By way of some history - Bolkow made a "semi-static" trainer in the early 60's, consisting of an almost-flying helicopter (with a single rotor blade!) attached to a platform. A place was provided for an instructor to sit on the left side. I found some photos:

http://www.internetage.com/rotorcraft/history1.htm
http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/bo-102-r.html
http://www.helis.com/50s/h_bo1023.php

Last weekend I got a good look at the example owned by the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California - I'd sure like to try it, but they won't fire it up!

Dave Blevins

Mr Selfish! (Surely you could come up with a better nickname than that!!)

Anyway the latest that I heard was that the main rotor blade tracking and balance properties were out of alignment and consequently the tail boom was severed in flight and directional control was lost.

Why did this happen 30-40 minutes into the flight though. Why didn't it happen in hover taxi or t/o??

The witness on the ground though said that the helicopter was falling to pieces as it came crashing down.

Someone else may be able to correct me here but this is the latest info that I have.

R22 Blade Cracking
 

http://www.casa.gov.au/avreg/aircraf...22/r22-031.pdf


Have a look at the latest AD that CASA has put out in response to the Robbie falling out of the sky in Sydney...

Any chance of a link ?

The CASA media release,

New safety inspections for Robinson 22 helicopters have been ordered following a fatal accident near Sydney late last month.

An urgent airworthiness directive has been issued today by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority for the inspection of main rotor blades for cracking.

This follows preliminary investigations of the 20 June accident at Warragamba by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

The investigation has shown the main rotor blade failed at the inboard end of the bolted joint.

The Airworthiness Directive requires visual and eddy current inspections of the blades and the fitting of a special vibration warning placard in the helicopter cockpit.

The eddy current inspections must be carried out as blades reach 1500 hours time in service, with those blades already beyond 1500 hours requiring inspections by 31 July 2003. These inspections must be repeated every 200 hours in service.

The manufacturer requires main rotor blades in R22 helicopters to be replaced at 2200 hours time in service.

The warning placard states: "If main rotor vibration increases rapidly or becomes severe during a flight, land immediately". This is based on an alert from the manufacturer that states unusual vibration can indicate a main rotor blade crack.

CASA's Directive also orders both visual and eddy current inspections before further flight if an R22 has suffered severe main rotor vibration during a flight or if there is an unexplained main rotor unbalance.

CASA's Director of Aviation Safety, Mick Toller, says the authority is working closely with the ATSB as investigations into last month's accident continue.

"CASA and the ATSB have acted quickly to make sure there is no immediate threat to safety," Mr Toller says.

"Clearly, there is still more to discover from the investigation and we are committed to learning all the lessons to minimise the risk of further accidents.

"CASA is also exchanging information and ideas with the US Federal Aviation Administration because that's where the R22s were designed and built."

Media contact
Peter Gibson
Ph 0419 296 446
Ref: MR0336


CASA page

Didn't a 22 have a blade crack last year in the U.K? The pilot recognised there was an issue and got it down fast.

I do hope this isn't the start of a serious problem for Robinson.

Yes, there was a safety alert issued in June last year as a result of a blade cracking near the root.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...threadid=58410

Sounds distressingly similar to the Sydney situation :(

I know we had to have our blades examined as a result of this safety alert. I wonder if the same inspections were ordered in Australia ?

Thats from the link to the site above, can you believe you can actually take off with only 40hp (probibly not with my weight though);)

Grainger: As far as I can tell, the new AD that has been "issued", is actually the 4th amendment of a current AD that has been around for some time. (since 1990?) There is reference to the R22 SL-53 and -21A.

The rumour that was mentioned in the other thread regarding timex blades being used, if true, will obvously compound any existing faults in the blades.
An eddy current inspection every 200 hours on all M/R blades is going to be a real pain especially for remote location operators.

First my condolences to the families of the two pilots involved. Unfortunately I did not have the privilege to know either one.

What I read on this topic the PIC was a rather coolheaded, down to the facts pilot and not prone to let a student get in over the limits or doing any stunts to impress the student.

So one must guess that something was wrong with the machine.

