RotorNut :

It was indeed DS, unless it was someone else with the initials DS !

As for the "serious" overspeed, check out the AAIB report.

Nr Fairy,

Thought it would be the same Dick S...

He runs a superb safety course and I learnt bucket loads from him... a very serious authority on Robinson helos... much respect...

Thanks for the link...

Just out of interest NRF did you have to pay for the inspection/repairs? If so all or part of the costs?

Or were you covered by a 'Renter's Insurance?'

Will understand if you don't want to answer this!

:(

Read between the lines
 

To: Rotor Nut

"He uses every opportunity to rubbish Robinson and his line "From what I got out of this thread there is no consensus as how to deal with the start-up of the R-22 " is an example. Those of us who fly R22 were all trained to start the R22 the same way - experience now tells us there is a slightly better way to switch on the governor - just one small (but important) aspect of R22 startup - the rest of the checklist remains the same. I for one, make my own detailed check list based on the R22 list and current good practice to minimize my chances of missing something and I always use it! Lu just proves again that he has never piloted an R22 (or anything else!!) and the Bell 205 point while interesting is completely irrelevant to the R22 thread".

Lu, remember me - I tried your theories in an R44 (pushing the stick one way and the aircraft goes another???) and found them to be complete rubbish.... To quote a UK advert - "it does what it says on the tin!"

In response:

First of all I did not infer that the R-22 or R-44 were rubbish. I simply stated that in previous posts regarding the correct starting procedures of either helicopter there was no agreement as each individual that responded indicated that he did it differently from the others. In the Nr Fairies follow up he found the correct way to do it from the Robinson safety instructor and published that procedure above. Regarding my comments about the compressor stalls on the AB-205 I was implying what can happen when a pilot does not report a technical incident that could adversely effect the operation of the helicopter. This only goes to prove that the Nr Fairy did the correct thing in reporting his problem to the instructor. The instructor in turn did the right thing by grounding the helicopter for a major inspection.

If you really wish to demonstrate the control coupling (18-degree offset do it this way.

Place the cyclic in the rigged neutral position. Raise the collective and do not compensate for tail rotor translation. You will most likely be moving left. Move the cyclic straightforward on a line with the longitudinal centerline. Hover taxi very slowly. Observe the disc. Is it tipped down over the nose or to the left?

After passing through translational lift and correcting for "flapping to equality" (blowback) the cyclic will most likely be to the right of the longitudinal rigged center position. Flying forward move the stick to the rigged neutral fore and aft position. What happens then? If I'm still proven wrong then I'll shut up.


I have one further question. If I understand some of the posts The Nr Fairy is being held financially liable for his overspeed mistake. The question is, Why? Isn't that what the insurance covers? On any training aircraft it is automatically assumed that there will be mistakes and the aircraft will be pranged or in the case of an overspeed a major inspection and possible replacement of parts will be incurred. If any prospective student is faced with the possibility of incurring a massive financial penalty it will be on his mind constantly and instead of making him safer it will cause untold nervousness and result in an accident.

Not personally, but someone I know had a MR chip light doing off-airport mountain training. No sign of overheating, noise or vibration, so he decided not to get stuck in the middle of nowhere - good decision and IAW the POH. He then flew past four airports on the way back to home base - bad decision and not IAW the POH. Needed a new gearbox after that.

Lu,

In the UK at most schools insurance does cover most of the cost, but the pilot would have to pay the insurance deductable - first £1000 some places, first 5% others, and maybe other variations I haven't heard about. Only a small fortune when you're saving money to hour build. And most of us don't think about it till it happens. I speak from experience. :( :( :(

IAW the POH :confused:

Lu

Reference: "If I'm still proven wrong then I'll shut up"



I'm afraid lots of us have been there...........

And you wouldn't know how to ;)

Pilot operating handbook I guess , Aircraft flight manual is better name IMHO , Do they call the maint manual the mechanics operating handbook too ?.

Whirly - "I speak from experience".

what happened?

so is IAW "in accordance with"?

Apologies for my lack of knowledge of TLA terminology.

TLA ?

Draco,

I'm in the process of deciding if I really want to tell everyone yet! I'm not deliberately being mysterious; I'm just still a bit sensitive about it, even though it was about 18 months and nearly 150 flying hours ago - a lifetime where helicopter flying is concerned. The short version is that I had an overspeed which I didn't notice, and caused a whole lot more damage than Nr Fairy's did (no, not the reported incident where the tail rotor fell apart, before anyone asks!!) I fell out with a flying school owner over it, and though hardly anyone else really blamed me (low hours pilot, these things happen, learn from it and go on, seemed to be the general reaction) I got very upset and defensive when anyone did. So I'll have a think about whether I want to tell the world yet. I should, because it could help some people. But give me a bit of time, OK?

