Robinsons and fat asses
 

From my experiences whilst operating a robinson 22 flight simulator I find that the general public lie about there weight. Whilst I thought I was a good estimater I found on several occasions the machine would not lift off. Only at this point would the customer own up. Ive been as much as 90kg out. Anyone had this problem in the real world.

90kg's over with 2 pax????
 

im assuming you know your own weight, so if the pax weighed 130kg's you estimated 40kg's??:bored: doesnt sound like an accurate means of determining a persons weight. 270kg's out (4 pax)in a r44 would make it hard to pickup too.just wack'em on the scales, its not hard.:ok: although i probly wouldnt bother for the simulater either.

Don't take the fat bast*rds flying!

One Gulf coast operator evidently has weigh scales beside each aircraft to avoid the 25lb toolbox actually weight 125lb.
More than one person has come undone by not weighing the passengers and their equipment.

From the NTSB files
 

On June 13, 2003, at 2012 central daylight time, a McCulloch J-2 gyrocopter, N4381G, owned and piloted by a private pilot, sustained substantial damage when it impacted terrain during a forced landing at Magnolia Municipal Airport (AGO), Magnolia, Arkansas. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The 14 CFR Part 91 personal flight was not operating on a flight plan. The pilot and passenger reported no injuries. The local flight was originating at the time of the accident.

In a written statement, the pilot stated he was attempting to give a ride to the passenger. The pilot emptied fuel from the right tank to adjust for the passenger's weight. After becoming airborne, the gyrocopter began to roll to the right. The pilot added that "full left stick would almost right the craft but it drifted to the right." The pilot then attempted a forced landing, during which the gyrocopter rolled approximately 10 feet and struck a drainage ditch in a grassy area off the runway.

The pilot stated, "This wreck could have been prevented by just saying I'm sorry but I think you weigh too much for me to give you a ride."

:E :E

At the school where I instruct they recently made a rule that all passengers and students are weighed. I've refused to comply on the grounds that I only weigh 10 stone (140 lbs for those the other side of the pond). This means I can take anyone up to about 14 stone in the R22 with both tanks full, and up to around the max seat weight if I only fill the main tank - more than enough for an hour's lesson. This means I refuse to weigh tall skinny guys or little shrimps smaller than me. Believe it or not, I ended up in a huge argument about it. :( Perhaps common sense needs to play a part here.

Whirlybird: Unfortunately there is no more room for common sense in aviation, governments have legislated it out!

Fat b####ds and R22's
 

A weight limit is a weight limit, and has been designed for a purporse. Good old Frank Robinson did'nt make it so in his machine, that less than 17 stone or your a fat git to fly in any seat.

There is a safety concern. Don't you guys understand the difference between "weight under rotor" vs "weight on seat". You will do when you mess up the auto and the seat designed for 220 lbs collapses and breaks your spine and bits and pieces, and you can never fly again, let alone have a normal life, because your wheelchair does'nt have rotorblades :{

I remember going to a flying school at Shobdon ( awhile back now), and getting a FREE trial lesson, and i was over 17 stone, and the instructor said it was ok because the weight wasn't calculated by seat weight, just the general weight under the rotor blades. (Effing Cowboys.....never trained there anyway). What a liability :mad: :mad:

IHL

Be fair on Whirly, she makes a good point, (And any lady under 11 stone is ok by me) So can i assume, that you are ready to break seat weights and get pax on seats for £$. - What a Prat!! Don't ask me to fly with you - eeejit

Whirly

Keep going with your good training and instincts, and dont let prats like IHL run you down.

MD :ok:

excuse me, i kneed to pull this up, so sitting on it wont help!
 

i find that anybody around the max weight in a R44 (136kg, 300lbs) overhangs the collective a bit so they've gotta go in the back, or doesnt fit in the seetbelt anyway. they seem to think its a problem with the seetbelt reel, it must be stuck!:E

from my experiences, if theyre too fat for a robbo they usually wont get a seat belt around they're gut, however problems arise with muscular people. These are however usually quite easy to spot.

Crew/Passenger weight calculations are statutory.

