Rotor Torque

Eh-101 Makes First Flight

The Anglo/Italian EH-101 medium-lift helicopter made its first flight from Westland’s Yeovilton facility on October 9. The EH-101 is being built as a joint effort between Westland and Agusta and will equip the RN, RAF, and the Italian Navy. Additionally, It appears near certain that Canada has also chosen up to 50 examples of the new Sea King replacement as their future deep water ASW helicopter.

New Vibration Analysis Unit of Interest

A new helicopter vibration analysis device, the Chadwick-Helmuth 8500, is set to greatly assist helicopter operators in checking the balance and track of their primary rotors, fans, blowers and shafts. This may sound all very bland but this more than essential task has in the past been largely performed in a manner more akin to the art of black magic than modern technology. The CH 8500 operates from the aircraft’s power source and is hand-portable, weighing a mere 1. 5kg. Balance solutions are automatically calculated and displayed, together with clock angle, amplitude and RPM. Also displayed is a diagram of the rotor, or propeller, identifying the points to be changed. In the analyser mode, the 8500 shows vibration levels and their frequencies in the form of a spectrum. The operator determines the sources of these vibrations by comparing known component RPM against the measured parameter, and thus identifies faulty components. An optional mini-printer can also produce a readout of the data with an additional capability being to download this information to an IBM PC. The Chadwick-Helmuth 8500 is marketed in Australia by Ansett Technologies,

Robinson Mariner Now Available

The helicopter world’s success story of the past decade, the diminutive Robinson R22 has now grown webbed feet with the recent introduction of the R22 Mariner.

The provision of floats opens up a whole new range of activities for this helicopter which in the past has excelled as a personal transport, a flying training device and also for mustering. There are presently some 65 Robinsons in Australian service with local agent, Helifiite, having sold 11 new aircraft in the past year alone. Another now-approved option on the R22 is the Apollo agricultural spray kit. The Apollo system can spray 145 acres in a single hour though in recent tests under ideal circumstances in California, Robinson pilots managed to cover an incredible 210 acres in one hour. At $3. 50 an acre, this amounted to $735 being earned by the diminutive helo in just one hour, not typical by any means but certainly an achievement of which to be proud. The Apollo kit weighs only 70lb, is self contained with its own small two-stroke 2000hr life engine and feeds a boom of 24ft width for a typical swath width of 40ft. Tank capacity is 40USG with the usual spray rate being held at 5 gallons per acre at around 70kts. The Apollo system is now fully certificated in Australia and costs around $15,000.

Haa Comment: Safety V Ability

How long has SAFETY been used as a defence against acceptable risks. The Department (be it of Aviation, Transportation, Communication, or whatever) have read their charter in their opinion as one of ensuring the safety of all operations, or as the wording goes at present after the interests of the third party.

Since the discussions of helipads have recently been very topical with questions and opinions of ‘safety’ being tossed to and fro, has it not come down to differences of opinions between operators trying to get a job done and a Department trying to defend and uphold the rules as they are written (as is their responsibility).

Perhaps with the raising of statistics to prove the reliability of modern machinery beyond any reasonable doubt (i. e. the likelihood of an engine failure not occurring for hundreds of thousands of years at any particular crucial moment), we should listen a bit more attentively to one departmental response of ‘but it may be tomorrow”.

For this statement is absolutely true! As in the very well known adage – “What goes up, must come down; what is man-made can be broken; what can go wrong, will; etc. , etc. ‘ Of course, we are referring to ‘Murphy’s Law’. It is a fact of life that when you least expect it, it will happen. So therefore, the Department is correct in saying that because of the possible risk of something going wrong, they must impose severe (at times) restrictions on general operations with rules to provide for the total safety of the third party.

But this attitude could only be understood and accepted if it was known, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the general pilot was not capable of dealing with the statistically, non-expected emergency or problem.

As was pointed out at the conclusion of Rotortech ’87; it was realised across the represented helicopter industry, that for us, the industry to be able to reduce the accident rate, we must look at the key element in the statistics on accidents- the pilot. Forever, the Departmental representatives agreed that herein lies a key problem area, to which a solution can be found in some form of check and training.

So in reflection to the Department’s solution of severe restrictions of rules instead of guidelines for the industry, it is becoming obvious that as the industry is developing programs for general pilots to carry out checking and training, in their ability to carry out safe and precise emergency landings, then so too, it would be hoped, that, the Department will look at changing some of the restrictive rules and leave common sense guidelines for the general pilot to apply his skill, ability and preparedness (as proven in rec- ency checking) to safely carry out an emergency landing in the event of the statistics being against him as Murphy strikes.

However, there is another side to this business of being ready for problems – the more ready and capable you are at dealing with problems, the less likely you are to have one, for two reasons: 1. You will be able to anticipate trouble coming before it arises and avoid it, or land before it becomes too large; 2. Murphy generally doesn’t have a go at those who are ready-it’s not as much fun for him when the results are not a spectacular crash.

Chris Townsend

Offshore Tenders Called

Elf Aquitaine recently called for tenders for a short term drilling programme commencing in April, 1988. While the programme is only expected to take about 120 days it is the first offshore helicopter contract since the Sydney Water Board contract, which commenced in July 1987 and went to an essentially foreign operator. It is hoped that a genuine Australian operator will be successful with Aquitaine.

Licenced Engineer Shortage

Operators and maintenance organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to find experienced licensed engineers particularly those who can assume responsibility for running maintenance programs, while good chief engineers are almost impossible to find, in spite of some very lucrative offers.

The shortage can probably be largely attributed to two main reasons. Firstly, the small number of people being trained by the armed services and the unsuitability of the majority of this training for civilian operators and secondly, and most importantly, the decreasing number of apprentices being trained by the industry in general.

Many companies say they cannot afford to hire apprentices with their relatively high wages and time out for technical courses. However, unless more people make this investment in the future the industry will have to rely almost entirely on overseas sources for its skilled workers.