MD - All Not Good in Mesa

[md 600 driver]

props stopped
how many hours then?

[props stopped]

repetitive

TC you were right about the repetitive 'little' bit as well.

To think Joep is 'PAS' if anybody hadnt caught on here...

What now for MD...over to you LT

Merry xmas to one and all...am off to bermuda for a short break.. if I see Joep over there I'll pass on his chap Wallsends regards

[Bertie Thruster]

There are no plans to give it a mid life upgrade

TC obviously has a direct line to LT.

Anyway our crew happy this year with 206 to 207 engines, extra 250lb of (public transport) payload, nvg cockpit, trakka beam spot, improved aircon, improved eng intake filtration and active NACA doors (volcanos?), extra 200 lb(below floor)fuel tank....and tinted windows!

All usual 'add-ons' - (talking 'range bearing height' TCAS (brilliant), integrated moving map, extra strobes, chelton airwave)-now housed internally, no belly pod, giving extra, rough ground, landing clearance;

[md 600 driver]

it all seems to be a lot of hearsay from people who ought to know better or disinformation for other commercial reasons

any way i am off to york in my LADA lol

[Thomas coupling]

Bertie: the engine upgrade is just that an ENGINE upgrade, not an airframe upgrade. The 207 has been incoming for the 902 for atleast 3 possibly more years?? It needed it too!
The fuel tank is a bolt on mod and not an airframe upgrade simply because its original endurance was piddling when you stuck all the police/hems mods onto it. I seem to remember it couldnt go past the 90 mins endurance is that correct. What is it now at your new AUM?
The rest you're on about is lightweight stuff mainly driven by the customer with regard to their ops especially your last para presumably?
MD Helicopters won't inject millions to improve the gearbox for example, or blade aerodynamics, or fly by wire etc etc. They don't see it as part of their plan. I would love to be proven wrong though, believe me

[tbc]

[lynx no more]

Here we go again

tbc, is that the new MD LT xmas card photo? It looks a bit out of focus, have a word with that chap playing with the camera.

Saudi Gazette have a snippet on MD in Manila.

Saudi Gazette - Manila suspends $90m worth military tenders

In 2008, a tender for six night-capable attack helicopters worth $29 million was scrapped due to alleged collusions between some army officials and US-based MD Helicopters Inc.

[PANews]

Not guilty m'lud

It takes two to tango.

In some countries a sweetener is expected and if accurate this story suggests that two companies came a cropper when this practice became common knowledge to the wringing hands brigade. The main loser being the customer with no aircraft in service it seems.

Not so sure you can pin this on MD.... clearly something happened in 2008 involving them.... [but it escaped the attentions of Ppruners I guess], the latest, modern, one is PZL spinning out and losing the sale of some Kania's [or the like] to meet the same still open requirement.

Is this where we introduce BAe Systems and the Saudi's to the thread? And I recall Eurocopter having similar problems not too far back ..... lummy... Did I say that?

[mfriskel]

I believe that the PWC 207E engines have been the engine delivered in every Explorer since about 2002. If you look at the performance charts and CAT capability from 206E to 207E, I think you will see it was an improvement. If you look at thruster extension, that was an improvement. By the way, that was required to replace an airworthiness issued on an "equivellant level of safety" at the very heavy lobbying of someone- hmmmm I wonder who? Anyway, an airworthiness being revoked based on no history of safety issues? Wow- I wonder how that got started- hmmm- let me think? Couldn't have been another manufacturer worried about the success of the Explorer- NOOOO couldn't have been. Oh well, that was completed in 2005 with all parts issued (FREE OF CHARGE) by years end of 2006. Let's see- no revocation of airworthness for products proven to be substandard by other manufacturers- ie AS350 hydraulic system, EC-145 lack of tail authority within the approved flight envelope (and no equivilent level of safety for a tail-rotor machine- people were hurt), EC-145 lack of electrical capacity, lack of ventelation without aircon installed, EC-145 lack of ability to deliver sufficient fuel to the engines in certain areas of the approved flight envelope. Interesting how these things work. I guess the rules don't apply if you have backing of lots of capital or you are a govt subsidized company, or both.
Improved AC system, that started in 2001 or earlier. Under floor aux tank, been available since 2000 or 2001. That became an option once the AC system was all moved out of the boat-tail area to the cabin roof.
Rotor blades? What is deficient about the rotor blades? Does the transmission need an upgrade? The 006 seems to be working quite well with the current configuration and the 6500 pound growss weight. Did I mention a 250 pound increase in internal gross weight for all acft in 2005? So anyway, lots of improvements to the Explorer and the current configuration is quite capable. Have there been any improvements since Oct 2005- I think the answer is no to that. All of the current goodies were developed and certified pre- current MD.

