Carson Blades For S-61

[Guest CHEVY II]

I have nothing to say but ...

 

WOW.

will post more later.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Loser cruiser huh?

[Outwest]

Hey RDM, I must say that for Puma driver to be impressed it has to be good. Can you elaborate? Would be great if you could post a typical trip out of St. John's and back. Numbers with old blades and now with the Carson set. Also if you could look up on the new WAT chart what the Cat A weight would be at 28 C. Thanks, will buy you a beer next time I see you in Stavanger.

[Fully Articulated]

Yes Please!

[Mac-Ex-wafu]

From what I can see, the new carson blades are very similar to the berp blades we have been using for many years now.

 

They give a massive amount of increased lift, but this benefit is balanced out by the other troubles that go with them, High vibration, tendency to overspeed the head, very fragile and expensive to repair.

 

The leading edges always seem to have major erosion snags when operating in a dusty environment and can lead to ingress of moisture resulting in high vibration snags.

 

Using a reverse direction TRGB seemed to help short term but that just sent the vibration elsewhere,,,,tail cone cracking, cockpit surrounds etc,,

 

Bring back good old tin blades!!

[sharkbait]

Max-ex-wafu

Are you presently working with the Carson blades?

Your post doesn't say.

Are you refering to experience with the Lynx?

 

I would assume anyone running the Carson blades logging would quickly comment about any overspeed tendency as well as erosion / water ingress / vibration problems.

 

Looking forward to some feedback from both pilots and engineers working with them with details of their experience. Some photos of OLD VS NEW would be great.

 

If the problems with these new blades are not as Max states they sound like a great thing. Do they use the berp technology or not?

Can someone make some for the 76 please. :up:

[Mac-Ex-wafu]

here's a couple of phot's courtesy of carson & google

 

[sharkbait]

Thanks Mac ( got the spelling right this time )

They look like big 76 blades.

Here is the Carson website for those interested.

 

http://www.carsonhelicopters.com/composite_blades.htm

[widgeon]

Comparing Lynx to S61 blades is not fair . Lynx is rigid head with very stiff blades and had severe vibration problems even with the tin blades. I recall that Carson is ofering a sort of PBH deal on the blades that hopefully would mitigate any maint problems. The Stainless steel blades on the Lynx were a nightmare to manufacture and if I remember correctly not very crack tolerant . In general here are some pro's and cons of composite blades.

Pro , possible to build with varying section and twist , high retirement life , soft failure mode ( blade tracking will cause noticable problems long before total failure) cons , higher cost , bonding of items with dissimilar expansion coefficients masy cause service problems , lower lightning strike tolerance , water ingress in trailing edge core , field repair not normally an option. What is the UK experience with the Sea King composite main and tail blades ? that is probably more relevant.

Will Carson eventually offer de iced blades ?.

[Mac-Ex-wafu]

It is a bit like comparing apples with pears, but all manufacturers make fantastic promises but how often do we get to see what they promised.

Navy Lynx have major snags due the AUW but army lynx get round the any problems by being a whole load lighter in not having a full avionics package.

The adjustable "bonk" on the "rigid" head makes a huge difference to traking and vibro'ing.

Sea king CMRB's by all accounts seem to have the same snags as the lynx.

 

The crack problems to earlier tin blades were mainly down to operating on-board the back end of a ship where the MRB's would be folded and restrained in "fold poles" and then chucked around in less than ideal conditions.

Most of the cracking damage was caused by the rough treatment by the maintainers in the folding process in lifting the blade up and down to get the blade pins out!

They hate being "fodded" and stripped of surface protection.

Anti erosion tape just trapped moisture and when began to peel quite often peeled away and ended up going down the engines.

 

Guess people will just have to "suck it and see" when the new carson blades come in !

[DJ61]

Outwest,

 

I will be flying TIG on monday with a very experienced S61 Captain and will put a rig trip together comparing the old and new ,unless RDM has already done it.

 

DJ61