Right - I’m talking about an actual civil FAA Airworthiness Certificate
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Hot new helicopter/rotorcraft news
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
They diced up the T-34s because they were too bent to accept the liability of selling them to John Q. Public. Something about not wanting civilians to rip the wings off the first time they flew it.
The 57s are in worse shape.
Yeah, there's no need for one since the services do their own airworthiness (in most cases).
A hell of a lot of Army OH-58s doing a lot of safe flying out there. Most were used for instruction at Rucker. You saying the Navy could not.maintain their -67s as well?
If they are good enough for our boys, they are good enough for me!
Just kidding, even if they let them go for small change, I couldn’t afford the $300 + per hour operating cost. (Well, I could for about two or three hours a year!).
Even though my police cruiser is old [a 2007 Ford Police Interceptor P71 w/ 121,000 miles], I purchased it new from a Ford fleet dealership in 2007...it never saw police service...and therefore, never went through the trials and tribulations that a typical police cruiser endures. Also, my old cop service pistol [a S&W 5946 9mm] was issued to me new by the Cincinnati Police Department...it was only fired during initial Cincinnati Police training and annual in-service training...with a smattering of use at the Cincinnati Police range between in-service sessions.We should ask @mad dog. He drives an old police cruiser and shoots an old cop service pistol. I should be able to zip around in a spray can painted TH-57!
More than that.
Most OH-58s were in operational Army units. Not to say that's not tough duty, but it's not 700+ hours a year of fam students slamming those things into the ground.
I don't think you'll see many, if any, Army -67s in civilian hands.
The Navy 57 fleet has a lot more time on it- many of them are over 20,000 hours while the Army's 67s were a little over 10,000 when they got rid of them for their Lakotas.
The 57 fleet has a lot of old age problems like water intrusion into the instruments and avionics, no spare parts for the autopilots (IFR birds). When I last flew them seven years ago, the problems de jour included doors popping open in flight (yes, you can write it up and mx adjusts the door), engine oil coolers that weren't up to snuff (oil temp would run right at redline on hot days or exceed it in a hover and climb), a particular fuel fitting under the engine that would commonly weep, unexplained delayed engine spool ups on some, mild compressor stalls on others...
A day in the life of a VFR TH-57, I used to make tic marks for each landing (normal landing from a hover, sliding landing, hover cutgun, taxi cutgun, full auto). My record on a 6.0 FAM triple was 72 tic marks- not counting power recovery autos and waveoffs (or other times we otherwise ran the engine down to idle and back to full power). I remember when a lot of the aircraft had that fuel weep problem and one of the NAVAIR engineers said that civilian 206 operators weren't seeing the problems we were having. In my opinion he failed to grasp just how hard we fly the things.
Some flight hours work more like dog years. I don't think it's a question of good or bad maintenance, it's a question of what is possible.
(Last, it's not like they're not working to solve these kinds of problems as they come up, but they have same the resources and will that they used to address the OBOGS/pressurization/physiology issues on other T/M/S (just an example). But even if they did throw more money at the fleet, it's past diminishing returns at this point.)
Interesting. We had two OH-58s that came to us in Ft Rucker trainer livery. Same for another angecy in the state. Don't know their history except the last duty station.
It's a good platform, is what I'm saying. The more complicated you make something, the more it breaks. A helicopter trainer needs to start every time, run like a top, and take a beating every day.
That said, there are civilian operators who use their machines HARD.
That's a cool video, but way less taxing that an SNA landing.
I'm going through training right now and there's all three contenders sitting in the hangar right now. It's interesting to see them all together. The Koala looks big for a trainer. The 407 looks annoying (but I'm looking at it from an EMS perspective). And the -135 looks super-sporty but more than is needed. Ignoring the IFR issue, I can see why the 407 could be a contender. But I'll admit that's more an emotional reaction than any kind of factual statement.
There's also an A-Star sitting in the hangar. When I poke my head into that thing, it's like I'm transported back to the '70's. Pass.
There's also an A-Star sitting in the hangar. When I poke my head into that thing, it's like I'm transported back to the '70's. Pass.
The rotors go the wrong way on the A-Star. Not a bad workhorse, but not really suited for training.
CNATRA sent a cadre of HT IP's to fly the AStar/AS350B during the Army NTH competition. It was a fun experience - biggest memory that stays with me was the openess of cabin and really nimble flight controls. Army select the TH-67 and that was that. But it was fun taking a couple of days of from production to fly something different.