[Coconutty]

PAN,

Going back a few posts :

All the material in PAN is based upon input - and I am not aware of running any detrimental to 902 stuff in ages.

Does that in itself not warrant a mention ?

I guess that if you develop a reputation for being a 902 basher, then you won't get much Input at all from the 902 community - good or bad.

[PANews]

Coconutty

Sorry that is a mighty lame excuse, but your choice.

In the event a lot of the 902 'bashing' was not only ages ago but well placed AT THE TIME . Most of the 902 people were in denial but it came to pass pretty much as stated and MDHI collapsed like a pack of cards. Enter LT.

It [the thread of problems that I spoke of years ago] has gone away now so being Elephantine over what it now ancient history does not show some people up in a good light.

If I can 'get on' with the bloke who tried to kill me with a knife 20 years ago I think this piffling matter ought to be well buried. Even if you had an issue at the time, even if you were wronged at the time, it is so old that you need to just grow up.

If not.... I don't care. Your loss.

[mfriskel]

But PAN, you were a big basher of the machine not the company. You did bash both, but you seemed to have an extreeme hard-on for the Explorer in particular. That does not seem to fit your response to coconutty. It was directed too, as you never would bring up faults and short-commings of the EC products, and there are many. It was like reading political writings from American journalists- one sided and not totally truthful- I think it is called BIASED. That is actually OK in a free society. You can be as biased as you want- no harm in it at all. But you have to accept that we see you as biased and should not complain when you are called biased.

[wright123]

MD

Mfriskel,
I have to step into this thread about your post on PAN and MD.
PAN isnt biased, I read his online PAN edition each month, and he tells it how it is and its very informative about all apsects of the industry.

If the MD products or company deserved a dig at the time so be it, its no good whinging about it is there. Everyone in the industry knows whats happened over the years, it doesnt seem to be getting any better with some of the alleged deals that are coming to light here and there which makes me

As others have said, if the company is in it for the long run so be it, but I doubt it, and no I havent got an inside line to LT either, she seems to have gone very quiet of late dont you think?

Keep up the good work PAN

[mfriskel]

If you re-read my post - it was on PAN and EXPLORER, not PAN and MD. There is no-one in this world who can defend the actions of MD of the past few years. MD had a good run from 1999 to 2003, but things went South for a handful of reasons. The helicopter community thought all would be better in August of 2005, but as we see, that was not mean to be. The posts that PAN is included in were pointed more directly at his bashing of a product at a time when it was actually doing well and being improved. No arguments about the company, but the bashing of the machine is where my comments and also I belive coconutty's comments come from.
As I said, bias if fine, no problems with that. I am biased myself. Just admit it. The time he started writing this stuff the Explorer was heading the right direction. Too bad it was such a short trip!

[md 600 driver]

sorry wright123 your wrong456 this time
pan has been very pro eurocopter i thought he was on commission one time ,and a big basher of the explorer over the years his last posts have been more level

[PANews]

Well perhaps [even if your allegation is true] this takes us back to where we started.... Coconutty effectively stating 'not telling you even if its good' .... real schoolboy stuff.

I write as I write and clearly at least one person out there defends what I have written. PAN has been out there for 15 years and to be honest it is the opinion of the wider market that matters not the dozen 902 philes in the UK.

Too much out there really to be specific but to say I have not 'slated' other brands does not hold water.... I have been pretty dismissive of the 135, 145 and 109 headroom [mainly because I am 6feet 5] and that is a plus for the 902 lots of headroom for me there... and sooooo quiet ... 135 Arris pots came and went a way back.... 145 maintenance....all sorts of things that were negative against that Franco-German company.