Three Letter Acronym

So whilst we're at it - WTF is "QSY" an acronym for?

TTFN :D

rh.

I was told that QSY never actually stood for anything, but had developed from terminology from World War Two, when all of their abbrieviations began with a Q. (QFE, QNH etc)

Looking it up at acronymfinder.com doesn't come up with what the SY stand for either.

Perhaps some of the 'mature' contributors can remember?

Ps presumably WTF translates as something that the moderators would not wish to see in full?

pilotwolf :

Don't know at the moment, but I expect I'll have a financial reminder of my contre-temps over and above the 1.6 hours I booked for the day !

QSY is one of the old International Q code abbreviations dating from the days of Morse telegraphy. It originally meant a request to change frequency, then became used as a verb for the act of doing so. The SY part does not stand for anything.

There are loads of others including things like QAU for a request to dump fuel.

NRF

Hope it's not too painful. There but for the grace of God go lots of us.

Very interesting thread - I have learnt a lot about governor detail and will also be modifying my start up procedures to check the thing operates from both directions.

QAU a request to dump fuel? Wonderful. I can bamboozle a lot of people with that. Where can I find more of this stuff?

Hmm, not yet (fingers crossed).

Have had tail chip light , or thought I had it flash once. Interestingly enough, while it never came on again, and we monitored the situation (It could have been a sunlight reflecting off it making me think it came on).

Funny enough though, a weeke later that heli had to have it's tail gearbox pulled ... :D

I have received an engine oil temp light, however I was informed prior to flight by my CFI, so it was no suprise, and of course no corresponding indications from the eng temp gauge at time.

Nothing to do with chip lights but a list of "Q" codes can be found at the address below:

http://www.kloth.net/informations/qcodes.htm

Re damage to aircraft...

At Sherburn we (as in the royal we) lost the end piece of an R44 tail bar - the red and white thing that warns you not to walk into the tail rotor. It wasn't on the airfield, nor at any LZs so we presume it fell off in flight. No particular hirer could be pin pointed for losing it so Hields Aviation stood the cost (which was unbelieveable just for a bit of aluminium bar!). The postulation was that people had been manouvering the heli on the ground with this bar instead of steadying the tail with the stinger and main force on the tail rotor gear box, so causing metal fatigue and vibration did the rest.

Another time was R22 starter motors being regularly damaged on the same machine - again the school stood the cost.

I think we have a pilot excess should we damage anything which I thought was about £250 but I don't know for sure.

LZ is being a bit naive - insurance isn't for paying out when something goes wrong - its for insurance companies to make easy money and resist paying out wherever possible!

I would like to bet that most 'damage' is paid for by flying schools.

I don't want to scare myself too much but just how much do these things cost on a small heli like the R22 or 44.

How much do labour and parts cost. How many hours are involved to strip and inspect these things after overspeeds/hard landings etc.

Just thought it would be interesting to know thats all.

Thanks all.

Rotorbike

I agree completely - I knew it wouldn't take much to stir Lu into action - he's too easy to provoke...

Lu

my 'rubbish' term is local dialect for "criticise unfairly"... so you misunderstood (sigh!).

My point was - that one discussion point on a checklist does not make a contentious startup procedure - all R22 pilots follow the SOP but, one point has changed slightly and pilots are in the process of finding out about it - surely a main aim of this group. You see demons in anything....

Lu (yawn), go try your theory in an R22 yourself - oops I forgot, you don't fly...

[I tried what you suggested in a previous post last year and the R44 did what I wanted, not what you theorised it would do].

Local rumour has it that an R22 door costs around £1000, a starter motor around £700, and a R44 red and white bent bit of metal bar around £300!!! .... plus fitting!

Further on in this line of thought.

If the engine oil/filter are removed every 100hrs (with the filter split to check for metal filings).

Why is there no such inspection for the main/tail gear boxes?

Not having been to all the timed inspections (done lots, dont mind getting dirty hands. Must admit the Lame's all keep a good eye on ya. Pilot with a spanner in hand..........here's trouble:D :D Some of the more Cheeky/forthright would call it a tool with a tool)

Is there a drain the gear boxes and check for metal inspection?? If all OK, new oil & tick box.

