EC120

[blackdog7]

Make sure you change the friction rings every couple hundred hours and use a dial gauge to make sure the shaft is centered before re-installation.

[John R81]

Nellycopter

Please check PMs for contact details requested.

Several EC120 being broken by Team Aero (www.teamaero.com) I understand.

Best of luck

John

[onshore]

The EC120 is a good machine and once you get some time on it you will find it is not a problem operating it at max weight.
pilot + 4 pax + baggage with 2+ hours fuel and cruise at 120 kts normally not a problem.
Maintenance not that expensive. I thought that maintenance in the states was supposed to be much cheaper than europe?
I know someone that had a 12 year done recently and i cost less than 40k stg

[Phoinix]

I'm helping my friend on his "homework" and the homework is about EC120, more exactly climb performance. The task requires to take-off with external cargo TOM = 1300kg at 1.000m, 8ºC and climb to 2.500m, -1ºC (ISA temperature gradient) to unload the cargo.

From the start, I really don't understand the origin of "corrected mass" but I must be getting the charts wrong as I get more climb performance at 2.500m than at 1.000m.

Corrected weight (5.8)


Rate of climb (5.9)


any ideas where I got it wrong?

[ILblog]

Ski in EC120B?

Anyone know how to remove the wall between cabin and trunk to put skis in baggage area? I have found several pins there, but it semms to me, that the rear seats shoud be removed first.

[victor papa]

Yip! Remove the rear seat, then pull the panel towards the cabin and release the quick release pins and the panel is off. You can reinstall the rear seat no problems but just be aware that if you have any fuel leak or sweating on your transfer tubes between the upper and lower tank you will have a fuel smell in the cabin.

[puntosaurus]

What about that big door under the rear fuselage ?

[nellycopter]

What does the third hammer do ?

We recently had the hammers (anti vibration weights) tuned on our ec120'
Which has made a vast improvement, although as I trundle round at 70kt
I think I need to retune to 412 rrpm and not the 414rrpm we set them at !

My question now that I understand what the two under the cab do, is what does the third weight which is horizontal and under the instrument panel do ?

How is this one tuned ?
What vibration will it take out ?

Any help appreciated

Nelly

[Rigidhead]

Hello Nelly,

The third hammer is also for 3 per rev. vibration, but for lateral. I have found with most 120's that if the aircraft needs work on the lateral hammer, the ride quality will have an "edge" to it that is more noticeable than a vertical 3 per. (Of course, I may just be the overly sensitive type when it comes to laterals!)

What kind of equipment is your Engineer using to tune with? Do you have the later style hammers with adjusting washers or the older shifting mass style? I would recommend upgrading if the answer is the older, as the newer style does make for much easier/more effective tuning.

Regards,

Rigidhead

[nellycopter]

Thanks for the reply rigidhead,

Our aircraft had its six year service and had to have the head completely stripped down, which of course may have disturbed a few things, so I had the track and ballance done at maintenance, which resulted in most of the washer weights on the blades being removed.
Track and ballance were just about bang on, but it gave the aircraft some very unusual vibrations through the floor.. Which I later found out it needed the 3per doing.
So we went to have them done with the microvib II,
Again it turned out that they were way out, we tuned them to 414 rrpm, which I think may need doing again at 411/412 rrpm as that's what I trundle round at ...

So when we do the underneath hammers next time is it worth doing the one in the front ? And is it tuned in exactly the same way as the others ?
Eg. 3xrrpm ?

Thanks for and help or advice,

Nelly

[Shawn Coyle]

Phoinix:
The should be another chart that tells you how to get the corrected mass sorted out.

[Phoinix]

Besides the charts attached I found no others in reference to corrected weight.

[JimEli]

That appears to be the correct chart.

Corrected Wt = GWt*1/density ratio (sigma)

US Standard Altitude 1976

online calculator

[Never in Balance]

What size Ski's are you using that require that amount of room?
I echo 'victor papa' comments on the smell, as i've done a bit of cargo work in a 120. Make sure you're windows are wide open and vent the cabin as much as possible. Or alternatively buy shorter skis
NiBsy.

[John R81]

If you have a fuel smell in the cargo area, in addition to checking the transfer tubes take a look at the torque settings of the screws in the suspension plate in the top of the lower blader; where the bladder top is attached to the lower cargo floor. I don't mean the torque settings of the two bolts through the cargo floor.

If the screws are over-torques then the inner-bladder and outer-bladder metal plates can distort downwards in the centre and ease their edge-grip on the fuel bladder, and fuel can weep as a result. This would be more noticable when fuel quantity exceeds the volume of the lower bladder (about +240 KG? someone can correct me if that figure is wrong, I don't have the manual with me just now)

[Rigidhead]

Re. Fuel Smell.

If the smell is a sort of cross between raw fuel/exhaust smell rather than
strictly a raw fuel quality, the adjusted fuel valve is often the culprit.

Regards,

Rigidhead

[Ready2Fly]

What to expect in a 12 year inspection

I read about some quite different figures when it comes to the 12Y inspection on a Colibri. According to this post back from Jan 2011 it is around 100-120k USD if nothing unusual arises, then in Jan 2012 somebody posted he heard about the same being done at 40k Sterling. So EUR 48,000 to EUR 90,000 leaves quite some room.

I am interested to hear about any other bills as there should have been a lot more 12Y inspections being done since beginning of 2011. I guess it is one reason why there are quite a lot of EC120 on the market before they hit the 12 year 'deadline'.

Furthermore could somebody confirm the time needed to be around 2-3 months (300 man hours plus availability of parts from EC)?

TIA

[aegir]

the difference in price could be explained with the necessity to change some item or not.
I'll try to give you an average price.

[John R81]

My machine is 100hrs along the process. Now stripped, and MRG cracked.

Anticipated 450 hrs scheduled work. Mandetory parts currently £10k. Plus VAT. Plus anything they find in the inspection. Plus any touch-up (or repaint) afterwards.

I will let you know when I get her back, and whether I recommend the maintenance outfit

[Ready2Fly]

Many thanks in advance for your info. 450hrs is a long time. I'll press my thumbs that you don't get a bad surprise.

btw ... do you (or anybody of you) know whether the owner of G-JJFB is on pp as well? Beautiful EC120 which is up for sale with only 315TT