Concerning the warning lights in the Robinson: The POH mentions that if the clutch light starts to FLICKER, upper bearing failure MAY be imminent, and a landing has to be done immediately. (Upper bearing of the belt sheaves) Though I never heard of any accident caused by this. The closest I ever "saw" was a R-22 belt failure - one of the microswitches involved in the clutch mechanism failed and the clutch would run to max extension before stopped by an end-switch. After 200 hours abuse of the belts they snapped - sucessful autorotation - new belts and microswitch - back in the air ever since. You might want to blame the pilot for this, as it takes nearly two minutes to get to the endswitch whereas a regular clutch engagement should take no more than 1 min with a normal retensioning of about 6-10 seconds after about 5 min flight. Normally a student is told to watch for the time and note changes over time)

I read an accident statistic about Robinson´s, MD´s and Bell´s today (I will post the source tomorrow...) and the Robinson´s win hands down.
Just amazing, that whenever a Robinson comes down, someone wants to cancel all of them, Winnie- you start to sound like Lu at his "best" times, personally I think you do not know what you talk about - there is nothing flimsy at all on either of the R-helicopters, just because it is lightweight it doesn´t make it flimsy - I had the chance to see a R-44 accident - by pure pilot missjudgement - this machine can take an immense amount of abuse before it gives up!! Show me any other helicopter in the respective class that can get even near the R´s and still take half the abuse.
It is just natural that more R´s show up at accidents, as the fleet grows unproportionally fast compared to the other brands. Plus most R´s are used for hard core work. And still they stay at the top of the statistics by a good margin. Most accidents attributed to pilot error.

It is suspect to me, that in this case time-expired blades are mentioned (just like constant over limit abuse in the last case in Latin America....). This has nothing to do with recent maintenance, you can do maintenance all day long, if the blades are overtime it changes nothing.

Though I doubt Mr. Shannon would have kept flying with an out of track&balance R-22, as these start to vibrate rather pronounced if out of limits.

I hope the real cause of the failure will be found and the responsable person is found - if time expired parts are involved he/she should get live for manslaughter - like the case in NZ with the fake TR blades some time back.


I am sad for the loss of an obviously all around profesional pilot and an aspiring student, but I think before putting the blame on the machine and with this on the designer and builder, lets wait what comes up as the cause of the accident.


3top

R22 Main Rotor Blades
 

This is not the first time that main rotor blade failure has occurred in Australia!

It will be interesting to read the accident report concerning this helicopters previous working history.
(I bet it has been outback mustering)

I believe CASA should make it mandatory that all Robinson Helicopters be fitted with hobb meters that can not be tampered with,perhaps fitted inside main rotor-transmissions.

Lets get real.
 

R22's [and previously H300's] are used nearly exclusively in our entry industry of cattle mustering.

And its a poor example of our professional standard.

Its now routine for people, in fact legendary, for folk in this industry to "miscount" the hours on critical components.

And why???. Because of the extra $$$'s involved.

I hope that CASA has the Guts [Which they won't], to trace this back to those callous individuals that "may" have contributed to this problem.

If they ask, I can supply the names and addresses of those individuals that have contributed to this misrepresentation of Flight Hours in the MR.

Lets see if CASA is interested.

Hi heliroo,

I had the fortune and pleasure to fly with Mr. Tim Tucker while at a Robinson Safetycourse. Mr. Tucker did all the Testflying and certification flying for the R-22. Besides he has about 9000 hrs in Bell products from JetRangers up through Hueys. He should know...

He saw how the R-22 gets ABUSED in the Australian outback, as a result Robinson had to beef up the Flex coupling plates, although these where NOT AFFECTED in any other country or work. The same happened in a R-44 crash case, where the cyclic stick broke. Although it was found out that this particular R-44 was abused by repeatedly banging the cyclic at its stops, leaning on it, etc. Robinson decided to beef it up and have the whole R-44 fleet follow with a Service bulletin. All followed, except the ones who caused the trouble in the first place!

Since a while there is also a Safety notice from Robinson in circulation about Rotor overspeed. It is common practise (although NOT approved or part by any syllabus!) to show students to use 2-4% more MR-rpm to get out of a tight situation when power is marginal - it is understood that is only an emergency and is not to be use for prolonged time. The Robinson Maintenance Manual gives clear instructions what to do when this occurs and where the limit for what overspeed is (It starts with rpm´s over 110% power off. If you ever pull the engine to 110% you have to inspect the it). I can imagine this happens all the time while mustering, especially with the temperatures involved in the area and with the older R-22´s with the 320 engines.
As a note the R-22 runs at 104% Rpm governed - means the regular operation is at 104% indicated.

It seems some people just never get it:

The Safety notice - 36 reads that it is dangerous to use up to 120% !!!! MR-rpm. And it was not even because of MR-overstress, but for the TR drive shaft getting into possible resonance.

If you take 1 headache pill, well 10 must be better, right!