I know the AS350 calls for a chip/magnetic plug check when pre/post flighting (lets be honest how many pilots actually carry out this check?). But the R22's plugs can't be pulled without a toolbox etc...............



Now for the other half of this thread. Read a great story about a persons training (plank) experiences. One particular instructor always used an acronym - AOS - when filling in the post-flight regarding excercises flown.

eg. Straight & Level, clean stalls, glide app, AOS

As one does when you don't fess up straight away. The student found themselves on the back-foot, where when enough time has passed you will actually look like a prat when you finally ask.


Anyway student finally passes their check ride and bites the bullet ----- What the heck does AOS stand for?


Oh that,

And Other Stuff :) :)

£700 for a starter motor !!!!!!!!

crikey :eek: Doesn't look so different to a car one !

Rm.

That happened on my first solo circuit, had to look twice at it, I was on the downwind leg and my first thought was O SH-T, then nothing else to suggest something bad was happening so I called
on the radio to advise and then put it in the nearest corner of the airfield and waited to see who would be the first to reach me, the
firecrew or my instructor who was by then very white. When I looked back at the light the bloody thing had gone off, so I had to
try and make my instructor believe me, he climbed in and tried to coax it back on low level but to no avail so we called it a day. To say I was relieved when a couple days later I was told by my instructor that the light had come on again when another Instructor was in the local area and that he managed to get back safely would be an understatement. This time they did something about it and found it was ready to let go so a new main gearbox was fitted. I was training at Elstree at the time and was very impressed with the way the guy on the other end of the radio handled it, it was very reassuring indeed. Since then no other problems.

L N.
BFN.

To get back to the original overspeed, there's something interesting here. Nr Fairy says that he inadvertently switched the governor off, but doesn't know when. The only thing you physically do after putting on the governor is to take off the frictions. With the collective down, your left hand doesn't really go near the governor switch when you reach for the cyclic friction; I know, I've tested it. I also tried last Saturday to see if it was possible to put the governor switch partly on; it isn't. So is it possible that Nr Fairy remembers putting the governor on, but didn't? Or if not, what did happen?

I'm in no way asking any of this to criticise Nr Fairy. But I have a soecial interest in this. It bears more than a passing similarity to what happened to me in December 2000. This will be a long post; I'll apologise in advance. :eek:

On a sunny winter's day, I flew myself from Shobdon to Leicester, through the Birmingham overhead. The CFI had suggested I do this ("Why don't you push yourself a bit; I know you always go around controlled airspace"), and the flying school owner had told me, when I asked, that it was easy. It wasn't, for a 100-or-so hour pilot. The winds at 2000 ft were 30kts, Birmingham directed me on a sightseeing tour of the city to route me around their traffic, and by the time I got to Leicester I was tired and stressed. Leicester was crowded, and I spent a lot of time trying to get fuel, with some difficult manoevring in gusty winds. I was so tired I wondered if I could fly back safely, but I had a rest and food, felt better, and decided to go around Birmingham, which would hopefully be easy.

I got in, did my checks, and left. I remember switching on the governor, as I always did. The airfield was still crowded, and it was windy, so I was in a hurry to leave, and concentrating hard to hover and take off in the difficult conditions. I took off, climbed, levelled off, glanced at the instruments, and froze. The engine and rotor RPMs were off the scale. At the same moment I noticed that the governor was off. I switched it on, expecting the RPMs to go back into the green. No-one had ever told me the governor has an upper limit of operation, and it isn't in the R22 handbook. When nothing happened I tried to work out what was going on, with a brain now going into mild panic. The governor couldn't be working, I reasoned. But why? Or maybe the gauges weren't working. Should I turn down the throttle? No! Maybe I'd had some major electrical failure and the gauges AND the horn wouldn't work. I was far more frightened of low RPM than high. What should I do? OK, I'd only just left; I'd climbed, solo, in a strong wind; the airfield was no distrance away. I called Leicester, told them I had an instrument problem and was returning, turned back and landed on the grass at the edge of the field. When I wound down the throttle the governor kicked in, and I realised what had happened. I also realised I was going to leave the helicopter there, so I listened, eveything seemed to sound OK, so I hover-taxied very carefully to somewhere safe to leave the helicopter, phoned back to Shobdon, and started working out how to get back from Leicester.

OK, I'll post this now, then continue in another post, before the computer crashes or something.

