factory) has just written to me, only to remind owners of a few things:

1) Fuel stavation can be fatal
2) Practise auto's can also be fatal
3) Vibration in the rotorhead can lead to a catastophic failure

In fact - Just about everything according to Robinson - Can be fatal!

Marriage, Sex, Boiling the kettle....

Talk about covering his Ass

[Lu Zuckerman]

Discovery program about mustering.

To: nulian

The program was shown on Canadian Discovery and most likely was not shown in the US. Sorry.

[vorticey]

Autorotate

In the old days it used to be flying around rip !!!! bust but now, after the majority of pilots attended a course from some US cowboy about low stress mustering techniques, they are flown in a cool calm and collected manner. ---what? i didnt think they mustered in the us? but i spose he'd be an expert anyway

[bugdevheli]

Robinson tailrotor

It appears to me that the tailrotor blades on a Robinson 22 lean a digree or two foreward in the in plane direction. Can anyone give a reason for this.

[Aussierotor]

How do you think they round up the Mexicans sneaking across the border

[Lefthanded_Rock_Thrower]

Disturbing as it is the actions taken by CASA can say only one thing, " they are incapable of regulating the Mustering Industry", why, well answer that for yourself.

Being unable to corectly regulate mustering is a load of toss, for commercial operations it is very simple, audit the company take a copy of all invoices and cross reference to the maintenance release and the trip logs ( as required in the industry exemption for mustering flight and duties), any glaring discrepancies, well we all know what happens then.

There is no way a commercial operator will muster 130 hours for jo farmer and only bill him 90 hours, ...so he can under write his hours.

I also feel for the CASA guys and girls at the cutting edge who have to deal with the now irrate operators.

how to regulate the private operators, well i have no idea.

[NickLappos]

Having done one heck of a lot of structural flying, I can assure you that if you take a helicopter and often make banked turns, even smooth ones, you will be building fatigue cycles on the machine. Depending on the assumed usage spectrum, you should expect the rotating components to need replacement/ovrhaul earlier than planned. For most Sikorsky aircraft, we strive to make it so that the components see no fatigue damage while in level flight, but virtually all accrue fatigue damage while in turns, decels and accels.

This is a fact of the physics of how the rotor experiences progressive blade stall.

Those of us who are in relatively constant maneuvering flight, even when flown smoothly and well, should expect that their components must be inspected more often, and replaced sooner than the Chapter 4 maintenance manual recommendations.

Here is a web site that describes the typical times spent in each maneuver state, according to the FAA Advisory Circular. Note that they allow only 6% of the total flight time for turns, which is 3.6 minutes per hour. I will bet dollars to donuts that mustering cattle takes a few more turns than that, unless they are wonderfully obedient cows!

http://www.s-92heliport.com/fatigue.htm

I a few days, I will try to post some data on how the rotor develops the stresses in maneuvers.

[vorticey]

pre-cone, or maybe to resist a little flapback in flight?

[helimatt]

G'Day,
If anyone is wondering, that "US cowboy" is bloke called Bud Williams. I dont know much about him but have spoken to a few pilots who have attended his courses and come out with a complete shift in attitude towards mustering, which in most cases has resulted in more cattle in the yards and much less wear and tear on the machines.

[The Nr Fairy]

From the R22 POH, "Tail rotor precone 1 degree 11 minutes".

Is that what you were looking for ?

[[email protected]]

bugdevheli - if you mean that the blades appear to have been slid forward in the plane of rotation ie as if their flapping hinge had been nudged forward a bit this is the same as on the main rotor.
The reason is that the centrifugal force trying to pull the blade outwards normally acts exactly along the the length of the blade - but by shunting the blade forwards a shade the centrifugal force then has 2 elements, one acting along the blade and the other pulling the blade forward in the direction of rotation - this is a way of offsetting some of the dragging loads felt at the blade root.

[[email protected]]

I think an important point here is that Frank did not design the R22 for mustering - he built it so every citizen could have his own personal helicopter. The reason it get used for mustering, flying training et al is because it's cheap - not because it's the best aircraft for the job.
You could buy a Skoda and try to run it for 200,000 miles without proper servicing in freezing conditions, always fully loaded and with a heavy right foot but you would not be surprised to see it break down - but it was much cheaper than the Volvo which would shrug off such treatment and just keep going.

Every time I've flown a robbie I have wondered how such pi**y, flimsy little blades kept it in the air just flying straight and level so I'm not entirely amazed that they suffer when they are constantly loaded in ops like mustering.

I bet those cattlemen don't buy cheap trucks - I bet they buy something that's built for hard work and abuse - the same shoud go for their helicopters.

[Hilico]

Frank started out as a tail-rotor designer, so it's probably meant to look that way.

[bugdevheli]

Robinson tailrotor

Thank you all for your input. Another oddity you might clear up .Because of the coning angle on the tailrotor blades, the half ton or so centrifugal force must be trying to fling the blades to an inline position, and in doing so must be placing a load on the two spherical bearings, trying to push one out and one in, as these bearings appear to be just bonded in,i wonder why they are both fitted from the same side,as the greater load would always be countering the main rotor torque.

[vorticey]

crab

skoda? volvo? mmmmm, no, i'd be going more along the trailbike line, like honda or yamaha or kawasaki. no point buying a truck when you need a bike!

[ptwaugh]

R22 Pilot Please Respond

Hi,

Thanks for responding to this.

Trying to determine the label under the cockpit switch for the R22 anti-collison beacon.

Does it say strobe (as in MS Flight Simulator) or Beacon?

Thanks,

Patrick
HC001ST - "Stick"
VATSIM ZLA-PA

[VeeAny]

Just checked the photos, and STROBE it is.

Cheers

V.

[Hilico]

R22 main rotor blade - AAIB report

The UK AAIB has just put up the September bulletins.

The most significant report is this one, which deals with the landing of an R22 due to a marked increase in vibration. The test pilot to whom it was referred did the normal preflight and was appalled to find a three-inch crack in one of the blades, near the root. The aircraft had been no more than minutes away from catastrophic failure.

To highlight one part of a very long and detailed report, the construction process after one of the bonding processes involves trimming off excess glue squeezed out under clamping pressure. Although the tool used is not a true grinding wheel, on this occasion two small gouged areas were left, around which the eventual fatigue crack originated. The blade had flown nearly 750 hours, all but the last ten without incident.

Shot-peening is used to improve strength in this region but the marks left in the blade greatly exceeded the depth of the peened layer (which is only about 0.004'').

Other blades from other aircraft were found to have similar marks; however several of them were life expired, scrap examples which had obviously performed without problems throughout their design life.

The subject aircraft was not used for training and had not, as far as could be established, even been flown in a particularly spirited manner. In fact, no particular reason could be found why only this blade of all those affected experienced the problem.

Edit: the picture of what the test pilot saw.

For reference, there are two other threads relating to this topic; the
Sydney crash and the R22's grounded thread which looked at cattle mustering, also in Australia.

My next preflight's going to be really careful. Just like my previous one.