Mandatory Permit Directive for Ex-Military Gazelles
 

UK CAA issued Mandatory Permit Directive 2020-01 for tail rotor, ex-military Gazelle.

If you have one of these beauties - take a look. Available here.

John

21,500 hours! How common is it for one of these airframes to get that far?

seem to remember the airframe only had a life of 9000 hours not sure why, old age could be getting the better of me

ISTR most UK military helicopters had a planned service life of 10,000 hours.

There must be a few Pumas wandering about with more than that.

Pumas with more than 10,000 or 21,250 FH !

The airframe life was increased from 10,000 to 15,000 hours. I think when the army realised that most of their gazelles was reaching 10k

I have a ex mil gazelle with 12 k+ I think the fleet leader has 14k

Considering that all the mil and civvy gazelles started life with a non optimised tail rotor then converted I would expect that no ex mil gazelle would have more than 10k hours on the optimised tail rotor and it will be another 50 years before the fleet reaches 21k hours

one wonders why the AD there’s not been one for civvy gazelles yet !!

UK Pumas were totally rebuilt about 8-10 years ago. New engines new transmission and re engineered flight panels. Effectively re life'd I believe. They were renamed Puma 2. Not aware of current status but certainly still in service.

TF

I flew an S61 with over 35000 hours on her. Due to the number of “G” checks she’d been through very little was original, but my back says the pilot’s seats were:{

SND