Fuelling up- H145
 

Hi,

I haven't been able to tankup our H145 to its capacity, since it was recieved from assembly line in Feb 2019. I have seen 670kg tops, on gauge. Is it the same for others too? There has been a fuel tank valve replacement by Airbus Helicopters, but still no joy. Views, inputs and experiences are welcome.


Thanks

P.S. - Credible tolerance values at full tank if available, may bring about satisfactory reply too.

Most rental car contract require returning the car full fuel, but fuel next to airport is high price.

So what you do is fuel it next to your hotel 50 Km away the night before at beyond capacity.

Fuel it full, wait for the pump release click, shake the car (quite a few dead air comes up) fuel again.

6 am at the airport fuel gauge still on "Full"

Very good advice, Agile. I'll remember that for next time.

Thanks, it helps

I guess your problem has been solved-but in general, all helicopters with "rubber-type" fuel tank(s) have the same problem..

It takes a while until the tanks have stretched a bit, and the aircraft can take its maximum amount of fuel possible... From my experience, sometimes more than a hundred refuelings....but at the end, it will get there...

I have been in aviation quite a long time and been involved with replacing quite a number of flexible tanks, but this is the first I have heard of 'stretch fit' Surely this is not correct, (or is it?)

I doubt it too.

I never paid attention to this before I started flying the 135 in the military version.. (self sealing tanks).

There this is a real problem....
Later on I learnt that this seems to be specific to bulletproof ("self-sealing") tanks, and on the BK117 we could actually solve this by opening the floor panels and readjust the fuel tanks..

Believe it or not.. It worked..

"Stretching" does not mean then material is giving in... But the tanks in some helicopters seem to need some time until they can be filled to max..

Fuel SG issue?
 

We've been operating two new H145 T2's since early May and have had the same fuel indication issue on both aircraft throughout. The fuel amount for a full main tank has varied from as little as 677 kgs, up to a maximum of 712 kgs. Our Engineers have been working hard to figure out what the issue is. At first, it was thought it was the 'age old' 145/117 ball valve, slope of the ground issues etc. However, with both aircraft indicating the same main tank fuel amount after refuels on the same day, (within 1-2 kgs) the feeling was the issue was being caused by something else. After multiple defuels and refuels, where, by the amount supplied via a fuelling truck, they could guarantee that the tanks were full to the max possible (as stated in the RFM by Airbus), our engineers narrowed down the issue to being caused by a change in the specific gravity of the fuel being supplied to us. When the refuel company informed us that they were using a new batch of fuel, the fuel SG had changed when checked and the maximum amount indicated in both our aircraft main tanks changed too! The SG has varied from 0.775 up to 0.795. Airbus are aware of this issue elsewhere in the world and are sending out an engineer next week, to train our engineers on how to recalibrate the main tank fuel probes. We're told that airbus are working on a permanent fix?

Pain in the arse when you need a certain amount of fuel to be indicating on TEMPO days!

Hope this helps?

IS the fuel flow normally different between # 1 AND # 2 , Not a huge difference.

Which is reflected in the N1 speed.

Lots of variables at play there.

Looks like a result of TRQ matching - must be the German background as normally Airbus/EC/AS go for N1 matching! Of more interest - what happened to the number 2 TOT???

I've flown about 15 different H145 (D2/T2...) in the last four years and I couldnt fill up a single one of them as per the max capacity of the FM. 573Kg in the main tank is my personal record and the last 50L are always a pain in the a** with fuel foam rising up. Its still nice to fly an aircraft that can actually be fueled up all the way and still be ready for all the missions I could throw at it while still being within CAT-A limits.