At the time everyone was very nice about it. Two days later the flying school owner was furious, talking about £12,000 worth of damage, and the helicopter off line for three weeks. He also wasn't sure if he wanted me to fly with them again, feeling I'd made a gross error of judgement in not turning down the throttle immediately; to him it was obvious. He thought maybe I shouldn't be flying helicopters. In desperation I phoned the only person I could think of - Dick Sanford, very experienced instructor and air accident investigator, who runs the Robinson Safety courses in the UK. I'd been at one of his courses, and he'd said to contact him if we ever needed to. Dick was great. He listened, and said I'd done well to keep calm and land safely. He suggested I tell the flying school owner that.

I phoned the flying school owner; I wanted to go flying, before I got scared to do so. I also wanted to talk. For a long time I'd been concerned about the training I'd done with my first instructor, who I'd changed from after about 30 hours, when I'd started to realise things weren't going well. Later I'd realised some things had been missed out, that I should have known. Now I wondered again - how can I know what I don't know? No-one had told me about the upper limit of the governor. I'd had very little experience of manual throttle control. What else had been missed out? What else didn't I know? I wanted to do some more training, to go back to the beginning and go over things thoroughly. I wanted to tell the owner this. We'd always got on well till now, and I thought he'd be amenable to it. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I asked him to listen, explained it all, and he stood up and exploded!!! I don't think I've ever seen anyone so angry. He was furious with me for questioning the airmanship and judgment of one of his instrutors ( I was) and blaming others when I'd made a mistake (I wasn't; I'd apologised and taken full responsibility from the start). Eventually I suggested we both calm down and talk about it in a few weeks, as he was off to America and I was going to Bristol Ground School (horrible timing!) and he agreed. He repeated that he felt I shouldn't be flying helicopters.

I went home, phoned Dick Sanford, told him the whole story, and asked if I could book some time with him to go over emergency procedures, and especially flying without the governor, and he agreed. I asked him to tell me if he felt I shouldn't fly, as I reasoned that if my judgement was at fault, how could I judge that? I went to Bristol Ground School, somehow got through most of my nav exams, came back, went to Cranfield and flew with Dick. He said my flying was fine, my dealing with emergencies was fine, but I did seem to get tired easily and my ability when I did dropped off pretty sharply and to stick to shorter flights for the moment and not push myself so hard. Made sense to me. I said I would be moving to another flying school, and he said to tell them what had happened and to contact him if they wanted. I checked out the only other two schools within travelling distance of home, telling both CFIs what had happened. One looked surprised that I felt the need to tell him, and said not to worry, these things happened, and to go back there when I had a CPL and passengers and was wearing someone's uniform (nice one :D ). The other thanked me, said it had taught him something, because he always emphasised low RPM to students, not high.

With all the stress and the long gap, I was desperate to get flying again, but scared stiff of flying alone when it came to it. A sympathetic instructor treated it like a first solo (funny thing was, I'd been over confident for my first solo, and most of the time up until this incident, typical f/w pilot who thinks they can fly), and I gradually got back into flying, at a far better place. For a long while I checked everything so thoroughly I could hardly get airborne, and didn't really enjoy it when I did. And I'd get very upset at any post mortems on the incident ("Didn't you hear the overspeed?", "Didn't you... etc etc). That's why I was still wary of posting now. But it could help people, and it was a long time ago.

So what did happen? I originally thought I'd turned off the governor when I pulled the cyclic trim in the climb. But if you do that, the RPM doesn't go that high, even when you lower the collective to level off. I know, I've tried it. The only answer anyone came up with was that I forgot to switch the governor on in the first place. I remember switching it on. But memory can be at fault, especially when you're tired and stressed. (Yes, but other people's, not mine, we all say) Well, I believed it, because there was no other answer. I now check and double check everything. I watch out for signs of fatigue, and try and check things more if I'm tired. I'm possibly over safety conscious (Nr Fairy, now maybe you understand my going on about backup crew at Popham to the extent I did). I know a lot more about helicopters, and about myself. It's probably been the most important learning experience of my flying career, if not of my life.

So what did happen, with both me and Nr Fairy? Are these incidents relating to instrument function, or human factors, or both? And is there some way of preventing such incidents in the future?

Over to the rest of you. And as they used to say in one of my favourite TV programmes: "Let's all be careful out there".