3top
:cool:

High Nr and heliroo,

the trans hobbs won´t work as maintenance and component life time is counted on collective time not engine run time, but I am sure it would not cost a fortune to install one in a way that gets collective activated. Would have to be intergrated in the trans never the less and completely mechanical. As soon as it goes electric or electronic someone will find a way to disconnect it.

Or go the other way: Electronic Blackbox with computerized key. No key no start, if the key is removed once started it will record and timewise ground the machine. Authorities just have to check annually for the correct times or there is no Anual Inspection given!

I wish this "time expired" business could be rooted out soon!

3top
:*

Police R22!?
 

Took our aircraft over to Hawarden this morning, and there was a CID officer on the 'phone to our engineers regarding an R22, hired out to the Police, that had a forced landing near Prestatyn, took off and then subsequently crashed(somewhere).

Any info anybody? :confused:

MG,

I heard it was a Hields Aviation machine r22 instrument trainer that suffered a clutch belt failure. The aircraft landed safely without further incident as far as i am aware.

I will find out the full details and post them shortly

The r22 did,nt crash, infact it is still sat in a field in wales awaiting parts.

An r22 recently crashed at Blackpool.(Spread its landing gear) not sure what happened, i heard it lost tail rotor authority whilst drifting downwind in a spot turn. Suspect it ran at of power and suffered a heavy landing. Instructor / student on board nobody hurt.

3top :

On the R22, the Hobbs is oil pressure activated, so maintenance is predicated on how many hours the engine has.

The R44 has a collective activated Hobbs meter.

So why not make the Hobbs based on two things - oil pressure or collective position so that it couldn't be claimed that it was a maintenance problem that we didn't notice?
Also put a light in to show that one or the other connection is not working?
Sort of like FADEC computer counting cycles and overtemps - good pilots don't mind it, but those who cut corners are afraid of the stuff. Better TBO and resale values for those with the computers that count.

Nr Fairy: Won´t bet on it, but as far as I know all new Robinson´s come now with collective hobbs. At least they are TBO´ed at 2200 hrs Collective now. Though operators mount an additional oilpressure hobbs to charge the clients for running time.

Here is the promissed source for the accident comparison mentioned up the thread:

It is in an article written by Tim Tucker in the March 2003 Rotor&Wing magazine. The subject is the turbine versus recip reliability.

Two figures:

one from 93 to 97:

R22/R44----------2 (2%) engine failures out of 109 accidents total
B206/MD500--27 (10%) engine failures out of 268 accidents total

second from 96 to 2000:

R44---------------0 engine failure out of 6 accidents total
MD500-----------9 engine failures out of 76 accidents total
B206-------------13 engine failures out of 106 accidents total

So much Turbine versus Piston!

A quick look on Pilot Error:

93-97:

R22/R44----------95 (87%) pilot error on all accidents out of 109
B206/MD500-----185 (69%) pilot error out of 268 accidents

96-2000:

R44---------------5 pilot error out of 6 accidents
MD500-----------42 pilot error out of 76 accidents
B206--------------84 pilot error out of 106 accidents



Allthough the second chart does only show R44 and no R22. However this filters a bit the higher attrition rate in training where most R22 are at home...

Questions?

3Top

:cool:

No Hobbs meter in the world is going to stop people using time-expired blades.

Sabotaged R22
 

Turns out the r22 from Hawarden was sabotaged. Somebody loosened all the bits around the clutch actuator, clutch warning light came on in flight. They made a precautionary landing with a strong burning smell to find the belts shreadded.

Two instructors on board. The machine was'nt let to the police but i suspect they are involved now.

Some how some people here have arrived at the conclusion that the blades were time ex. Surely this is mere speculation at this juncture? By discussing this issue below, I make no judgement or comment upon its relevance to Fraser's sad passing.

im with t'aint natural above - hobbs meters, etc are not going to stop time ex blades being used are they? Just need to falsify a few different bits of papers/serial numbers, etc. But I think Mr Selfish has made an excellent point when he calls the "dodgy operators" who falsify such issues as "murderers". Though most have yet to cause actual deaths, or have caused a narrow escape, so perhaps they should be called "wannabe murderers"

Lets not shy away from the term by calling them dodgy operators, or people trying to make a quick buck, or even people trying to maximise the engineering tolerances built in - lets call 'em what they are - wannabe murderers!!
:mad:

I don't know what a robbo is like to get at but this is very worrying, has someone got it in for someone or is it just vandalism?:eek:

Keeping things secret
 

According to a post made by someone in the know on another site the subject helicopter was used as a mustering helicopter and when the new operator acquired the ship the original owners were not too forthcoming relative to the ships history.

