IT LIVES!!

Tuesday 9th August 2005  9.00 PM - 11 Months after taking delivery of the Kit, 940 hours of build time and probably thousands of hours thinking time, I fired up the engine. It ran pretty sweet and so far, everything works perfectly although I can hear the strobes pulsing and some other swishing noise through the headphones when the volume is set very high. This could be normal - I don’t know yet.

I’ve had a mysterious water leak - just a few drips on the floor. I discovered that it was leaking from the top hose joint at the back of the water pump. There are a couple of welded aluminium joints on the pump here and the surface finish is a little uneven with some deep gorges under the hose clip. I’ve tightened it up a little and stopped the leak for now but the pump should really come off so I can dress the outlet smooth.

Also, there are a few drops of oil coming from the passengers side Rocker Cover. I’ve tightened the bolts a tad but I’ll check it out at the first ‘Cover-off’ service.

And another oil leak on the oil tank drain union. Not sure if it’s a porous weld or just the seal yet.

I re-calibrated my oil dipstick. With exactly 5 US quarts (4.7 Litres) of oil in the system I found my dipstick mark was way off. I think this is down to the dry sump tank being a degree or so out of horizontal. I doesn’t take much to re-calibrate the stick.

Chain tension is fine and I have already adjusted the TR belts once.

ENGINEER’S INSPECTION

3rd September 2005 was the day of the first Engineers Inspection - almost a year from the Kit Delivery. The Licensed Engineer assisted by Jonathan and David Bull from Southern Helicopters all spent several hours checking every nut, bolt, rivet, pin, clip, seal, wire, bearing, joint, bracket, fit, finish, clearance, tightness, adjustment and everything else I’ve forgotten to mention on the ship - a thoroughly thorough Inspection if I ever saw one.

My list totaled 24 items to be reworked - of which 13 were incorrect length bolts, loose or incorrect nuts and unsatisfactory safety wiring on bolt heads. Many of the incorrect length bolt were the ones supplied with the kit but they were either slightly more or less than the required 2 threads protruding from the nut (UK requirements). Rules is rules and I take full blame for fitting them.

Three ‘Minor Modifications’ (CAA speak for ‘Permission’) would be required for my ventilation fan, charging port and, of course the Mk3 silencer - no surprises here. All others were minor things that would take just a couple of hours to correct such as ...........

.................. drilling a drain hole in the lowest point of the tail skid tube, ....

... filling the tiny gap between the aluminium panels at the front of the vertical fin and replacing the fan countershaft because I’d drilled a hole through it for a split pin as security against it dropping if it should slip down in the bearings.

I had inadvertently inserted the forward idle pulley spool bolt upside down. This meant that the nut was on top and hidden from view. With the ballast weight support frame installed access to this component is severely restricted. Of course, there’s not enough room to simply remove the bolt and invert it - It’s a strip down job. My gynecological training came in very handy.

OIL LEAKS

I couldn’t wait for the first oil change to sort out the oil leaks so I removed the offending Rocker Cover.

Here’s the gasket. It had been incorrectly fitted during assembly and the sealant application was a mess. Not impressed.

While I was in a repair mood I removed the leaking Oil Drain Fitting from the Dry Sump Tank and here’s what I found. The fitting had been screwed, cross threaded into the welded boss in the tank until it graunched itself straight, destroying part of the first thread...........

.......  and leaving this potentially disastrous shard of swarf hanging just inside the welded boss. I only spotted it as I was trying to remove the remains of the one turn of PTFE tape from the threads. No wonder the bugger was leaking. Less impressed.

To be fair, I don’t expect Aerospace quality from a product with this price tag. Nevertheless, it’s still not cheap and I’ve worked stonkingly hard to be able to buy it. This is no Rolls Royce engine  - It’s pretty basic stuff, but it’s still designed to take a human into the sky - and there can be no excuses for poor assembly. Up until now I’ve had no issues with quality but these manufacturing cock-ups should not have been allowed to happen and I’m pretty surprised and disappointed. I’m tempted to declare that Rotorway’s quality control stinks, at least in the engine department but for the time being I’ll withhold judgment. Suffice to say I’m not inspired with confidence in the build quality of the rest of the engine, but time alone will tell. Lemons are not welcome here.

As a final thought for the time being, here’s an engine oil comparison. New oil on the right. The same oil after one hour at idle revs on the left.

Matthew’s removing the screen protective film. There’s definitely an art to this. Maybe it sticks better as it gets older or comes off easier when it’s cold but it was much more difficult to get off than when I removed the edges for the screen reinforcing a few months ago. The trick seems to be to pick gently at a corner until you release a fairly large flap that you can grab with both hands. Jerking it off (sorry) at 90 degrees to the screen seems to be the best way.

Between the time when I last fitted the body panels and refitting them, fully painted, something moved. When I came to fit the pilots side upper rear panel it was pressed tight against the rear of the fuel tank and would not sit nicely without the tank pushing a crease in the panel from the inside. The whole body seemed to have skewed around in an anticlockwise direction viewed from the top. Of course, the only panel fixed to the frame is the seatback - everything else just hangs from it. I could think of no definite cause but two minor possibilities. 1. All the body panels have been stored in a sealed caravan all summer. Maybe the high temperatures have relaxed the glassfibre and the panels have reverted back to the shape they once were. 2. The engine has been run with the blades on. Maybe the mounts and frame have settled and been stress relieved by the flexing and torque of the engine. Whatever - The bloody panels didn’t fit the same.

After a little thought, the solution was simple. I had made moulded location points on the seatback that registered exactly with the seat mounting cross tube on the frame so I made three semicircular spacers, 1 mm 2mm and 2 mm thick to slide between the two. I loosened the seatback mounting bolts, jacked the whole body around in a clockwise direction viewed from the top and fed in the spacers between the seatback and the frame, saddling the bolts,  starting with the thickest on the pilots side. Back on track and in perfect alignment again. I’ll probably never know why.

All panels fitted except the Skid Pants.

The biggest rattle by far in the cockpit comes from the clutch actuator rod. The source is actually the rod end rattling against the clutch arm but it transmits right along the rod and is probably amplified by the seatback.

SImple solution - a small cable tie around the rod end to prevent contact.

For a reason I can’t understand, I find the main rotors creeping round whenever I push the ship in and out of the workshop. They can only turn so far inside the hanger before the ship’s locked in and I have to take off the blades to extract it. Sue made this simple sock with a Velcro strap that fits over the tail rotor blade and ties around the horizontal fin, preventing the blades turning.

[Home] [Specifications] [Frame] [Tub Split] [Body Assembly] [Roof Panel Modifications] [More Body Mods] [Interior Finishing] [Painting] [Screen] [Doors] [Skid Pants] [Controls] [Tail Boom & Fins] [Tail Rotor & Drive] [Chain Oil Bath] [Drive Train] [Rigging] [Cooling] [Instruments & Wiring] [Cabin Comfort] [Exhaust] [Silencer] [Heat Shield] [Fuel Tanks] [IT LIVES!! &Teething Troubles] [Testing] [Main Rotor Blades] [Miscellaneous] [Tools] [Parts Supply] [Build Diary] [Events] [Flight Training] [Links] [Toys and Dogs]