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Day in life of helicopter instructor

2big bronco said:
I dont recal but you could tell it again
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I’ll type it up when I get a chance.

SLiggwood said:
Sounds like carb ice.
Did you pull the heat?
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This helicopter has fuel injection. It is not supseptable to carb ice. It was the idle mixture. It always idled kind of rough and smoked a bit. This engine was a brand new ten year old engine with about 70 hours on it. We figured it was just not broke in very good. Once the mechanic adjusted the mixture, it ran great. I can’t believe we flew it for like 40 hours like that. It would only die if you chopped the throttle from flight speed. When we did other autos, I didn’t have to turn it to idle so hard because the governor was off. The throttle turns easy with it off, but the governor clutches make it hard to turn it down.
 
I've heard stories of students pulling the mixture to cutoff because they mistook it for carb heat.
 
the conservative atheist said:
I've heard stories of students pulling the mixture to cutoff because they mistook it for carb heat.
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When I was taking lessons years ago, I had a female instructor that would lean the helicopter at altitude all the time. This is weird because almost no one leans helicopters. (You never fly very high) Anyways, I ended up going to a different place because it had a helicopter that I was fermiller with. A few weeks later she and another student crashed. I found out she was flying and approaching to land. The chopper started flying rough because it was too lean as she went down. She told the student to go full rich. You guessed it, he went full lean. lol.
 
On the original story, the weird part was I never knew the engine had quit til I was on the ground. You would think it was obvious, but the order of events and the layout of the panel contributed to my ignorance.
First, the engine/rotor tach only begins at 60%, so when you wind it down to idle, the tach is pegged at the bottom whether it’s running or not.
Second, his oil pressure light was down on the center console. I don’t look down there much and never while I’m doing an auto. That light really needs to be up in your line of sight.

I should have heard the engine, but “I was talking when I should have been listening.” (That’s my fave rate saying when I see someone with a black eye.)
 
2big bronco said:
Were you pretty calm talking the student through what you were doing or were you like "F this is bad, hang on"
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I was perfectly calm when I didn’t know anything was wrong. Once I pull the collective up and rotors started slowing, I got quiet. I never said anther word til we were on the ground. He thought I was demonstrating it on purpose. He said something like “holy shit, I didn’t know you were going to do that”. The next day in the bar he told me he was glad he didn’t know there was something wrong. lol. He said he was scared, but not as scared if he knew.
 
Gotta introduce you to my buddy Jake, the wild man.

One time, there was this big fancy rich area party. Some dude pulls in on a helicopter and lands it in the backyard. Drunk Jake, so typical, ends up in the helicopter and starts pushing buttons and doing shit. The helicopter guy got mad at him. Good ol Jake.

So, you tell me. Could he actually have done something bad, could something have gone wrong? I figured if he doesn't have the key(do they have keys?), then no harm no foul.
 
Yota Up said:
Gotta introduce you to my buddy Jake, the wild man.

One time, there was this big fancy rich area party. Some dude pulls in on a helicopter and lands it in the backyard. Drunk Jake, so typical, ends up in the helicopter and starts pushing buttons and doing shit. The helicopter guy got mad at him. Good ol Jake.

So, you tell me. Could he actually have done something bad, could something have gone wrong? I figured if he doesn't have the key(do they have keys?), then no harm no foul.
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Plenty of buttons to press that'll piss people off. Things like keying the radio and jamming the local ATC frequency, setting off the ELT or even starting the damn thing (some aircraft have keys but not many).
 
How hard of a landing is that? 188’ drop every 7.5 seconds?
 
Mikel said:
Can you please elaborate?
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Been a few years but I think it went like this

That aircraft has an allusion 250 turbo shaft engine. They’re super common. They require a cooldown period at idle between the flight power setting and shutdown

I think it is 5 minutes, could be 2 or three. That is a pilot question.

Since they didn’t do that, the oil sat in the bearings around the hot section, it broke down and created solids. It’s called coking, I believe it is carbon suspended in the oil that comes out. Of suspension in chunks but don’t quote me on that part

. Solids went to the oil cooler and partially plugged it up, they flew it home with a high oil temp. It failed a visual hot section inspection because the combustion liner (diffuser that keeps the gas inside away from the walls and flowing how it needs to flow) had cracks inside.
 
DirtRoads said:
Been a few years but I think it went like this

That aircraft has an allusion 250 turbo shaft engine. They’re super common. They require a cooldown period at idle between the flight power setting and shutdown

I think it is 5 minutes, could be 2 or three. That is a pilot question.

Since they didn’t do that, the oil sat in the bearings around the hot section, it broke down and created solids. It’s called coking, I believe it is carbon suspended in the oil that comes out. Of suspension in chunks but don’t quote me on that part

. Solids went to the oil cooler and partially plugged it up, they flew it home with a high oil temp. It failed a visual hot section inspection because the combustion liner (diffuser that keeps the gas inside away from the walls and flowing how it needs to flow) had cracks inside.
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Makes sense. Thank you!
 