Not an English company mind you.... why would I have a great love for Eurocopter? Do they make something well perhaps? Something that thousands of people across the world buy? Something that is built under licence in nearly every continent of the world..... yes why would I?

And the dissing of the 902 and MD was always based on the information out there.... the anti-squad seem to suggest I made it up... but then seemed incapable of ever pointing to any specific instance where I had made it up! Reason is of course was that the 'stuff' was all too real and often supplied by 902 drivers who were not as enchanted as Coconutty and friends. Yes I even met some one who found that the 902 scared the poo out of him [even if that reaction was rare]. He got out, which was his only option.

Perhaps I was never supposed to mention that MDHI were shaky [long before anyone else], that there were production problems, that the Dutch still have a 902 in their hangar in 2010..... primarily as hostage to their own distastful experience ...but I have a problem with that.... they have. So sorry chaps I write about that because its real. You send me good stuff... or if I find it.... its in. Saudi Arabian HEMS was a good story... but that turned awful..... not the 902s fault.... but try telling that to the potential buyer.

Overall I think you will find that even the mentions of the 902 are just a tiny part of the thousands.... or is it millions of words written as PAN since 1996. And which bit are you whingeing about .... and which bit have you been whingeing about since the year dot? I doubt even you lot know.

I guess the trouble is that some [maybe many] readers only read the paragraph that relates to themselves rather than taking it in as nothing more than a digest of what is going on in the world of the airborne emergency services. Bit like only reading the back two pages of The Sun and having an opinion on World Politics.

Still there is one thing to look forward to.... that number on the left keeps getting higher.... 64 now.... one day I will stop writing and then you can find someone else to whinge about!

[lynx no more]

MD xmas bonus

PAN, your monthly edition is the best police/ambulance monthly I've seen, its well written, and doesnt seem biased from where I'm sitting, and its free to read online

Reading about the Aris pot saga took me back to riding the EC buzz bomb, what a bumpy ride they were when they went, some times two went each week, and it took ages for EADS to sort, but not nearly as bumpy as the MD company ride and its management revolving doors. But this is the MD -not all good at Mesa thread after all.
I agree with not writing about police a/c out of action while the ship is down, but all of the different news stories about MD has got to make even the most die hard MD fan wonder what has been going on over there???

Less than 2 weeks to go, and I still havent seen the latest LT xmas card this side of the pond! So come on LT lets be having it.
Anyone in the states got one yet??

[Hughes500]

Me thinks this getting away from the original thread and has become a 135 versus 902 argument. What is going on at the factory ?
Personally I run the 500 product, 6 years ago I was quoted 18 months for a new rotor drive shaft and tail rotor strap pack. Ordered a strap pack on Friday last week, in no hurry for it, it arrived yesterday. From my point of view spares support is great and much improved on 6 years ago

[PANews]

Well no 'Card here either..... not so sure that many get them.... but I found a typical marketing pose in my archive under Dubai 2006...... they were not there this year....

HAI have issued some news that should warm the cockles of her heart.... they have just put in post one James McKenna as Director of Communications. It was he who famously wrote an item on an MD press conference at HAI and published lots of 'lies'.... basically he wrote what he remembered but she pulled it to pieces using the video and audio recording of the event..... slaughtered is a pretty good description .... from then on he was guest of dishonour at every MD Press Conference. He is a very nice man but LT minces peoples lives quite methodically and we have seen the revolving door of management pretty much proving that. Jim gave up being a journalist.... joined Bell's PR team briefly.... etc etc

Since then its fair to say there is not a publication that contains anything about their press conferences that is not written by MD! Outside [recorded] Press Conferences that is possibly a different matter.

[wright123]

While browsing for the latest LT card I came upon this article about a turkish incident which I hadnt heard about.

Does anyone know what the outcome was for the widows involved, and what was the actual cause of the loss of these guys?

Text and Ideas

A new lawsuit is raising serious questions about the safety of helicopters made in Mesa and used by law enforcement agencies around the world, including on patrols along the U.S. border.

