Agusta AW139

[bandit19]

off road 139

Carefully Not sure how you are equipped. If you have a searchlight mounted on the left side, make sure it is stowed horizontal on landing. (some of the searchlights that have the IR filters attached do not retract to the full horizontal so watch out for rocks) If able refrain from mounting FLIR's on the belly, put it up on the nose if able. Keep the struts fully serviced. The tires and low clearance are the weakness. Expect to go through main tires on a regular basis. They are gouged easily on sharp rocks. Dust landings are like any other ship. The 139 has a suprisingly high rotorwash though. so expect to get dirty. For the short nose 139 if you keep the wings level on the artificial horizen and pull t/o power it comes up in a good attitude for recovery. (experiment for yourself but that works good for me)

[Aser]

First FIPS-Equipped AW139 Delivered To London Air Services
Thursday, May 20, 2010 - AgustaWestland

Vertical Magazine - The Pulse Of The Helicopter Industry - Helicopters, Vertical, Vertical 911




Regards
Aser

[tottigol]

Already the best, it's still getting better.

[justhavingalook]

Whats involved in a 5000hr

Gidday Guys (and girls) was wondering what was involved in a 139 5000hr, particularly from an avionics point of view. Just wanted a heads up as to the sort of tasks so I can tailor my application for some contract work.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[noooby]

justhavingalook, you'll need to be a bit more specific. 1200hours is the highest houred inspection, so do you mean 4800hours? Or 2 year, 4 year, or something else?
Globally, the highest houred 139's are in Den Helder, Netherlands, and they are closing in on the 4800 hour inspections pretty quick.
Avionics wise the 1200 has a few checks to do, as does the 600 and 300. Nothing too big. Every 4800 hours there are some circuit breakes that need to have an operational check performed. I didn't look into it too closely as none of the 139's where I work are anywhere near 4800 hours
Send me a PM if you need details of inspections, I'm always interested in news from the motherland (Aotearoa).

[Helispanner]

5000 hr inspection

5000 hours is the overhaul time for the engines, main gearbox, IGB and TGB not much inspection work involved unless combining with the 4800 hr (1200 and 2400hr) inspections. Den Helder have just started the first aircraft.

[KiwiRotorWrench]

New -5 GCU's need reset after start

Anybody else having problems with the generators not coming online automatically after start phase as they are supposed to after reaching 50% N1? Ours have to be reset and they come online OK then. Honeywell/Agusta says they are aware of this, I am just wondering how prevalent this is and if anyone has tracked down where the problem might be if not specificaly the new -5 GCU's.

Thanks
KC

[spinwing]

Mmmm...


.....

Anybody else having problems with the generators not coming online automatically after start

.....

Yes ... this seems to be the 'norm' rather than the exception ....

[arwom]

Originally Posted by spinwing

.....

Anybody else having problems with the generators not coming online automatically after start

.....

Yes ... this seems to be the 'norm' rather than the exception ....

Concur, This occurs on most starts in our machines

[jeepys]

139 Genny's

If you go straight to FLY from cold does that make any difference?

Let me know.

Thanks.

[heliski22]

Need to recycle the DC Gen switches almost every time!!

Co-incidentally, the #1 MCDU doesn't come on when I start #2 first, comes on fine when I do #1 first - any thoughts?

[noooby]

External power or batt?

If External Power, is the Bus Tie set to ON, or just set to AUTO when starting the #2?

If you have it set to ON, then I'd have to have a bit more of a think about it, if set to AUTO, then try starting #2 with it set to ON and get back to us.

If you're starting on battery then Bus Tie will have to be set in ON position, to get the #2 bus to light up fully, but with external power it could be left in AUTO, but then it could possibly load shed a bit during the start if the voltage starts to drop?

Leaving it set to ON with an external start should force it to keep everything on line and will mean that none of the systems will drop offline during start if your external power fails.

