28 Aug 2003

The R22 Chronicles

Part Four:  "Robinson Arrival"

From Part Three: The widespread introduction of the Robinson R22 after 1985 ramped up the whole process. Record falsification, rorts, all that we have seen so far accelerated and became the norm for many.

The first R22 that I was involved with was in Jan 1980 when I changed a Tail Rotor Assembly due to stone damage. When the pilot told me that the machine only used 30 litres of fuel an hour, I knew that I was looking at the future of mustering in Australia. Why?

First - it was a certified helicopter which meant that it had to have demonstrated compliance with certain flying characteristics as well as all the other engineering standards.

Second - the big one - was the price of Avgas (fuel) out West in the great Australian "Outback".

Avgas was sold in 44 gallon (200 litre) drums and had to be trucked out to cattle stations, in some cases on almost non-existent rough roads. It was then bumped and rattled out to the bush refueling stock pile on the back tray of Toyota 4WDs and dumped off onto the hard ground.

The result of all this was the cost of a litre of fuel being an average of about $1.10 a Litre during the eighties and approx $1.40 during the nineties. The average fuel consumption of the Bell 47G 3B1 machines I flew was 70 litres an hour - rising during the hot wet season on Ag work to nearly 100 litres/hr.

Third - those big Lycoming 435 cubic inch engines in the Bell 47 didn't like the hot operating temperatures and often consumed a litre of oil every 3 or 4 hours. Oil changes were every 25 hours (3 days if flying 10 hrs a day). Putting it into perspective -the pilot often had to carry a couple of 20 litre drums of oil in the helicopter if he was away from base and the used oil was dumped straight on the ground.

 Environmentalists would have had a field day if they knew.

And the grease ..........!!!! The machines were greased every day due to the dusty operating environment. Then, the dust during the day stuck to the extruded grease. Maybe someone could tell me how many grease nipples a Bell 47 had? The number must have been over 30.

Conditions of the Certification of the Bell 47 were that it was to be stripped down and its airframe and components were to have a major overhaul after every 1200 hours time in service (TSO).

Yes .... we know how often that was done, don't we!!

The helicopters were hired out at a "dry" rate which simply meant that the cattle station supplied the fuel when using helicopters for mustering. As we know that it was not uncommon for machines to fly 1,500 hours a season, the fuel bill for just one machine would have been about $115,500.

Enter the R22: Once the Graziers knew that they could save $66,000 a season per machine (nearly $10 million for a min fleet of 150) on fuel costs using the new lightweight machine, the R22 couldn't lose. The glory days of the Bell 47 were over.

Combine the fuel savings with an oil consumption of a litre/10 hours, zero grease nipples, little to no field maintenance, a fast cruise speed and a certified overhaul life of 2000 hours. and the R22 pilots thought they were in pig heaven ..... and so did the owners - many had a wonderful time falsifying records.

You would think that the introduction of a machine which could legally fly all season would be a reason for industry to get back on the rails and comply with the certification requirements. Not a hope - some tried to make it last TWO seasons!!

How did they cheat?

The R22 has an electronic "clock" called a Hobbs meter. This electric meter ran and recorded operating time from when the engine started until it stopped, by a sensor which worked off the engine oil pressure.

All maintenance (and the finite life recording) was directly related to the readings on this meter.

Once it was realised that the meter could be turned off by simply pulling a circuit breaker in the cockpit, it then became so very easy to fly all day every day with the meter stopped.

The first Main Rotor Blade failure killed two people in WA. Subsequent testing found that the blades had exceeded their finite time in service life.

The second Main Rotor blade failure killed one and seriously injured another in Queensland.

The most recent this year (2003) - killed two.

There have also been a number of Main Rotor Blades which have cracked - but luckily did not fail completely.

Guess why I haven't stepped into an R22 in the bush since 1997?

Right first time!! There is no way of knowing when a blade might fail unless reliable records have been kept. (remember "metal has Memory")

Come to think of it, there is only one country in the world which had main transmission tubular steel mounts crack and break due to fatigue failure.  Yep - you got it in one - we managed to do that as well.

For a period of time there were about 30 accidents a year reported through the system.

I guarantee that at least 5 - 10 others weren't reported. Even at the rate of 30, the average is one accident every 12 days of the year.

The penny should have dropped somewhere that there was a problem either with the helicopter or the way it was operated. Was there a cover up?

Click here for Part Five: the continuation of "The Robinson Story"