NZFF

I do love a whirlybird, much fun has been poked at these ungainly birds, not least about why they should not fly.
Spare a thought for the life of the retreating rotor blade.

I prefer not to think about what goes on up there. I remember when I was instructing, we got told by someone in the know that on an R22, at flight RPM (104%) there was 4t of force on the attachment bolts, overspeed to 110% and it went up to 9t. They also said that if it got to 117%, the tail world come off. Kind of focuses the mind.

The BO105 has a clever rigid rotor head - what are those 2 round baubles that go up and down I am wondering.

The rigid head actually was trialed on the Gazelle. It was taken up on the 105 and continued on the BK117 and EC145. It's good but it shakes your teeth out of your jaw. Those baubles you see are the pendulous dampers. Supposed to take some of the vibration out of the head.

Ah right... now I see them



The hinged rotors are even more complicated, hard to believe they do what they get up to.
A better ride, you say?
What's the smoothest riding helo d'you know?

Depends on how the head is constructed. The fully articulated head on the 500 is simple because it uses a strap pack instead of hinges. The 300 however has lots and lots of moving parts... Smoothest helicopter I've flown?? Uhhh I guess Reid's Squirrel ZK-HEX is or should I say was, the smoothest. The 105 I'm flying now is pretty good, still rattles through translation but in the cruise it's nice.

Nick .... the Lynx has a pretty special rotor head set up, correct?

Charl wrote:The BO105 has a clever rigid rotor head - what are those 2 round baubles that go up and down I am wondering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afajLxG0DFE&t=102s

Look at the moves at 2min.

I love helis though I have only flown in one 8-10 times and been at the controls for maybe 40 mins.
I did once read a book called "Fatal Traps for Helicopter Pilots (or something like that) - there is certainly a lot to think about !

jpreou wrote:I love helis though I have only flown in one 8-10 times and been at the controls for maybe 40 mins.
I did once read a book called "Fatal Traps for Helicopter Pilots (or something like that) - there is certainly a lot to think about !

My new patents will fix all of those. BTW new tech for helicopters is on the horizon.

jpreou wrote:I love helis though I have only flown in one 8-10 times and been at the controls for maybe 40 mins.
I did once read a book called "Fatal Traps for Helicopter Pilots (or something like that) - there is certainly a lot to think about !

That fatal traps is quite a good read. I changed some of the things that I did after reading that one.

And then... there's Kaman Helicopters, who thought outside the box from the get-go.
There's nothing like it, they invented drones before drones were a twinkle in their drone daddies' eyes.

The K-Max is one of the machines that I really want to fly. An absolute lifting weapon. They still teach new pilots on the old Husky at the factory. I read an article in an industry mag a while back about doing construction in them. If you start to loose directional control, there's nothing you can do, you just let it continue around back into wind and carry on. Fascinating aircraft.

Do it!
I spent some time trawling YT, watching Charles Kaman history, what a guy.
There's a clip showing a fire rescue where a K-Max is used to blow a path through the flames, so firefighters can get passengers off a stricken aircraft!
Stuff like that.

I knew a couple of Air Force guys that went to the Kaman factory in the early stages of getting the Seasprites. At the time they were developing the K-Max and were having lots of problems with the blades which was hindering test flying progress. Charles Kaman told the engineers to go back to the older wooden blade construction used on the Husky, so the blades have got wooden spars!