Restoration of helicopters

So what was the point of this post?

Hey, I did something cool today with proprietary customer data, I'm so so so awesome now.

A bit of an understatement there Gunner.......I've done a HUP-3 and two TL-1N's ( UH-1E's with Navy training panels) and I don't even want to think about doing anymore for at least a few more years.

Craig C.

Wow! Great! These are really good news. We are so happy. I think this will change my life completely.

Wonderful. So much photos and so much information. I will have to study the material you gave us here for a week. May I come back to you if there are questions left?

How about your AC-TIG? Is it running now?

Nick

About fifteen years ago, the Sheriff of the next-south county, Edwin Duff, established "Duff's Air Force". He hired an ex-Navy rotary-wing A&P, sent him to law enforcement school, deputized him, then sent him out to the bone yards in (Arizona? Nevada?) to buy THREE UH-1 wrecks with enough parts to build one helicopter.

The guy worked at our local FBO for two years, and ended up building TWO working and STC'd airplanes from the three hulks. All the funds for both the deputy's salary and the rebuild came from confiscated drug money and property sales.

Jimmy (the A&P) said he never wanted to do THAT again . They're still flying them today, while MY county bought a brand-new Eurocopter for about four million! Duh!

LLoyd

Tease!

Dave

"Gunner" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I only have this to say about that :) From a friend who knows. Helicopter flight: A bunch of spare parts flying in close formation. Anything that screws its way into the sky flies according to unnatural principals. You never want to sneak up behind an old, high-time helicopter pilot and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely whimper...then get up and smack the shit out of you. There are no old helicopters laying around airports like you see old airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there are not many old, high-time helicopter pilots hanging around airports either so the first issue is problematic. You can always tell a helicopter pilot in anything moving: a train, an airplane, a car or a boat They never smile, they are always listening to the machine and they always hear something they think is not right. Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like "spring loaded", while waiting for pieces of their ship to fall off. Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered reckless and should be avoided. Flying a helicopter at any altitude or condition that precludes a landing in less than 20 seconds is considered outright foolhardy. Remember in a helicopter you have about 1 second to lower the collective in an engine failure before the craft becomes unrecoverable. Once you've failed this maneuver the machine flies about as well as a 20 case Coke machine. Even a perfectly executed autorotation only gives you a glide ratio slightly better than that of a brick. While hovering, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on the collective while twisting the throttle, push with your left foot (more torque) and move the stick left (more translating tendency) to hold your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite in that order. Sometimes in wind you do this many times each second. Don't you think that's a strange way to fly? For Helicopters: You never want to feel a sinking feeling in your gut (low "g" pushover) while flying a two bladed under slung teetering rotor system. You are about to do a snap-roll to the right and crash. For that matter, any remotely aerobatic maneuver should be avoided in a Huey. Don't push your luck. It will run out soon enough anyway. If everything is working fine on your helicopter consider yourself temporarily lucky. Something is about to

"Gunner" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I only have this to say about that :) From a friend who knows. Helicopter flight: A bunch of spare parts flying in close formation. Anything that screws its way into the sky flies according to unnatural principals. You never want to sneak up behind an old, high-time helicopter pilot and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely whimper...then get up and smack the shit out of you. There are no old helicopters laying around airports like you see old airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there are not many old, high-time helicopter pilots hanging around airports either so the first issue is problematic. You can always tell a helicopter pilot in anything moving: a train, an airplane, a car or a boat They never smile, they are always listening to the machine and they always hear something they think is not right. Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like "spring loaded", while waiting for pieces of their ship to fall off. Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered reckless and should be avoided. Flying a helicopter at any altitude or condition that precludes a landing in less than 20 seconds is considered outright foolhardy. Remember in a helicopter you have about 1 second to lower the collective in an engine failure before the craft becomes unrecoverable. Once you've failed this maneuver the machine flies about as well as a 20 case Coke machine. Even a perfectly executed autorotation only gives you a glide ratio slightly better than that of a brick. While hovering, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on the collective while twisting the throttle, push with your left foot (more torque) and move the stick left (more translating tendency) to hold your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite in that order. Sometimes in wind you do this many times each second. Don't you think that's a strange way to fly? For Helicopters: You never want to feel a sinking feeling in your gut (low "g" pushover) while flying a two bladed under slung teetering rotor system. You are about to do a snap-roll to the right and crash. For that matter, any remotely aerobatic maneuver should be avoided in a Huey. Don't push your luck. It will run out soon enough anyway. If everything is working fine on your helicopter consider yourself temporarily lucky. Something is about to break. Harry Reasoner once wrote the following about helicopter pilots: "The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by an incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other. Having said all this, I must admit that flying in a helicopter is one of the most satisfying and exhilarating experiences I have ever enjoyed: skimming over the tops of trees at 100 knots is something we should all be able to do, at least once. And remember the fighter pilot's prayer: "Lord I pray for the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the balls of a combat helicopter pilot." Many years later, I know that it was sometimes anything but fun, but now it IS something to brag about for those of us who survived the experience.

Well, so much for any plans I might have had to experience a helicopter flight befor eI die ;)

See also, a very good book entiled "Chickenhawks."

Jim

Yeah. A helicopter doesn't screw its way up. Them things swingin' around up there are wings.

Except for the mild inconvenience of gyroscopic precession, they act mos' like any wing.

HOWEVER, there's a reason we call that thingamajig on top the "Jesus Nut".

LLoyd

Maybe a airplane? June, 2000 issue of Australian Aviation Magazine RULES OF THE AIR

1. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

1. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.

2. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

1. It's always better to be down here, wishing you were up there, than up there, wishing you were down here.

2. The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

1. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

2. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.

1. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

2. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

1. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

2. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice versa.

1. Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.

2. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

1. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.

2. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

1. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

2. Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.

1. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

2. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

1. Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgment.

2. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

1. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

2. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's not subject to repeal.

1. The three most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, the runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago.

How come they can't teach a computer to do it? Are the "rules" really that hard? You'd think that with a few accelerators to tell it what's happening, a computer could do the hard stuff and just let the pilot do management stuff ("up", "down", "sit", "stay", etc).

Bob

I have an inverter that is working, but I have not yet put it into the welder...