Hammer wrote:I've spent hundreds of hours as a passenger in certified helicopters and never felt uneasy, and they do come apart on occasion. When they do, the results to the people inside them are every bit as dramatic as to the fellow I watched being autopsied. But I'd never fly in an experimental helicopter. No doubt some of that is my ignorance and/or prejudice towards the medium, but a big part of the ridiculous expense of certified helicopters is the redundant safety measures. Removing those in the name of financial expediency is not something I'll stake my life on.

Others will, and that's fine. For them.

I flew (and before that maintained) Army OH-58 (A & C models) for 8 years. From my experience, there was not a single "redundant safety measure" on those Bell-206 variants. Weight is the enemy, and anything that adds weight better be adding practical benefit, or it isn't happening...

We all tend to gravitate towards what we know, and fear what we don't know. With an FAA-approved design / manufacturing process, you do gain a certain level of reliability (or at least repeatability). But I've seen both certified and homebuilt helicopters that were incredibly well maintained, and others that were incredibly poorly maintained. The type of FAA airworthiness certificate they were issued had little bearing on the "actual" airworthiness of the helicopter...

Caviat aviator...

The redundant safety measures I was speaking of are the oversight and control of the maintenance and part manufacturing and replacement you get with a certified rotorcraft. There's a lot of scrutiny there, and when a part on one ship fails, every single operator using the same part knows about it. AD's are mandatory, not voluntary...

I'm admittedly ignorant on the subject, but I don't see how an experimental helicopter can have that same oversight without the same costs. I guess there are folks who will voluntarily shelve their rotors simply because rotors of the same age delaminated on a different ship, but there are a lot more folks that wont.

Given the number of parts on a helicopter that have to work more or less perfectly to keep it airborne, I'm fantastically uninterested in bypassing the regulatory aspect in order to reduce the operational costs.

All the helicopters I've flown on were owned by or contracted by government agencies with very specific maintenance standards. My feeling of security would probably be significantly lower riding on a certified crop dusting or gyppo-logging helicopter...

Again...that's just me. I'm neither a helicopter pilot or mechanic, so my opinion is very much coming from the peanut gallery.

NZMaule wrote:And Hammer, this may strengthen your resolve....
Just little things like the Jesus nut done up [emoji15][emoji15][emoji15]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLfJwGqhr6U/

Holy cow thats funny Do we really need snowmobiles to fly

Hammer wrote:The redundant safety measures I was speaking of are the oversight and control of the maintenance and part manufacturing and replacement you get with a certified rotorcraft. There's a lot of scrutiny there, and when a part on one ship fails, every single operator using the same part knows about it. AD's are mandatory, not voluntary...

I'm admittedly ignorant on the subject, but I don't see how an experimental helicopter can have that same oversight without the same costs. I guess there are folks who will voluntarily shelve their rotors simply because rotors of the same age delaminated on a different ship, but there are a lot more folks that wont.

Given the number of parts on a helicopter that have to work more or less perfectly to keep it airborne, I'm fantastically uninterested in bypassing the regulatory aspect in order to reduce the operational costs.

All the helicopters I've flown on were owned by or contracted by government agencies with very specific maintenance standards. My feeling of security would probably be significantly lower riding on a certified crop dusting or gyppo-logging helicopter...

Again...that's just me. I'm neither a helicopter pilot or mechanic, so my opinion is very much coming from the peanut gallery.

Well, I don't really disagree with this, but the fact is, the operator is the one who has the ultimate control over maintenance and safety.

And, these very same issues apply equally to homebuilt fixed wing aircraft. You can stick a 62 Edsel engine on the front of your homebuilt, with a homebuilt gearbox....no sweat, and it'd be certified.

Also, your reference to agency helicopters may or may not mean much. Some if not many government agencies operate their aircraft under the "Public Aircraft" provisions of the FARs, which means maintenance standards are pretty much up to the agency. There are a lot of Army surplus OH-58 helicopters out there, working for agencies, because they were pretty cheap. I've seen some pretty sorry agency aircraft, and some really good ones. Depends on the agency. Even then, I know of a couple of airplanes operating under agency approvals by an agency that claims to be really picky that I wouldn't stand UNDER if they were in flight.