All the junk food that is being consumed is causing headaches in the airline industry. Average passenger weights and average mass of passenger is increasing so that rows of seats are being removed to ensure aircraft performance is achieved.
So the helicopter industry is in the same calamity. Fat and overweight people will want to hire you for a flight. If that/those persons are over/above the limit set by the maker then you cant take them. Bust. The insurance would be invalidated if you did.
Tell the fat ******s to eat less and take exercise and come back when they are 'within limits'.
You also need to weigh the bags that you carry. They also have their limits set by the loading plan in the baggage area. JetRanger and Agusta can easily be out of baggage space/floor limits.
Laptops and the other associated IT items can run up a hefty lump.
Don't fly out of limits - OK!

Was always quite concerned (during all seven of my hours in the R22) that the only storage space in the thing was in the impact absorbing space beneath the seats.

Was always careful to leave anything solid beneath the instructor! (kidding)

Intriguing. Whilst the JetRanger seats are acknowledged to be impact absorbing, I haven't seen any reference to the Robinson seats along the same lines.

In fact, the R44 Newscopter comes from the factory with a swag of extra electronic boxes, neatly fitted under the co pilot's seat by Frank's finest.

:confused: :confused:

I dont know about the eng ship but on the R22 instrument trainers they place the DG under the co pilots seat. It was placed in the very front since in the crash the seats crumple more backwards. Also the crumpling is to save your spine. If the back goes down but not the front I think this would still help.

Must have been at the same course, Mr Selfish. The photos of the well filled under seat were eye opening. I bought a set of Helipods a couple of years ago to add more space, I think I'll be using them a lot more now!

The general impression I got from the discussions at "that course" was that you must leave a few inches at the top of the under-seat stowage to allow the crumple zone to collapse.

So putting the DG unit, Newscopter electronics or baggage there is OK but don't fill the space up to the top. If you look closely at the seat unit you can work out how it is supposed to deform to absorb energy. Myself I think about 5-6 inches space would work for me.

The Clipper 44 has a 5000 psi helium bottle under the pax seat. I usually wait until after the flight to inform the occupant. :oh: :oh: :oh:

I think that's probably right about the top 5 or 6 inches being the bit that has to collapse.
Only complication with stuff below that level might be if you had a real heavy landing and splayed the skids completely (al la the crash on Bribie Island last week) or stripped the skids off with a lot of forward speed and then had the misfortune to have solid rock/boulder/stuff directly under the cabin and have it push the floor upwards.

I've got a wrecked cabin in my workshop and the lower part of the seat boxes is concertina'd upwards as well. That would have pushed any contents upward with it.

All this talk of what not to put under your seat. Reminds me that the UK CAA seem to want all single engine helis to have floats and/or liferafts when more than a few feet from the shore.

So - have you looked under the left front seat of an R44 Clipper ? It brings tears to your instructor's eyes.

..and if said instructor sounds like Donald D*ck when he breaks wind, you probably have a helium leak :O :O :D

R22/R44
 

I thought all Robbies had a 104kg limit per seat?

Did you know that in general, Americans now eat about 20% more food than they did in the early '70s :ooh: ..

Well, they are not getting taller and they exercise less so it has to be stored someplace - maybe it's time for Robinson to manufacture a R-22 XXXL version with trible-piston powered engines and still only two seats :p ..

madman you are not wrong in your direction.

One of the problems that all aircraft manufacturers have to deal with now is the increased average weight (or should I say mass in this pc time...) of the occupants of an aircraft. Unfortunately few of them are addressing the problem.

The biggest problem is with the older aircraft, mainly US built light aircraft of the 1960's to 1980's. Recently I had an application to learn to fly from a gentleman who admitted to 130kg, but looked larger. This was for a light helicopter, where thankfully the manufacturer had put a maximum seat mass into the flight manual. So it was easy to decline.

But wait for the law suits. "Discrimination" they will cry, when all of us in the industry know that there is a psychological reason why obese people should not fly aeroplanes.

Aviation requires self discipline, which includes the discipline of health. People who chose to get obese are unlikely to have the strength of character to learn the subject and stick to it. If you cannot stick to a regular diet, it is unlikely that you can handle the regimentation of civil aviation.

[back in the foxhole awaiting incoming]

Nice logic moosp. But it falls down if you use your eyes. How come there are so many overweight pilots around? How is it that a fair proportion of the fat asses trying to fit into R22s are instructors, not students? Where's self-discipline when half the pilots I know live on junk food and beer? Like I said, nice idea, but nothing to do with reality.

I resemble that remark, Whirly !

