G'Day,
If anyone is wondering, that "US cowboy" is bloke called Bud Williams. I dont know much about him but have spoken to a few pilots who have attended his courses and come out with a complete shift in attitude towards mustering, which in most cases has resulted in more cattle in the yards and much less wear and tear on the machines.:ok:

From the R22 POH, "Tail rotor precone 1 degree 11 minutes".

Is that what you were looking for ?

bugdevheli - if you mean that the blades appear to have been slid forward in the plane of rotation ie as if their flapping hinge had been nudged forward a bit this is the same as on the main rotor.
The reason is that the centrifugal force trying to pull the blade outwards normally acts exactly along the the length of the blade - but by shunting the blade forwards a shade the centrifugal force then has 2 elements, one acting along the blade and the other pulling the blade forward in the direction of rotation - this is a way of offsetting some of the dragging loads felt at the blade root.

I think an important point here is that Frank did not design the R22 for mustering - he built it so every citizen could have his own personal helicopter. The reason it get used for mustering, flying training et al is because it's cheap - not because it's the best aircraft for the job.
You could buy a Skoda and try to run it for 200,000 miles without proper servicing in freezing conditions, always fully loaded and with a heavy right foot but you would not be surprised to see it break down - but it was much cheaper than the Volvo which would shrug off such treatment and just keep going.

Every time I've flown a robbie I have wondered how such pi**y, flimsy little blades kept it in the air just flying straight and level so I'm not entirely amazed that they suffer when they are constantly loaded in ops like mustering.

I bet those cattlemen don't buy cheap trucks - I bet they buy something that's built for hard work and abuse - the same shoud go for their helicopters.

Frank started out as a tail-rotor designer, so it's probably meant to look that way.

Robinson tailrotor
 

Thank you all for your input. Another oddity you might clear up .Because of the coning angle on the tailrotor blades, the half ton or so centrifugal force must be trying to fling the blades to an inline position, and in doing so must be placing a load on the two spherical bearings, trying to push one out and one in, as these bearings appear to be just bonded in,i wonder why they are both fitted from the same side,as the greater load would always be countering the main rotor torque.

crab
 

skoda? volvo? mmmmm, no, i'd be going more along the trailbike line, like honda or yamaha or kawasaki. no point buying a truck when you need a bike!:ok:

R22 Pilot Please Respond
 

Hi,

Thanks for responding to this.

Trying to determine the label under the cockpit switch for the R22 anti-collison beacon.

Does it say strobe (as in MS Flight Simulator) or Beacon?

Thanks,

Patrick
HC001ST - "Stick"
VATSIM ZLA-PA

Just checked the photos, and STROBE it is.

Cheers

V.

R22 main rotor blade - AAIB report
 

The UK AAIB has just put up the September bulletins.

The most significant report is this one, which deals with the landing of an R22 due to a marked increase in vibration. The test pilot to whom it was referred did the normal preflight and was appalled to find a three-inch crack in one of the blades, near the root. The aircraft had been no more than minutes away from catastrophic failure.

To highlight one part of a very long and detailed report, the construction process after one of the bonding processes involves trimming off excess glue squeezed out under clamping pressure. Although the tool used is not a true grinding wheel, on this occasion two small gouged areas were left, around which the eventual fatigue crack originated. The blade had flown nearly 750 hours, all but the last ten without incident.

Shot-peening is used to improve strength in this region but the marks left in the blade greatly exceeded the depth of the peened layer (which is only about 0.004'').

Other blades from other aircraft were found to have similar marks; however several of them were life expired, scrap examples which had obviously performed without problems throughout their design life.

The subject aircraft was not used for training and had not, as far as could be established, even been flown in a particularly spirited manner. In fact, no particular reason could be found why only this blade of all those affected experienced the problem.

Edit: the picture of what the test pilot saw.

For reference, there are two other threads relating to this topic; the
Sydney crash and the R22's grounded thread which looked at cattle mustering, also in Australia.

My next preflight's going to be really careful. Just like my previous one.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...y_023934-1.jpg

Good pics of the crack included in the report referenced above.
Damb lucky the blades didn't fly off - that crack is amazing!

R22 main rotor blades
 

Im interested in how different pilots manage to inspect the main blade roots top and bottom. I would agree that inspecting the underside is not difficult but the top may be, especially for the shorter person.

Bouncing a Robinson
 

Given that the placard on the end of the blades says never pull down, does one assume that because to main head bolt is torqued up so as to require 10ft/lb force to rock the head that pulling the blades down places an unacceptable load at their root. If this is the case. what risk is there in pushing a machine over bumpy ground causing the blades to deflect their weight (about 30lb). Or am I making a fuss about nothing.

Yes.
None.
Yes.
:)

!!!!e - looking at cracks like that makes me even more determined not to get back into a Robbie.

:E

Another reason for thorough preflight...
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but during R44 pre-flight - you don't even climb on top to check the pitch change links or anything else on the head. I believe it is just a visual inspection from the ground? I don't fly the R44, so my memory from RHC course might be off on that ship. Anyway, people complain because I take almost a half an hour to preflight an R22. They can get bent (my a$$ = my rules)!

Force increases friction.
 

To: bugdevheli

The design of the Robinson head is such that with the blades in the static position the spindle tusks are hard against the droop stop through bolt. Considering the lever arm of the blade which has its fulcrum at the cone hinge the force on the contact point of the spindle tusk and the droop stop through bolt is quite high. Trying to pull the blade down by the tip amplifies the contact pressure and could cause damage to the blade due to bending or possibly damage the spindle tusk due to abrasion.


:E

Little cracks grow to be big cracks.
 

Back in the early 1950s two Marines were folding the blades on a HRS (S-55) and when they turned the left blade over it fractured at the intersection of the spar and the first pocket. This helicopter had just completed a flight. The crack had propagated from a very shallow cut into the anodized coating on the spar and had resulted from an employee removing excess bonding agent using an Exacto knife. The helicopter I was crewing was aboard ship and we were to fly back to our base, which was about ten miles away. Our flight was cancelled until a Sikorsky rep could come out to inspect our blades. He found the mark of the Exacto knife on one of our blades. After he had ground the cut out we flew back to the base and we scrapped the blade.

But then again it also happens to aircraft. This was filmed on TV. A B-52 had just returned to base after a lengthy flight and the crew was walking away from the plane when the left wing broke away from the wing box.

:E

I cannot believe ANYONE would not check the rotor head CLOSE UP during a check A, nor the top of the blades of any helicopter.

Are you lot stupid or what???????????????

Don't tell me...you weren't shown it during your conversion, so it's not necessary :eek: :*

Whooaaa... easy there, Trigger! My point was that when I preflight the R22, I take extra time and definately include the top, rotor head, nook, cranny, and small areas barely big enough for a ferrit. However, on the R44 - I don't believe it is part of the normal preflight procedure to inspect the top. Since I don't fly the R44, I could be wrong. However, when I went to the RHC Safety Course (last year), we asked about how to inspect the top of the R44. The response was that it wasn't required, and that a visual inspection would do (but you could get a step ladder and look if you wanted to).

My point is... better safe than sorry - and as PIC, you should take as long as you want for preflight. Some folks fault me for taking up to 30 minutes to preflight an R22, but that is their problem - not mine. (My a$$ = my rules).