Bottom line is that the safety of the operation relies heavily on the operator, and even with heavy FAA oversight, there's no guarantee that stuff won't slip by.

MTV

I too, am a fixed wing guy that wanted a helicopter to play with. Built a Mosquito 285. Fly it from my front driveway. Mosquitos are are well engineered, and have proven just about bullet proof. Very easy to fly (taught myself) and have great factory support. You can select a turbine, if you must smell jet-A.
Dave

RangeFlyer wrote:I too, am a fixed wing guy that wanted a helicopter to play with. Built a Mosquito 285. Fly it from my front driveway. Mosquitos are are well engineered, and have proven just about bullet proof. Very easy to fly (taught myself) and have great factory support. You can select a turbine, if you must smell jet-A.
Dave

Good for you! That is cool!

MTV

RangeFlyer wrote:I too, am a fixed wing guy that wanted a helicopter to play with. Built a Mosquito 285. Fly it from my front driveway. Mosquitos are are well engineered, and have proven just about bullet proof. Very easy to fly (taught myself) and have great factory support. You can select a turbine, if you must smell jet-A.
Dave

I've always been really curious about how the Mosquito's fly. They seem like the simplest and least expensive of the bunch. How do the tail rotor drive and pitch-change work? I looked for some pictures but didn't find a whole lot, even in the mosquito forum (I looked through about 300 photos and gave up haha). If I recall, the early Rotorways had a belt drive. I believe a guy up here in Canada had a belt break and subsequently crashed...

A mosquito would be pretty ideal for me to commute back and forth to work

RangeFlyer wrote:I too, am a fixed wing guy that wanted a helicopter to play with. Built a Mosquito 285. Fly it from my front driveway. Mosquitos are are well engineered, and have proven just about bullet proof. Very easy to fly (taught myself) and have great factory support. You can select a turbine, if you must smell jet-A.
Dave

Can you log turbine time in one of these single seat turbine helo's?

Edit: If I was going to bet my life on one of these flying bricks, I would at least want the reliability of turbine power!

RangeFlyer wrote:I too, am a fixed wing guy that wanted a helicopter to play with. Built a Mosquito 285. Fly it from my front driveway. Mosquitos are are well engineered, and have proven just about bullet proof. Very easy to fly (taught myself) and have great factory support. You can select a turbine, if you must smell jet-A.
Dave

Very cool, Dave. Were you aware of the Helicycles when you built your Mosquito?

Oh yeah, know about the helicycle. Very nice helicopter, no recip engine option. Yes, you can log turbine time in both the Mosquito XET, and the Helicycle. For me, the Mosquito just made more sense. I have a couple hours time in a R22, and I can honestly say the Mosquito is much easier to fly. I know I'm legal flying my homebuilt experimental on a fixed wing ticket, not sure if the regs might have changed for new builds. I would check. Anyway, there is an affordable helicopter out there, Mosquito, like a magic carpet.
Dave

Just bumping this because it was a fun thread. Would love to see more heli content posted.

The reasons helicopters are used commercially almost exclusively on missions that can't be performed by airplanes is complexity and expense. At many times the cost to buy and maintain they simply can't compete. Cutting costs through not replacing time life parts is deadly. I liked the V belt rather than transmission on the Hughes 269 (TH-55) because transmission failure is death, belt failure no. I had to get down quickly two times in Vietnam, once in Cambodia, and two times in Conus because of total loss of transmission fluid in Cobras and Hueys. That was with ten hours maintenance for each hour of flight. I had a droop cam compensation failure on ITO in a Huey. Like Hammer says, "get in a homebuild helicopter? You got to be kidding." With my black cloud? Dave Trujillo often asked the Operations Officer to schedule him with me. He said, "My white cloud cancels out Dulin's black cloud."