It stems from the deaths of five Turkish National Police officers who were killed in 2006 when their helicopter had problems in midflight in clear weather and crashed onto a crowded street in a resort city along the Mediterranean coast.

Late last month, three of the men's widows filed a wrongful-death suit against the maker, MD Helicopters, accusing it of putting old parts into what were supposed to be new aircraft.

The suit calls into question the helicopter's basic design including its emergency warning and backup systems and size of its fuel tank. It also questions how the helicopter was built.

The concerns come nearly eight years after the U.S. government considered scrapping its use of the Mesa-made helicopter, known as the 600N, in Border Patrol operations because of safety concerns.

Despite those worries, however, the U.S. government still uses the helicopter in question, as do police agencies throughout the nation and world.

MD Helicopters was asked to respond to the allegations leveled by the suit, but neither company officials nor its corporate attorney returned multiple calls for comment.

CRASH ON A CLEAR DAY

On July 19, 2006, five members of the Turkish National Police were watching over a soccer match that drew big crowds in the coastal city of Antalya.

They were flying one of several 600Ns that were sold to the force about 18 months prior.

The aircraft is a lightweight six-passenger helicopter made for missions just such as this one. At least one of the two pilots had undergone extensive training at MD's Mesa headquarters.

Afternoon temperatures that day were hovering at about 90 degrees. There was a light breeze and not a cloud in the sky.

At about 5 p.m., the crew was just offshore in midflight above the Mediterranean Ocean when there were several loud bangs and the aircraft shivered.

The sounds were loud enough that passengers on a sightseeing boat nearby heard it, too, authorities learned later.

The startled crew set the aircraft on course for level ground beyond a tall seaside embankment. Witnesses said it appeared they were trying to come in for a landing.

Moments later, the helicopter surged quickly upward, lost control and plummeted toward a crowded city street.

It hit with unbelievable force, enough to crush the aircraft instantly and scatter parts hundreds of feet away, investigative reports show.

Fuel spilled out and caught fire. Emergency crews and bystanders tried to save the five officers, but it was too late.

The impact and blaze were too much for the men.

Pilots Hakan Caya and Kudrek Calik, and passengers Ramazan Can, Osman Karadag and Adem Vurucu were killed.

FEW ANSWERS

Because the crash took place overseas, there was no U.S. government investigation of the American-made aircraft.

Instead, the Turkish government invited corporate investigators from MD and two companies whose components were in the helicopter, Rolls-Royce and Goodrich, to inspect the wreckage days after the crash.

The main report is filled with charts, graphs and dozens of pages of text and photographs.

It has detailed information about the engine and onboard systems, but in the end reaches no real conclusions about what caused the crash. It also said nothing about what caused the loud bangs.

"There was no evidence ... to suggest the accident was as a result of a malfunction or failure of the engine," the report said.

The answers didn't satisfy the widows of the three officers who were the passengers of the 600N.

The families of Can, Karadag and Vurucu called the Chicago law firm Nolan Law Group which specializes in investigating aviation catastrophes. The women asked for help.

Chief investigator Tom Ellis was assigned to look into the crash and quickly spotted some red flags.

"There's a lot here," he said in a recent interview.

For one, "the Turkish police were told that they were getting a new helicopter" when it was delivered on Oct. 30, 2004, he said.

But records show the engine was at least five years old - built in 1999 - when it was installed.

Additionally, a piece of the engine known as the HMU, or hydromechanical unit, had about 65 hours already logged when it went into the helicopter, Ellis found.

According to MD's Web site, the longest the 600N can stay in the air during any given flight is a little more than four hours.

That means, according to figures Ellis provided, the engine part was used in at least 16 flights, and likely more, in a different helicopter before being put in the one delivered to the Turks.

Ellis also discovered there were issues with the warning and fuel systems on the helicopter.

If the pilot was experiencing trouble with the engine, those problems may have prevented him from doing anything about it until it was too late. Also, the fuel tank was large and possibly too big for the small copter, he said.

The last and most intriguing part of the investigation came with the discovery of tiny particles of plastic the corporate investigators found floating in clear liquid inside the HMU.

The plastic was unusual and investigators called it a "contaminant" in their report.