:sad:

I agree with Winnie. The R22 is flimsy. In one case the student's knee board blew out the removed door and took out the tail rotor causing him to crash and be killed. Now that's flimsy. We'er talking about a helicopter that can't even fly in moderate turbulance because it will mast bump. Listen to this whole thread, talking about going over time on blades and pulling aircraft over power.
If your aircraft can't do the job at this wieght and temperature you need a different aircraft. The R22 is useless for most things people try to make it do like tuna spotting, ag ops, law enforcemnt, even flight training. And from what I read here today you can add cattle mustering to the list.

Flimsy maybe ,but you only get what you pay for.A Ford is Flimsy compaired to a Mercedes to.
If they were that bad they wouldnt have been approved to fly.
Dont know the percentage rate of crashes to other helicopters ,but i doubt it would be anymore.
Sure ,people fiddle the books and some operators take short cuts,but thats no fault of an R22.
I think cattle mustering is a true tribute to R22,s.If no ones seen what they get put through ,try and find a film of it.
Sure ,they crash--most of time real low flying ,in and out of trees etc.,plus non stop working.
Cowboys by job and cowboys by how they used to fly,the last being the one for most accidents.(sorry guys),although times are changing.
When it comes to man ,flying or fixing ,nothing is 100% safe.

Actually the same people that did the development also did the certification of the R22 so that would explane how it could be allowed to fly and in the US theres also SFAR 73.
All I know about stats is that you can find one to prove anything. According to what I have read on www.ntsb.gov Robinsons have had a total of 26 fatal crashes veruses, for example, all types of Bell 47 which has a total of 16.

"The R22 is useless for most things ..... you can add cattle mustering to the list."

Errrr no, just for those things where it's operated outside of its specified limitations and well beyond the correct TBO. Just like any other aircraft.

2Xray:
Huh? How many types would fly on with a kneeboard through the tail rotor?

t'aint natural

Didn't we hear from Nick Lappos that the latest certification requirements for FAR/JAR 29 require that the tailrotor be capable of sustaining the strike of a 1kg bird at top speed? OK then the S92!

24x:

Except for ag spraying, where it will take "only" 40 gal versus average 75-80 in a Bell-47, there is no job where a Bell-47 will outperform a R22. Well except you have to lug around 230+ pounders! As Grainger said stay within the limits and you won´t have any trouble! Other than that there is no competition for the R-22!!...........know one?

Pulling overweight, overtorque, over anything is not a good idea in any helicopter. If you think only because you have a bigger machine it will help - wrong - it will be loaded to the limit just like any other helicopter too! I have to take s##t often enough, because I do not fly off with full fuel and a full load, this requiring someone to drive fuel into the field. I always tell the boss the same, that I am already close to redline on takeoff. Always receive the same answer: BS, it can take it easily!
Same reaction always too: I don´t give a damn! I´ll burn it you blame me too! Better get the fuel out or you fly yourself!
So far always got my fuel. However I guess my days are counted, as others (lowtimers) are eager to get in and are willing to do "as told".

To put it on the R-22 is a sorry move!

3top

Do any of the aussie blokes know the rego of this particular robbie?
Driven a few that have had the clock adjusted myself in the past...:*

It was OCA I drove past it alot. :{

Thanks Bellsux for the use of you user name to get this message across

A very large Percentage of R22 sold in Australia - Fact!

91% of problems for Robinson come out of Australia - Fact!

Why is this so?

Because some of the people that operate these machines think that they can play god, flog the machine, double the hours the sell it on to some unsuspecting buyer to go and kill them selves in.

This is not a helicopter Problem its operator grose neglect - Fact!

The helcopter that killed my dear friend Fraser and his student was an ex-muster machine - Fact!

I makes me so F#*@ing mad !!!! What can you do to stop it?

I just hope to hell that CASA can trace this back to the bastards that owned the machine in the 1st place and hang, draw and quarter them ( I'm sure there would be a great crowd)

To Fraser, the 1st and best instructor I ever had, It angers me to think what your last moments were like. It is so unfair and unjust for you to be taken from us like this and so soon.
my heart and wishes are with your 2 boys and Prescilla.

Rest in peace my friend

Love

CC
(Chopper Chick)

I came back from holidays to find the CASA AD about the R22 blades on my table.

The AD has 4 parts which concern all blades with more than 1500 hours on them.

Part 1 - Magnified glass (X 10) inspection of the blade root
Part 2. Eddy Current testing
Part 3. Removal of the D Spar Bolt with cleaning and checking and torque testing the replacement of the bolt
Part 4 Placarding stating, essentially, land if you get a major vibration flkight.