Whirly

Whirly, the R22 checklists I've seen and taught with all stated that frictions should be released BEFORE switching the governor on and increasing RPM to 104%. I've stressed this to several students who I felt were lax about this; at 104% RRPM the machine is ready to fly, and it's my conviction the pilot should be ready to fly before then - meaning with hands and feet on the controls and no reason to remove same. Any specific reason you reverse these steps?

On your overspeed experience - just reading it made me wince, picturing myself in your place. There but for the grace of God etc.

I was taught to do it the other way round - that the last thing you do is take the frictions off. But I just checked, and you're right about the check list. No-one's ever mentioned it before, but what you say makes sense.

On a slightly related point, I hope all instructors tell their students to put the check list away before releasing the frictions. Some R22s will take off by themselves without the friction on, if you take your hand off the collective! I'd had that happen, because no-one had told me.

Well Done Whirly - brave of you to pour out your worst nightmare on a public forum like this.

Your obviously a concientious pilot, and you've come a looong way since then - so don't berate yourself about your mishap. Mistakes happen and thankfully you walked away from yours. I've seen much more experienced people make much worse errors than yours.

I can understand the owner being upset - but that doesn't excuse his reaction to someone who obviously takes what happened very seriously and wanted to face the consequences directly.

You handled it well and did the right thing after the event.

I'm proud of you.

RH

whirly

thanks for sharing that with us. I don't think I would have had the courage, even on a semi-anonymous forum like this.

I have learned a huge amount from this thread, espeically the importance and order of all of the items on the checklist. It is too easy to get into a comfortable, wrong and potentially dangerous pattern.

what happened regarding the costs of the overspeed repair?

Whirly :

Well, that's settled. You can buy me a consolation beer, and I'll buy you on at the Gatbash.

Your frankness is to be commended.

Whirly:

Thanks for being brave enough to share that with us in such detail. I'm impressed at your courage in facing up to the situation and also for the totally correct decision to leave the helicopter on the ground. Well done.

That sounds like the sort of incident that could happen to any one of us.

I learned without the governor and have always felt that one of the disadvantages of the governor is that it can give a feeling of complacency that the RPM is being taken care of - hence we monitor the RPM far less often than we ought to.

Because of my governor off training I do monitor it closely, but still from time to time (in busy airspace for example) get that sudden "oh !!!!! !" feeling when I realise I haven't checked it for a few minutes.

Let's not forget that the gov. can fail: the warning light isn't that obvious, and RPM could creep up or down without being noticed.

Draco,

I paid the first £1000, as I knew I'd have to. I even forgot to ask for a receipt, I felt so miserable and guilty about the whole thing. :(

Nr Fairy,

Yep, drowning our collective sorrows (no pun intended) at the gatbash sounds like an excellent idea to me. :D

People on PPRuNe suggested I posted about it at the time, to get some advice. I refused, but I did tell a lot of ppruners about it. Many thanks to RW-1, Muffin, Whirlygirl, N Genfire, Up and Away, R O Tiree, and anyone I've forgotten, for your support then and afterwards.

Whirly was very despondant about the whole thing back then, but since then she has taken the lessons learned from it and forged it into the New and Improved Whirly that we all know and appreciate.

Glad to have been there for you, I'm sure as we all move along I'll need your ear again sometime in the future. :)

Whirly

That sure was an honest and difficult post to write - we'll all learn from that I'm sure.

Dick Sanford is very well respected and I can recommend to all R22 pilots who have not been on the safety course to go and do it. It really makes you think. My hour on the safety course was totally divoted to flying with the governor OFF including autos and it was quite an experience. You do learn to hear the RPM pitch and can tell without looking at the RPM needle if a reasonable change takes place but that's only after you have the benefit of experiencing it.

Whirly's experience shows that it can take very little to confuse our grey matter. I'll be checking that switch more carefully now....

Frictions

I had to double check my startup list as I could not remember where I release them... guys, it pays to use the checklist everytime unless your in a helo everyday!

Whirly like you seem to have had I have a real problem hearing the pitch of a rotor change to judge Nr changes. As I have only ever flown aircraft whose governor/fuel computers were not to be switched off (or only one at a time in the latter case) in flight I have only ever experienced this power-on in the simulator, but it gave me terrible trouble with Nr control in autorotation. This had a large part to play in my final failure of my course, though by the end I had overcome the issue by careful attention to the Nr guage and knowing the handling of the aircraft better.

Is there anyone else who has the same trouble? Is it physiological, connected to my lack of general tone (I cannot hold a note), or is it just something I am not listening out for correctly?