Fishhuntcutwood

[fishhuntcutwood]

Cool pics! My cousin is headed for CG boot camp in a couple of weeks, any thoughts on what I can get him for a going away gift Jeff?

Sweet!

Don't get him anything for boot camp, 'cause they'll just take it away when he gets there.

If he's got any question as to what to do in the CG, and he's got a good brain in his head, tell him to go into aviation. No questions. Period. End. Aviation is where it's at as far as quality of life and job satisfaction in the CG. And that's really not just my opinion.

 

[OTGBOSTON]

Sweet!

Don't get him anything for boot camp, 'cause they'll just take it away when he gets there.

If he's got any question as to what to do in the CG, and he's got a good brain in his head, tell him to go into aviation. No questions. Period. End. Aviation is where it's at as far as quality of life and job satisfaction in the CG. And that's really not just my opinion.

Thanks Jeff, He's really, really into boats. His old man has a 45' "yacht", he pretty much grew up on the water. I believe he wants to drive that unsinkable boat.............Plus I'm not so sure about the "good brain in his head" part

 

[squisher]

Jeff, more pics and descriptions of the workings would be very much apreciated. Absolutely awesome info and pics, thanks alot!

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

I'll get some tonight. I'll try to go component-by-component with pics and see if it makes sense. It's really pretty simple, but the engineering behind it is just as incredible.

 

[rbtree]

Great chopper stories and photos, Jeff. Looking forward to more!

I hope to do some more heli skiing someday. The only times I've been in a helo....about 10 days and 230,000 vertical feet of lift and skiing in the Canadian Selkirks....and a few rides out of Thompson Pass, Valdez, Ak....where the first turns are often 50 degrees steep--or more..... and the runs up to 5000 feet!

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

OK, lets start at the bottom. The flight controls start in the cockpit, and run throughout the plane up to the "servos." These are hydraulic pistons that physically move the flight controls. The flight control rods that run throughout the helo aren't all that strong, but it takes hundreds of pounds to move the actual blades. You can see the flight control rod attached to the mid-section of the servo body. That's a direct link to the pilot's flight controls. Think of the servos as the power steering.

The servos (there's three of them on the main rotor head, and one on the tail) are attached to the stationary swashplate, as seen in the first two pics. The servo is the component with the orange hoses attached to it. Those are hydraulic lines. The servos are actually complex pieces of equipment, so I'll just leave it at that. The three servos tilt the swashplate in every direction. To go straight up, they all move straight up, and move the whole swashplate straight up, moving all blades at one time. To change one blade's pitch, one, or a combination of servos will tilt the swashplate in the respective quadrant to move the respective blade(s).

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

Ok, now starting at the swashplate. The servos are attached to the stationary swashplate (previous post), and the stationary swashplate lies directly beneath the rotating swashplate (they're one component). The rotating swashplate has four quadrants, and you can see the pitch change rods attached to the rotating swashplate in the first pic. The pitch change rods are the little rods, with the red and black tape on them. (Our blades are color coded-black, blue, yellow, red.) The tops of the pitch change rods (PCR's) are attached to the pitch change horns. The horns are bolted directly to the attach beams. Moving the PCR's up or down (input from the servos, via the swashplate) adjusts the pitch of the of the beams; the beams hold the blades....with two little pins! That's all.

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

Now we're to the beams. Butch saw my pics earlier, and thought the blades are fixed....this is how they move.

The pitch change rod is attached to the pitch change horn, which is attached to the (blade) attach beam and pivots the entire beam, and thus the blade. The first pic is the entire beam, mounted on the "star flex." The star flex actually does flex. When the blades are on, the star flex actually bows downward. But with no weight on the head, it springs upward.

On the inboard side of the beam is the "spherical thrust bearing," which is basically a rubber mount, mounting the beam to the star flex. The same way you can twist rubber, you can twist these. You can't by hand, but back to the servos, and the "power steering," you can. This is the second pic.

The third pic is the "frequency adaptor," which houses the "self-aligning bearing." This is the outboard mount, and is just a pivot point, thus the bearing.

The beam tilts, the whole blade tilts, the helo flies like you want it to.

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

So that's it! Simple, yet wonderfully engineered. Thank Igor Sikorski for that.

This pic is the whole she-bang. The two engines relative to the main gearbox.

Goddamit, I love my job.

 

[sotc]

cool jeff, thanks

 

[MasterBlaster]

Damn good explaination, Jeff!

 

[vharrison]

I'd fly with you anytime!

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

Thanks guys. It really is a pleasure of mine to talk about this stuff. I really enjoy it.

 

[rumination]

That is way cool Jeff. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[squisher]

Frigging amazing machines, wow!

 

[Burnham]

Fine bit of information and photos, Jeff. Thanks.

 

[vharrison]

Jeff, your new avatar looks like it is under water, any story there?

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

HA! Yep, last fall I got a new Olympus Stylus 720, which is a waterproof digi point and shoot. I bought it just for fishing pictures. I just wanted to see how it worked!

You've got to keep it far enough away though-

 

[vharrison]

Cool!

 

[RIVERRAT]

Haven't been able to check in that often......Jeff thanks for the pics of what you do!!!!

 

[vharrison]

I love having this thread, cause when I want to ask Jeff some random question, I can!

Jeff, who is the cute youngin in your avatar?

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

That's my niece. My sister made me an uncle!!!

 

[GASoline71]

Cool!!!

Gary

 

[vharrison]

Fun!

 

[Rotax Robert]

Huntin with fishkillsthingswithwood and apparently so does his bird dog.