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AC
Thats more like it. Your post made me smile. As an aside, I have had one hands on experience with flying a helicopter (Jetranger). It was from Old Sarum to Sywell and back via the heli lanes in London. Flying forwards was easy. Slowing down and even landing was fine. Bringing it to the hover was easy. Keeping it in the hover did not compute with my fixed wing brain. For the 30 seconds that it wobbled around uncontrollably I couldn’t get my head around being stationary. The rudder pedals just added to the confusion. I’m sure I would get the hang of it given practice but, for now, you have my utmost respect. And, yes, you guys do make it look easy. Or is it the autopilot that does that?! BV🤭 |
For the 30 seconds that it wobbled around uncontrollably I couldn’t get my head around being stationary. The rudder pedals just added to the confusion. It's a bit like guiding a wayward horse. Small inputs to keep it pointing the way you want. Once you let it have it's way, it can be a devil of a job to get it back. One day I hope to get it right... :p |
"The choice of birds to stop before landing is surely related to their lack of wheels and has nothing to do with a desire to look like a helicopter"
Ah there you are wrong. If they had wheels they would fall off the twig, especially as they would only have two. That would keep them up all night trying to balance!. Perhaps evolution will give them a tail rotor? and brakes? (Oh I forgot - they could have chocks) Having sat for interminable hours up front in big planes I can never fathom out how you lot cope with the boredom. At least we wizzywinged lot know that something is going to go wrong, and often quite soon ! Did you know that butterflies oops Draonflies - were invented by Igor S but never took off....................no wheels brakes or tail rotor.................or passenger seats................ |
With helicopters you start it up and go were you want to go. You don't have to do le Grande Tour of the airfield to find a strip of concrete pointing into wind.
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I think what the OP was getting at was the criticality and reliability of anti torque tail rotors, as opposed to twin lifting rotors, and is similar to a question I posed on another thread in the light of the Leicester crash. As a fixed wing pilot, can I ask; how do helicopter pilots inspect the tail rotor and its drive mechanism on the walk around? Are there inspection doors along the tail boom to enable inspection of every shaft joint? I don’t recall seeing any in the helis we used to use for TV work. (Bolkow 105, Augusta 109, Twin Squirrel). Given that the tail rotor seems to be so critical, why is there only one?. Would it not be safer if there were two separately driven tail rotors, or would that be overkill? (By ‘tail rotor’, I am referring to the small anti torque yaw control unit fitted to a tail boom on conventional helicopters which have a single lifting rotor.) |
Originally Posted by Uplinker
(Post 10312612)
I think what the OP was getting at was the criticality and reliability of anti torque tail rotors, as opposed to twin lifting rotors |
B73
No I didn’t. That came later. As as I stated at the beginning, it was an honest question from a FW pilot to increase my knowledge about whirly death machines. You lot are just too easy to wind up sometimes. BV |
Would that be clockwise or anti clockwise winding? |
Uplinker
To answer your question, tail shaft, and tail gearbox covers are normally screwed in place, and it would not be practical for a pilot to remove these on a walk round. My thoughts on a pilots walk round, are just to see if someone has left a tool on the aircraft, or a panel fastener not done up, otherwise where would you stop. There are many controls etc covered up that a pilot cannot see. A double tail rotor, that sounds like a complicated nightmare. |
Uplinker,
It is type dependent. The later A109s, at least from the "Power" version onwards (I don't know anything about the very early versions, they are now actually classified as a different type) have a long piano hinged cowling (and a short one) along the top of the tailboom. These are held in place by a series of Dzus "wing nut" headed fasteners so the pilot can swing the cover up and over the shaft to inspect it and it's support bearings. The bearings have tell tale "goo" lines applied across the inner and outer races to check that only the intended parts are rotating and there is no slippage of the races. Some have temperature strips applied, too. The shaft inspection is part of the Check A (Daily check). The "back end" of the gearbox is cowled but limited inspection can be carried out; the linkages are mostly external anyway, on the left side where the rotor itself sits. The tail rotor control rod goes from a hydraulic servo inside the baggage bay (again should be checked as part of the Check A), through the inside of the boom and the rear rose joint attachment point can be inspected through a small hatch adjacent to the tail cone. The underside of the gearbox can be inspected for leakage and general condition at the same place. There is a perspex window on the left side of the tail cone to enable the gearbox oil level to be seen in a round sight glass. Other, larger helicopters are not so easily inspected. |
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