Aktahoe says one percent fly his planes his way. Should be more. Cheaper and safer than same price and ten times the complexity and maintenance helicopter.

If you already have substantial powered flight time in fixed wing craft when you commence rotor training, it really makes more financial sense to get a commercial PC- rotor rather than a private.

http://www.helicoptersnw.com/add-on-rating-program.html

http://www.atlantic-helicopters.com/faa ... al-rating/

Bush Trimmer makes a good point. The safest helicopters are those supported by helicopter only jobs and thus money to change parts long before they wear out.

The point that you implied about my post on safety is a valid one, but I was actually driving at the fact that one gets more for the money by getting the commercial and relying on fixed wing time for the powered flight requirement rather than the private. With a commercial, one can better a better deal on insurance, and it makes it a little easier to rent at the already scarce places at which helicopter rental by the hour is possible.

BushTrimmer wrote:With a commercial, one can better a better deal on insurance...

Over on another forum, there was a rather lengthy discussion on the impact of various certificates and ratings on insurance quotes. Some of the agents clued us in that the Instrument Rating is the one that gives you the largest discount, followed by Commercial.

My personal experience validates this, since I have Commercial - ASEL as well as Commercial - Rotorcraft - Helicopter, but am only instrument rated in Helicopters. Insurance companies don't seem to care that it's Heli-only, or that I'm not at all current on instruments – I get the "IR" rate discount for airplanes anyway. I've double- and triple-checked with the agent and underwriter to make SURE they understand this. But I'm happy, since it cut my rates pretty dramatically.

Elk brings down helicopter in Utah

Officials from the Division of Wildlife Resources hired the crew and the helicopter, a Hughes 369D, to capture elk using a net fired from a gun. As the helicopter flew 10 feet above the ground the gunner in the back seat fired the net over the cow elk, but its legs were not entangled as hoped. It jumped and struck the tail of the helicopter which became uncontrollable and crashed.

The rest of the story http://fireaviation.com/2018/02/14/elk- ... pter-utah/

tcj wrote:Elk brings down helicopter in Utah

Officials from the Division of Wildlife Resources hired the crew and the helicopter, a Hughes 369D, to capture elk using a net fired from a gun. As the helicopter flew 10 feet above the ground the gunner in the back seat fired the net over the cow elk, but its legs were not entangled as hoped. It jumped and struck the tail of the helicopter which became uncontrollable and crashed.

The rest of the story http://fireaviation.com/2018/02/14/elk- ... pter-utah/

Animal capture work offers more ways to damage equipment and hurt yourself than just about any other type of flying. And, net gunning is right up there in that regard. But, working animals with a helicopter, your pilot REALLY needs to know what he's doing.

I've worked on a lot of animal capture operations with a number of different pilots, and it's a lot of fun to watch someone who's good at it. But, to be relatively safe, your pilot really needs to be very good at flying that helicopter.

MTV

Happened to be watching a non-aviation video and saw one to the side that caught my eye. 4 video's later....

Hungaro????











Their Youtube channel -
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgQcUh ... 94_b_vzl9Q

MTV,

Your mention of the danger of animal capture in reference to tcj's Loach (Hughes 369/500) crash reminded me, "The LZs marked by the burning Loach.

Lew Jennings in, "Nineteen Minutes to Live, " which you recommend to me by PM, gave a lot of statistics on Vietnam. We lost about 5,000 of 12,000 helicopters and ten percent of the crews. Cobras lost 30 percent, Hueys 47 percent, and the OH6-A Loach 80 percent.

The amazing thing about the Loach was the airframe shape and survivability. We lost no more crews in it than other helicopters. Blade strike was very common but few were shot up by the Torque (gunner on the floor with feet out behind pilot.) It was very helpful that eye to target line was about the same angle for pilot and gunner. All turns were to the right.

In my experience, the really important thing that is usually absent in a homebuild is crash survivability.