Rotor Torque

Guy Lloyd’s death tragically coincided with the announcement that Lloyd Helicopters had won a $50m contract with Woodside Petroleum to provide helicopter services to off shore gas installations located on the WA north west shelf. Our condolences to Guy Lloyd’s family and to the staff of the company he founded.

Turkey Orders 20 Cougar as 532 UL Helicopters

Turkey has become the eighth European country (after France, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Germany and Holland) to order Eurocopter’s Cougar AS 532 in its various models.

In a contract worth $US253m, and involving major offset production arrangements, Turkey will take delivery of the first of the medium lift, twin engine helicopters in the first half of 1995 with the remainder to follow at two a month.

Todate, 425 helicopters of the Super Puma/Cougar family have been ordered by 34 different countries, for use in a variety of roles including tactical transport, ASW, anti ship warfare and casualty evacuation.

Meanwhile the Netherlands MoD has announced the selection of the Couger Mk2 over the S-70A Black Hawk and EH 101 as the future tactical transport helicopter.

In a trade off deal with France, 17 Cougers will be ordered against a purchase of 10 Fokker 100s by the French airline, Air Inter. The selection of the Couger was not without its political problems, resulting in an unprecedented presentation by all three contenders to the Dutch Parliament. The Parliamentary Defence Committee had been pushing for a single helicopter type for both the transport and scout roles but was overridden. The successful scout helicopter will be announced shortly with the AH-64, Tiger, AH-1W and A 129 as the four contenders.

Us Navy Seahawks to Get Hellfire Air to Surface Missiles

In a programme aimed at improving defence against fast patrol boats, the US Navy is to seek funding for the fitting of the Hellfire air-to-surface missiles to its SH-60B and HH-60H strike-rescue/special operations models of the Seahawk.

A single four missile Hellfire launcher will be mounted on the port side of the helicopter and a laser designator will be fitted for targeting. Sources indicate that the H-60s may also be fitted with the Advanced Rocket System as well as a fixed forward firing gun.

The need for anti surface ship armed helicopters arose in operations in the Gulf, particularly when the US Navy was protecting Kuwaiti tankers during the standoff period of the conflict.

Bogus Helicopter Spares Cause Concern

Nelson Hetherington, the senior customer support representative for Helitech Pty Ltd has disclosed that bogus helicopter spare parts have been discovered in Australia.

The statement was made at the CAA’s recent annual helicopter conference held in Canberra. Mr Hetherington said that he had found bogus tail rotor grips and main rotor blades in the spares pipeline of both military and civilian operators; fortunately none of the components had been fitted to an aircraft.

In one case he had discovered a rotor blade with a life of 1500 hours with a bogus 5000 hour approval stamp. There is little doubt that the blade would have failed had it been flown anywhere near the full 5000 hours.

Colin Torkington, Manager of the CAA’s airworthiness branch said that the manufacture of bogus aircraft components has been a serious international problem for some time and that operators should be suspicious of cheap alternatives. He went on to say that the flow of bogus parts to Australia would most likely increase following investigative action taken by the US FAA, and cited the recent Qantas discovery of unapproved attachment bolts in its spares supply system.

Mr Torkington said that the CAA has an ongoing education programme to alert all operators to what is an increasing and serious problem.

NASA Tests Helicopter Model in Icing Conditions

Icing studies that may result in major improvements in predicting helicopter rotor performance in icing conditions, were recently completed in the Icing Research Tunnel at NASA’s Lewis Research Centre, Cleveland.

A one sixth scale Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter model was tested for 10 weeks over a wide range of icing and critical forward flight conditions. The tests by NASA, the US Army and Sikorsky Aircraft were focused on expanding the experimental database in order to develop reliable methods to reduce the cost and time required to certify civil helicopters for flight into forecasted icing.

The new experimental database resulting from the tests will be used to further refine and validate a computer code that Sikorsky and NASA developed in earlier testing, to predict rotor performance loss following ice accretion. It is expected that the code will be able to predict full scale helicopter performance in icing, after it is further validated with full scale flight testing.

In a further interesting development, project engineers devised a methodology for defining and testing simulated icing shapes on rotor systems. This will enable artificial ice shapes to be cast and attached to scale model rotors for testing in conventional (dry) wind tunnels.

The results of the testing will be made available to the US helicopter industry with the hope that the FAA will accept the concept as an alternative to actual icing flight testing.