Robinsons and fat asses
 

So, with fat instructor and student in the seats, plus students coat , camcorder, and lunch. In the event of the instructor not reacting quickly enough after student has put in a unexpected foreward push of the stick, would it be reasonable to assume that a blade chop is more prevalent when two biggies are at the controls.

bugdevheli:

IIRC, blades chopping the tail boom off is related more closely to RRPM, not necessarily low G, and not AUM.

If an instructor doesn't react quickly enough if the stude pushes, then low G will be the first problem to contend with. It's only if the subsequent reactions are wrong that mast bumping will become an issue.

As part of certification, testing of critical flight conditions is done at max AUW - check the H/V curve as an example, and in cases where it's relevant a delay time is built in. If testing in this area was required for certification, then theoretically the situation should be recoverable relatively easily. However I think the only testing done in low-G was after certification to determine the most effective recovery. In short, I'm not sure your theory is a reasonable assumption, but my thinking isn't clear enough to be able to write it down.

Help, anyone ?

Strange that nobody has mentioned Centre of Gravity. I recently looked at 4 flying school R22s where two pilots, each of whose weight was within the seat limit, and with a fuel load to put the aircraft even comfortably below the MAUW limit, were nevertheless outside the forward CG limit.
Have you checked your R22 CG calculations?
Incidentally, these aircraft had not all been weighed by the same organsiation at the same time, so there is some possibility that this state of affairs is prevalent.
Makes you think. Flying out of CG could really make your eyes water.

Robinsons and fat asses
 

Nr Fairy. Take your point about the low main rotor rpm, but given the ammount of movement either by flexing on the geabox mounting rubbers together with bending of the main rotor shaft and its outer tube, plus crushing of the plastic stops on the mast under mast bumping conditions. It would be informative to know if any statistics are available regarding blade to boom contact incidents and occupants weights.

bugdev:

And what is the relative movement of those items listed compared to a 12 / 14 foot long blade ? I'd suggest that it is the blades which are going to flex far enough rather than all the other items combined, no matter what the weight (or should that be mass) in the cabin.

Idle stop - you get the impression that CG calculations are generally ignorred by the training fraternity.
I have to agree with you.

From my experience having mentioned CG to several newly fledged PPL's I know that they are very hazy, ( very foggy) about the need to carry out meticulous CG calculations. Many dont know how to do CG calculations as they have not been required to do them during their training before each flight.

Simply said. weight AND CG must be within limits.

Fat arses keep out

Robinsons and fat asses
 

Nr Fairy. Having (FOR EXPERIMENTAL PURPOSES) carried out some static fexion tests on a well known helicopters main rotor shaft, its quite impressive how far it moves before any permanent deformation takes place. I will do the sums as to the relative tip to boom distance when I have a clear head. Just as an aside, I have tried similar flex tests on the rear cross tube. The ammount of force and movement required to straighten a bowed tube when it is off the machine, makes you realize how well the fragile looking rear side frames are designed and made,in order to be capable of dissipating these loads during a heavy landing. Be nice to know what the steel and alloy specs are for these components (anybody know?).

So from this, can I gather that anybody around the 100Kg plus weight is a "fat arse"?
I would like to see this theory bandied around some of the rugby clubs around town, where some weigh a little more than that and are far from being a fat arse. Methinks that this may result in the perpetrator of such a theory may just get to log some flight time without the benefit of rotors.....

I am new to this game, but from what I have read on the matter,
some of the issues here such as mast bumping could happen to anybody irrespective of their weight as it occurs in a roll under 0 G conditions created by something like an abrupt pushover, or is it only fat arses that are capable of such flying manoevers. Not everybody is skinny, pilots included (neither am I ) ....and I sincerely hope that as I progress I do not have one of those that criticize as has been noted on this forum as an instructor. Despite having a Telecoms diploma, a HR Training & Development Diploma, a Financial Management Diploma as well as a multitude of Technical Competency Certificates I am now doubting that due to the size of my gut, I will not be able to master the theory of flying.....sod it, I was really looking forward to it! Maybe balloning will be better!!!!!:p

In my experience, all our student were weighed, as were we instructors, and a complete W&B was conducted regularly during flight training. We had some heavier machines that were impractical for a heavy student and instructor, a couple with odd CofG locations that required higher than normal minimum fuels to remain within limits, and other restrictions. A student who couldn't provide the correct details in a preflight brief didn't fly.

With regard to heavier pilots, not everyone fits in the little machines and if you still want to do the training then paying for a larger machine is sometimes the only legal or practical alternative. Breaking the rules isn't.