What sort of external power do you have? Ideally it should be capable of 1200Amps SUSTAINED power output. These things suck the juice on start. A good powerful power unit will give you much quicker much cooler starts. Good news for the gen brushes, good news for the engines, and good news for the batteries (by the time the start sequence is complete, our batteries are fully recharged).

[heliski22]

Nooby,

Battery starts only for us for now - so BUS TIE is ON for #2.

Since we moved to a different hangar we have an ongoing problem with the 3-phase supply so GPU will light the dials but won't start it.

There was a suggestion that the MCDU was defective so we replaced it under warranty but we're back to square one since. In practice, we just pull the CB to re-cycle and off it goes but nobody has an answer so far.

[bandit19]

Gens

I'm pleasantly suprised if they do come on

[noooby]

heliski22,

Could just be that you're getting enough of a voltage drop during start for it to kick offline. Do you have 40 or 44 amp hour main battery, and 13 or 27 amp hour aux battery? The bigger aus battery certainly gives you more time before everything goes black!

I probably would have swapped the MCDU's side to side to confirm the problem before replacing it, but perhaps your mech's did that first anyway.

I haven't seen this problem much, only once or twice in the last year, but then we always start with a diesel powered GPU when we can. Resetting the CB, as you have found, normally fixes the problem.

Try dimming both PFD's when you're going to do a battery start. You don't need them during the start, and they actually suck quite a few amps.

You could also dim the MFD of the pilot not doing the start, just to save a couple more amps.

Anything you can do to save an amp here or there will help the start.

You might want to consider pulling the CB for the standby horizon as well.

We found that battery starts seemed to make them crap out after a while, and they are very expensive if not on warranty and also ground the machine until a replacement comes in.

After frying 3 or 4 of them, we wised up and pulled the CB.

Once the engines are started, then push in the CB while you do the post start checks. It'll be aligned about the same time that you are ready to go.

The manufacturer (Goodrich??) was supposed to introduce an improved version, but I don't know if they have or not. Haven't seen many battery starts for a couple of years on 139's, so don't know if the problem is still out there or not.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Apart from low voltage, I can't think what it could be.

[Eng AW139]

We had this problem long time ago but is was pointed out as per the RFM normal start procedures on the second engine start to ensure that the frist generator is on line.

That statment was the fix from Agusta, some of our aircraft generators come online other don't it is to unrealable so best to check before you start the second engine if you are using a battery and don't check you will cook the second engine for sure.

[AW139 Engineer]

AW139 Starting Issues

Ok guys, yes the GCU's need to be reset 98% of the time if you have -5 GCU installed. No mention of any fix yet so consider it SOP.

Common sense dictates to always have your generator on and charging before starting the second engine.

Install the 27 auxillary and 44 amp main if you have not already.

Ground Power Start when ever possible.

Our Standard trips run about 40 -45 minutes each way and that is not enought time to fully recharge the nicad batteries(Marathon says your need a min of 80 minutes to charge the 44 amp main) so to prevent starting issues we deep cycle both the 27 amp and 44 amp batteries every 4-6 months. I advise not letting it go longer. We have a spare set of rotatable batteries for our 3 machines and we have not had any starting issues for over 3 years now.

Occasionally the pilots must do battery starts in remote locations and the increased frequency of deep cycling more often has really improved the starts and keeps the pilots happy.

[Swinging Spanner]

Heliski22

If you are now using aircraft battery as your "standard" source of power for starting you might want to suggest to your engineers to look for a PWC document (maybe an SB or SIL-can't remember) about damage to your engines over the medium term due to low voltage starts.
It was an investigation that PWC had carried out in conjunction with AW and the conclusion was issued in this PWC doc mentioned.
I would suggest that you look at addressing your ground power issue sooner rather than later. Best of luck.

[Drayman]

Swinging Spanner

The information letters you are referring to are AW139-10-018 and AW139-09-007

[cayuse365]

Anyone having trouble with nose wheel shimmy while taxiing with the nose wheeel unlocked.