Ellis thought it might be the key to finding out what happened in Antalya.

The original investigators reached no conclusion about it, but when Ellis asked to inspect the part, it had been cleaned out and the plastic was gone.

Ellis said he believes it adds up to "destruction of evidence."

"At best for them, it is a gross negligent oversight," he said. "But I don't believe that piece is gone missing and that HMU is going to be cleaned like new just by a regular course of business. Somebody had to authorize that to be done."

On July 18 of this year, the widows, with the help of attorney Thomas Routh at the law firm, filed suit in Maricopa County Superior Court, accusing MD of wrongful death, negligence and product liability.

They are asking for "maximum" damages for the grief and loss of the livelihood for their families, all of which have children.

So far, the company has yet to respond.

PRIOR SAFETY CONCERNS

In 1998, news about the 600N was much brighter.

The U.S. government had just ordered 11 of the fledgling models for about $1.3 million each and said it would probably want 34 more in the years to come.

The feds planned to use the helicopters along the U.S. border to track drug smugglers and groups of undocumented immigrants.

The copters were quiet and made to fly at heights low enough that agents could make out footprints or tire tracks.

For MD, which was part of Boeing at the time, the order was big. If all 45 helicopters were delivered, it would have been the single largest order of the 600N since the model was OK'd to fly the year before.

The company bragged that the helicopter, which used a patented no-tail-rotor, or NOTAR system, was one of the safest and quietest on the market.

Just two years later, though, the feds put a screeching halt on their order.

Pilots using the 600N had reported the aircraft was hard to maneuver. There were times when they had to make specialized landings, and some felt it was unsafe given the design of the craft, according to a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 2000.

While there were no major incidents or crashes involving Border Patrol agents using the 600N, experienced pilots also told GAO investigators they were worried that the aircraft wasn't balanced quite right, that it was nose-heavy.

MD officials disputed the claims, and at one point said the pilots just had a misunderstanding of some of the specifics of the helicopter.

The government decided the complaints were too significant to ignore, but not enough to ground the fleet.

The Border Patrol canceled its remaining shipment and continued to fly the original 600Ns.

Today, 10 of those originals are some of the oldest in a fleet maintained by what is now U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Federal aviation records show all the copters are stationed in El Paso, Texas, but it's unclear how frequently they are being used. It's also unclear what happened to the 11th aircraft.

Agency spokesman Juan Munoz-Torres said he didn't know how many, if any, were being used in day-to-day operations. The models are likely to be phased out in the coming years, he said.

"Something that we need to look at is the fact that we are an extremely multidimensional type of organization," said Munoz-Torres.

No decisions have yet been made, he said.

While these helicopters are good for certain things like quietly tracking illegal border crossers, they aren't very versatile, he said.

Other law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have already phased out their use of the 600Ns and decided not to order any more.

In Los Angeles County, for example, the sheriff's department there used three of the helicopters in emergencies and patrols as recently as 2001.

Pilot Pat McKernan, a sheriff's deputy, declined to talk in-depth about why the department stopped using the 600Ns, saying he didn't want to upset the company.

But, he added, "Clearly we needed a different helicopter."

"I'm not going to say that we had issues," McKernan said. "But there was just aircraft that performed better."

Since the department stopped using MD, however, the company changed ownership and is now run by CEO Lynn Tilton, who McKernan said has "done a whole lot of good things to turn that company around."

According to the company Web site, MD is has sold few 600Ns to American companies or police agencies. Most are going oversees - to Brazil, Turkey, the UK and elsewhere.

Ellis, the Chicago investigator, urged buyers to look closely at their needs when considering the 600N.

"Before they make the decision to have these helicopters, they should take a good look at what their mission is and if these helicopters are what they need," he said.

In the end, he hopes to see the helicopter modified for the sake of Serpil Can, Aysegul Karadag and Fatma Vurucu, the widows of the men.

"They all have children and the mothers are looking to have their lives restored," he said.

The women are asking the company: "Make changes to make these helicopters safer."

The article was originally raised in Arizona press article.

Widows file suit against copter maker - East Valley Tribune - Arizona Local News: Home