Gaseous.
Absolutely. The luxury of flying an R22 is that it is provided with a maintenance manual that descibes exactly how one is to set the auto RRPM.

There never should be an excuse for high auto RRPM.

At Max AUW it WILL on the TOP RED LINE and at Min AUW, (which is the minimum allowable pilot weight and NO fuel - remember that may be why you are doing an auto-STUPID ) it WILL BE, ON THE BOTTOM RED LINE.

Extremely simple.

ROD will always be at the lowest quotent.

Why many people including many who are experienced in flight instruction cannot get their f*n heads around that is way beyond my simple intelligence.

No such luxury came with the Bell 47 machines, but I had managed to work out the same extremely simple logic and apply it same, same, simply by dividing the allowable load by the auto RPM range and adjust accordingly with collective always flat on the floor.

One other thing that we used to do on the '47's was play with the throttle rigging. It took us a long time to work out that Gaseous's advise in the above quote was by far the best way.

That way the power always came in with the collective coming up instead of three handfuls of throttle later, and vise versa on the way down.

Flying Binghi.
No they are not unsafe, set them up by the book and it's simple. Much easier than doing autos in the S92 I'll venture, after studying a recent video.

Don't apologise 'rubberband', a bit or recurrency training always goes a long way.
tet

Topendtorque, I couldnt help myself after reading some of the posts.
I like anything that flys, even those fragile looking little R22's :)

Topend. Yes. The thought of people buggering around with any of the flight characteristics sends me cold. ROD is not the primary concern. Maintaining safe autorotation at all weights is.

Above all, aircraft of the same type should be as consistant as possible. If you start altering things the effects may not be as expected or have implications in other parts of the flight envelope. You could even teach students to expect that all aircraft they fly will behave as the 'modified' aircraft does.
Consistancy is hard enough to achieve when the set up is done by the book without people thinking they know better.

Rubberband describes a situation fairly well known to a bloke close to my own heart.

Took delivery of a machine from the workshop out in the boonies, supposedly test flown, did test it hisself, found the auto RPM way too high, thought- bugger it, press on get it fixed next time at base. Famous last words.

next day at a remote pick up, there was foul wx all round and hero was concerned about where the next good drop might be. so topped off with what was thought to be good fuel, quick fuel drain, and fire up and bugger orff.
bugger,
the contaminated stuff if still working down thru the good stuff and decides to fill the filter at about just thru translation, in about a five knot headwind, stinking hot with rain showers all round at about ten feet above a heap of trees at forty feet high and max AUW.

The closest spot just disappeared at the rear of the port side door, throw it left, same time throw the lever down and struth it went down with a massive ROD.
who knows what it was but at the bottom it was luckily - xero airspeed - trees in front or it's into the spinal unit hero would have gone- only had room for one massive pull right thru, at the immediate conclusion of which impact occurred and the pointer ELB goes off in the earphones, christ they're loud he reckons, but wait for it there's more. That is when the low RRPM horn went off, prob half a sec after the beacon.

Motto of the stroy, tell all and sundry always have the auto rpm as per the book then they don't have high and useless rpm at impact and the bonus is, wait for it, you still have a lever FULL of effective lift on the old hand brake device.

yep, crawled from that one he did.

'kev laline' (mate I hope you never have an auto)

Me too. I hope I don't have any more either.

tet , what could you possibly do with the throttle rigging on a 47 that would make them better , just out of curiosity

Now that is a very good question to which many experienced and shrewd brains have been applied. The first two answers are;

1) Scrap all of the later model correlation, cam box set-ups and use the same mechanism as in the G2.

a less useful answer is;

2) always make sure that the throttle shaft universals are without slap and slop and that the cam in the throttle box is not worn. although I have yet to experience such a unique thing as a nice tight throttle with those matters attended to, surely there must have been some somewhere.

The real answer is; that we were not really fooling around with the throttle, merely the mysterious thing in behind a certain nut on the side of the inlet maifiold, tis not a good idea.
tet

What powers the RPM gauge in an R22?
 

I know there is a huge R22 thread, but you can search for short words in it, and I can't find the answer in any books (POH, the 'Swann' book etc)

If the battery AND alternator fail in flight, does the RPM gauge work?. I know the ERPM gets it's signal from one of the mags, and the RRPM get its signal from the mast, but does the gauge need any actual power source to work?

My understanding is that, if the alternator is not working, the dual tachometer will continue to work even if the red master switch is off (ie when the battery is disconnected from majority of electrical circuits).

From this I assume that the battery, in a charged condition, is essential for the gauge to function and that if the battery explodes or falls out of the aircraft (and the alternator isn't working) then you will loose the gauge.

But, I was wrong once before and I'll be watching this thread with interest.

M

The reason I ask is when teaching people... what instruments they can expect to lose when the alternator fails and the battery packs up after 30 mins?

POH says the following:

"Continued flight without functioning alternator can result in loss of electronic tachometer, producing a hazardous flight condition"

So I guess the tach DOES require power for it to work?

Any engineers out there?

You could always try it!!! :}

No alternator, no battery, no electrics and I can't see how the RPM guage will work.

Cheers

Whirls

The tachos are hard wired into the battery.....no battery/alternator no tachos.

Recently had a total electrics failure - confirm no tachos.

The tachos are fed with power from the main electrical busbar, and a separate circuit is also included so that in the event of alternator failure the tachos are fed directly from the battery, via an interlock with the clutch switch.

Teach your students that if the alternator fails and they cannot get it back on line, continue flying for 20-25 minutes maximum, then land...if they push it any longer and the battery does give up on them, they will have no tachos, no governor, no Rpm warning light and no low Rpm horn - not a good situation to put yourself in.

All good advice above,

Its not one you can simulate by turning off Bat & Alt switches like in other helicopters as the Robinsons tachos are powered by the battery regardless of switch position.

There is a not bad, but not great wiring diagram in the POH, I can't remember if there is a better one in the maintenance manual. I'll have a look tomorrow.

Head Bolt puts it nicely :ok:

GS.

And what about the governor in the electrical failure?

Governer is inoperative if an electrical failure occurs. It's a very good reason to practice manual throttle control.

In flight, the corrolator is mechanically set to maintain RPM's in the green above 18" manifold pressure.

Recently I had my 22 have its 2200 hourly birthday. For the first time I now fly with the newer style round ended TR blades. I seem now to run out of pedal, left and right. I haven't run out of pedals in years.
My question is, "do the new style blades have the same performance as the old square ended blades?"
Has anyone else noticed this or am I imagining things?

A weird question at great risk of embarrasssing myself here!

Does anybody ever have any trouble with the R22 mixture control when it come to pulling it out to cut out the engine at the end of a flight. It may just be that I have very sweaty hands but I can never seem to get a good enough grip on it as well as pushing the button in and end up using 2 hands? I'm aware it can change location but in my trainer its in between the LH seat and the cyclic, making it an awkward position as well. Very strange I know but I thought there was no harm in asking!?

Also just out of interest does anyone ever wear gloves whilst flying?

best regards