Allison Close to Flying 250-c20r/9 Selected for Agusta

A 109D Flight testing of the C20R/9, which has new hot section turbine aerofoils, and a new electronic fuel control system, resulting in improved performance, should have commenced at the time of going to press.

Production of the R/9, which has been selected for the Agusta A 109D, is expected to begin mid next year with the company also hoping to interest McDonnell Douglas in fitting the engine in the MD-520, and Eurocopter similarly for the EC 120 and AS 355.

Of particular interest is the company statement that it wants to delete the hot section inspection at the mid point to TBO and that in the near future the latter could be increased to 4500 hours, again without the need for the intermediate hot section inspection.

Finally, a 750kW (1000hp) version of the venerable 250 is under consideration but this will require a larger diameter compressor and turbine.

New Ducted Tail Rotor Under Development by Bell

Bell Helicopter Textron is about to test a four bladed ducted tail rotor for possible future use in its model range. It is hoped that the tail rotor, which is of conventional design, will improve performance as well as reducing noise, in addition to its obvious safety benefits. Tests will be carried out on a Bell 222, with the most likely first installation in the Model 430.

New Canadian PM Cancels Eh-101 Contract

As predicted, in one of his first moves on gaining office, the new Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, has cancelled the $A5. 3 billion contract for 43 EH-101 helicopters.

The new government maintains that the collapse of the Soviet Union has removed the submarine threat and that the expenditure can no longer be justified, while the money could be better used elsewhere. It remains now to be seen what refurbishment plans are put into place for the CAF’s Sea Kings.

In the meantime, this latest blow to the 101 programme could put the whole project into jeopardy as being no longer financially viable. Thus far Britain has ordered 24 EH 101s, while Italy is expected to order 16 and option eight.

Bell Crash Follows Engine Failure

The crash of a Bell MZU4 in swampland at Kanahooka following engine failure is to be investigated by the CAA.

It is understood that the pilot and passengers were fortunate to escape injury as the helicopter, which was on its way to Albion Park to refuel when the engine failure occurred, was crash landed in a paddock alongside the Lakeline Village caravan park.

Tragic End to Successful Helicopter Ditching in Spencer Gulf

In a remarkable feat of endurance, the passenger in a recent helicopter ditching managed to swim 13 kilometres in a seven hour ordeal.

The pilot who was injured in the ditching was supported by his friend for more than an hour before the latter realised he was dead. It is understood that the Bell Ranger helicopter was not carrying and ELT.

Court Hearing Into Alleged Unsafe Helicopter Landing

informed that an ABC helicopter pilot carried out an unsafe In a recent court hearing in Geelong, the Magistrate was manoeuvre on Torquay surf beach causing injury to a surf contest participant.

The court was told that the rotor downwash lifted a 250kg surfboat into the air, breaking the shoulder and ribs of a woman participant and injuring a man. The pilot’s counsel maintained that the pilot was assessing whether the beach was safe to land on when the accident occurred.

Robinson R44 Accident Investigation

The Robinson Helicopter Company has advised that an investigation into the fatal crash of an R44 has not revealed any indication of an aircraft or engine malfunction or failure. The accident involved the first production R44 helicopter which had been delivered last May and was being flown by the son of the owner.

Although there was no evidence of an aircraft failure or malfunction, several control system components were burnt in the post crash fire, making them very difficult to examine. To re-establish pilot confidence in the aircraft, the company has advised that it immediately redesigned the burned parts to give them extra strength margins and has incorporated the redesigned components in all R44 helicopters.

In the meantime, four control systems identical to the system in the accident helicopter were fatigue tested to failure, and another R44 was instrumented with strain gauges and flown to reconfirm the inflight loads in the control system. The results of these tests confirmed that the burned components already had satisfactory strength margins.

The R44 was not grounded by the FAA or the NTSB following the accident or subsequently, and the company has advised that neither authority required the redesign work undertaken voluntarily by Robinson.

Nrma’s 2000th Rescue Mission

A teenage girl was recently rescued from Bungonia Gorge, south of Sydney, in the NRMA Care Flight’s 2000th helicopter mission.

Strong winds made the rescue mission difficult forcing the pilot, Dan Tyler, to fly through the narrowest part of the ravine near Bungonia Creek to reach the girl who had fallen and wedged her leg between two rocks. Following the flight, NRMA CareFlight’s crew chief, Mark Cruse, said that it was the most difficult rescue he had undertaken during his five years of rescue duty.