After a phone call to my LAME I couldn't believe what he'd said and wonder if any other Oz R22 drivers have heard or can confirm any of the these bits of info.

Part 1 - no problem although maybe more difficult out in the bush
Part 4. Makes sense and hardly requires a placard

But....

Part 2 - My LAME says there are NO people currently qualified and with the right gear in Australia AT ALL to conduct the eddy test. The only one who is in current business with the qualification is Peter Boyle in Sydney and he hasn't done any for 5 years and isn't current (or doesn't feel he is current enough-which is fair enough) to do them. Other LAME's stated in the AD as being able to do them don't actually have anyone qualified to do them.

Doing the course or getting the qualification is not readily available in OZ.

Also buying the Eddy Test machine is about $AUS 14,000 and if a LAME buys one AND if Robinson brings out an updated blade that doesn't require testing the LAME is stuck with a white elephant. So even if the qualification were easy to get no one will get the machine for fear of wasting their money.

Part 3. The claim is that this was done without Robinsons approval and they have refused to approve removing the bolt out side of the factory (Because it requires removal of the epoxy filler and replacement afterwards with no control over shape, sectional aerodynamic shape etc) so once the bolt is removed the blades are then unairworthy by default even if nothing is wrong with them.

The follow-on part was that Robinson are considering dropping the life on the blades down to 1500 hours if CASA persist with the AD Part 3.


The only option is replace your blades if they have more than 1500 hours on them.
Apparently there are very few sets of new blades in Oz and none available for about 3 months out of USA cos they are just keeping up with their complete R22 output without trying to make extra blades.

If the blades aren't tested by July 31st the aircraft has to be grounded.

This sounds like an enormous circular argument which is leading to grounding half the R22 fleet on July 31st with no way of fixing the problem.

Anyone heard any of these rumours/comments?
Am I going to have a 400 kg paperweight in my hanger in 3 weeks?
:uhoh:

I guess the only way to resolve this problem is to go after the previous operators and proof they sold expired blades with the chopper. I hope they get to do this and lock the a##h###s away in the process.
Seems the Aussie authorities are just as prone to do "not well thought over" things, not do use some harsher words. Rules that cannot be complided with are dumb........
Robinson will be interested to find the real cause, as it really seems to be an Aussie problem, but never the less is putting a bad light on the R-22.

3top

Another KOS:
Gee, I must buy an S92 instead of an R22 next time!
Why didn't I think of that before?
Plonker.

In a perfect world every maintenance schedule would be met and every pilot would would react perfectly to every problem.
But in the real world pilots and mechanics mess up. Some don't even mess up they do it on purpose. So, a good aircraft will give you a chance to save yourself.
Yes, the R22 is a perfect aircraft. No one ever said it couldn't out preform all other pistons. Just hope you get the collective down in the micro second it needs when you run our of gas.
And hope the A&P didn't miss anything in that last inspection.
I could give examples of stuff being missed, maintenance performed wrong, or pilot error in other types where the pilot was able to detect it or recover form it before he had to buy the farm.

Now somebody is going to say "The R22 doesn't auto any worse than a BK117 or MD500."
That proves my whole point. Would you solo a student in an MD500?
But everytime we send a student to solo in an R22 we are sending them in a helicopter that autos just like one.
And the pilots that fly 117s and 500 have thousands of hours.
But it's ok, like Robinson said 'if you don't kill my engine you won't need to auto.' So watch that fuel and don't forget the carb heat.

Out

RobboRider: Hawkers in Cairns have a couple of eddy current qualified guys and the equipment. If a specific probe is required I dont think they are too expensive
They may just have to obtain an approved procedure, which would not be too difficult (usually only a fax or email away).

24Xray -

If you were being sarcastic ignore this post, if not read on:

Upon what reasoning is the R22 'perfect'? I could think of several improvements, and if it was perfect then it would not require a 'micro second' of time to react in the event of a sudden engine out.

To enter an autorotation you would have to lower the collective, not the cyclic. At least that's what I teach.

With regard to autorotations the margin for error in the R22 is somewhat smaller when compared to a 500 or 117, particularly when talking rotor rpm. (The 117 I'm not sure about and stand to be corrected as I've never flown one.)

Yes we would solo a student in the 500 if (a) the person had enough money to do all his training in a turbine aircraft and (b) the insurance company would allow it.

Not all pilots that fly 117's and 500's have thousands of hours.......

With regards to the last comment please explain what happens when the drive belts break or the tail rotor drive shaft fails.......is autorotation not required? Is there some sort of secret procedure I have missed?