DirtRoads said:
Been a few years but I think it went like this

That aircraft has an allusion 250 turbo shaft engine. They’re super common. They require a cooldown period at idle between the flight power setting and shutdown

I think it is 5 minutes, could be 2 or three. That is a pilot question.

Since they didn’t do that, the oil sat in the bearings around the hot section, it broke down and created solids. It’s called coking, I believe it is carbon suspended in the oil that comes out. Of suspension in chunks but don’t quote me on that part

. Solids went to the oil cooler and partially plugged it up, they flew it home with a high oil temp. It failed a visual hot section inspection because the combustion liner (diffuser that keeps the gas inside away from the walls and flowing how it needs to flow) had cracks inside.
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Coking is actually the process of the oil cross linking itself into longer chains until it becomes solid. Kind of like baking cake batter. Coke is the solids that result pretty analogous to coal.
 
IO-360 good times. Without even reading past the first post I know that’s the engine 😂

They get carbon on the valves and will intermittently die and sputter with no fault found.
 
Ebs said:
loud pipes save lives
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Funny how if I drive around with loud exhaust ill get a ticket.

A plane runs open headers and "that's ok"
Some of them shits that fly over my land are stupid loud. To the point I've had to wear ear pro while working outside cause I get tired of my ears being raped.
 
AKnate said:
Funny how if I drive around with loud exhaust ill get a ticket.

A plane runs open headers and "that's ok"
Some of them shits that fly over my land are stupid loud. To the point I've had to wear ear pro while working outside cause I get tired of my ears being raped.
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Well you sure don’t want to know about them spewing leaded fuel exhaust all over you at the same time.
 
Kyle said:
IO-360 good times. Without even reading past the first post I know that’s the engine 😂

They get carbon on the valves and will intermittently die and sputter with no fault found.
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I was dumb enough to be a pilot in a former life. Tail dragger too, big radial engines then later lycomings

But even I am smart enough to never set foot in any chopper that is not turbine driven.
 
Black Sabbath said:
Coking is actually the process of the oil cross linking itself into longer chains until it becomes solid. Kind of like baking cake batter. Coke is the solids that result pretty analogous to coal.
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Early turbo Motorsports engines had similar issues with cooking the oil until it coked. Synthetic oil technology and better oil cooling mostly solved those issues. I recall the early Audi turbo rally cars running a circulating pump for the oil post shut down so the oil did not sit in the turbo and cook off. Resulted in killing the turbo bearings usually.
 
Yota Up said:
So, you tell me. Could he actually have done something bad, could something have gone wrong? I figured if he doesn't have the key(do they have keys?), then no harm no foul.
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If the pilot went through the whole checklist on start up, probably not. But if he didn’t, (likly) could be a problem. Example do you check if your headlights are on when you get in your car?

Poke said:
How hard of a landing is that? 188’ drop every 7.5 seconds?
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They say a parachute comes down 900’ per minute. So 1500- 1800 is not that bad, but if you hit the ground at that, you have crashed. I flared before landing, so the actual touchdown wasn’t much harder than normal. In fact, students land harder than that many times.

DirtRoads said:
Been a few years but I think it went like this

That aircraft has an allusion 250 turbo shaft engine. They’re super common. They require a cooldown period at idle between the flight power setting and shutdown

I think it is 5 minutes, could be 2 or three. That is a pilot question.

Since they didn’t do that, the oil sat in the bearings around the hot section, it broke down and created solids. It’s called coking, I believe it is carbon suspended in the oil that comes out. Of suspension in chunks but don’t quote me on that part

. Solids went to the oil cooler and partially plugged it up, they flew it home with a high oil temp. It failed a visual hot section inspection because the combustion liner (diffuser that keeps the gas inside away from the walls and flowing how it needs to flow) had cracks inside.
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While that is all correct, I’ve never heard of shutting down one time causing a problem. I’m not familiar with that engine. That sucks.
 
DirtRoads said:
We had a student hold his thumb on the idle stop on a 206. The instructor rolled it to idle for a practice auto, and she unknowingly shut the engine down.

They safely landed the full down, cranked it back up and came home. Since they didn’t do the 5 minute cool down, the engine had coking problems and ended up needing an overhaul. Good times.
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Ok, what’s the 5 minute cool down rule and wtf is coking and why did this result in an engine overhaul? Why why why???
 
WaterH said:
No, I don’t think I’m legal to instruct in a Robinson. There are stupid FAA rules about them. I could get legal pretty easy, but I have no desire.



I do and we had done a number of normal autorotations. The “governor on auto” is an invention of mine to make it easier/safer for a student to practice. One of the big screw ups students will do is pull collective at the bottom without enough throttle first. The result usually doesn’t kill anyone, but it sure can get expensive.

To answer your question, I did not go over this auto.



My piloting skills were good that day, my judgment was not. Both are required. On that note, my student thinks I’m a god now and I think I’m a dumb shit.
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Do you have to report something like this? And if so, does it get investigated?
 
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