Robinson R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
Jul 27, 2018Robinson R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
Hey it's Kenny with Helicopter Online Ground School. The video below is a sample of the Robinson R-22 Pre-Flight videos inside our training site! We now have 39 Robinson R-22 specific training videos in the Robinson R-22 addition to our membership. We are very proud of these presentations!
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Robinson R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
"All right, so now we're going to move on and check the actual blade itself. Super important check, you want to make sure that everything on this blade is how it should be, otherwise, something could go wrong in flight, and then at that point, you don't have a blade anymore, so this is a super important check.
When we're down here at the tip of the blade, you want to check this tip weight here. There should be 2 screws that should be secure there, that you don't have any looseness there. It's spinning at high speed so it should be very secure.
You also want to check this drain hole. Just like you do on the tail rotor, you want to make sure that those are free so that if any water gets in there, it can drain out, it won't throw off the weight of the blade itself.
Robinson R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
The next big thing that we want to check on the blade is for lamination. We have this leading edge bar that we have right up here on the front, and it connects to the rest of the blade here at this bond line. This is a super important part that you want to check. You want to run your finger up and down it. You want to make sure that the paint hasn't been eaten away to that bond line. Once it does, it needs to be repainted immediately. You don't want to fly it once that paint does get up to that point. You just want to run your hand up and down and make sure it's smooth and that that paint hasn't gone too far there.
You want to do the same on the bottom as well. They also have a bond line here, and you can see a little bit better what happens if that paint does get eaten away and that bond line starts to tear apart. You have that bonded right here, and once that paint gets eaten away, you start getting dirt and bugs and air that starts eating away there, and eventually, this will just fold down like that, and at that point, you don't have a smooth airfoil anymore, and this becomes delaminated, so that's super important to check and make sure that that is all secure.
You also want to check this trailing edge here. Make sure there's no dents, that's all smooth there. Then I like to just take a step back, look at the entire blade as a whole, make sure there's no cracks anywhere up the blade, anything that indicates any obvious wear or damage that you can't fly with.
All right, so now we're going to jump up and check everything on the main rotor hub. You're going to have to step up in order to reach all that stuff. Biggest thing as far as doing this, this cross tube right here can't handle the weight of being stepped on. It's actually placarded. It says "No Step," so we can't put any weight on that. This is actually going to be your step right here, so this is where you want to plant your foot. What I like to do is I grab this frame back here, plant one foot up here, and then you want to grab the gas cap just to brace yourself. You're not pulling yourself up by the gas cap, but you can just brace yourself, balance yourself using that, and then you just step up on this step here.
R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
Once we get up here, you want to check visually and physically just this general condition of this cowling that we have here. You want to make sure there's no dents, any obvious problems there. Want to make sure all these screws are tight. These rivets, you want to check for fretting, anything like that.
On this petot tube up here, as you come around the front, you want to make sure that that's clear and unobstruction. If you can see the front while you're up here, then you can do that. If not, I can't really reach it, you can step down and actually walk around and check the front for any bugs, anything like that. Then we'll move around, check the other side. Again, just visually and physically, and make sure there's no dents, anything like that in there.
Then we'll go ahead and move up to our main rotor hub here. We'll start here. We have these control rods. These are what actually transmits or inputs from the controls up to the main rotor hub up here, so you want to make sure that these are secure. Want to check all the bolts and nuts and all that. Here we have one control rod right here, one control rod over here. You want to move them up and down, make sure they can move back and forth, but shouldn't have any play up or down. Then you have another control rod over on this other side here that if you can reach it, you definitely want to check that as well, but you're going to have to reach your hand around the other side.
You also want to check we have our stationary swashplate here. This doesn't rotate with everything. This is what these control rods actually move and transmit our input, so you want to make sure that'll move back and forth a little bit, but it shouldn't have any excessive play in it or anything like that. That's about as much as you want for it to move there.
Robinson R-22 Preflight Rotor System Training Video
All right, so now we're going to move to the rotating swashplate here. Just like the stationary swashplate, you want to check for any excessive play back and forth. It may have a little bit like this, but you don't want it to excessively move back and forth, anything like that. You also want to check this boot here. You want to check the top and the middle as well as the bottom here for any grease, anything leaking out of it. If you get any grease leaking out of it, it could indicate a possible bearing failure that may be coming up, so you want to check that.
Then we'll move over to our pitch change links over here. You want to basically move back and forth, just like our control rods, but there shouldn't be any play up or down. You want to check these bolts at the bottom and at the top. You want to check the torque striping and check that they are tight as well. We want to check that the safety wires are installed. These are important safety wires so that if this pitch link were to fail, it would still stay attached so that you could get he helicopter on the ground, so these are here, the last resort to hold those pitch links on.
You want to come around, check the other side too. Same thing, it should move back and forth but not up or down. Check all the bolts and the torque striping, as long as you can reach all that. You can move everything around as you need in order to check everything as well.
Moving our way up, you want to check these weights here. These are for balance. It balances with this scissor that we have over here, so you want to make sure that those are secure. Again, torque striping's lined up.
So this is the rotating scissor here. You want to make sure of the condition of that, that that's tight, all these bolts are secure. This is actually what attaches from our main rotor drive shaft and what turns the rotating swashplate and the pitch links, all that kind of thing, so you want to make sure that that is secure as well.
Now we're going to go ahead and rotate the blades around here a little bit. You also want to check these static stops too as well, if you can see that. I turned it a little earlier there. You want to make sure there's not cracking or anything like that. When you push up on the blade, that's what actually stops it from being pushed too far down so that it doesn't hit the tail rotor as it spins around.
So go ahead and rotate the blades around this way. That way we can check our bolts up here. Now you have a better view of this is our coning hinge here. You want to go around and check all the bolts around the coning hinge. Make sure those are all secure and all the torque striping lines up on all those bolts. You also want to check this boot as well. Again, check for any grease, anything leaking out of it, just as this [inaudible 00:06:47] could indicate a bearing failure that's about to occur.
Then we're going to move over to our main rotor bolts here. All right, so we want to check our coning hinges here. These two are what allow the blades to both move up as the result of lifting and coning, which we'll cover in other ground school videos, but these bolts are what allows the blades to cone. You want to check those. You have torque striping again on these. That should all line up. They should be tight and not loose at all. We also have cotter pins going through them. You want to make sure that those cotter pins are there and are secure.
All right, so this is our main rotor bolt, probably the most important bolt on the helicopter. This is what actually keeps our blades attached to the rest of the helicopter, so you definitely want to check this. It also allows the blades to flap so it's called a flapping hinge. In this, you want to, again, make sure it's tight. Check the torque striping as well as the cotter pin, the same as the other bolts.
All right, so once you've checked on this side, all the coning hinges and the feather bearing and flapping hinge, you want to go ahead and just spin the blades around. Grab either the trailing edge or the leading edge of the blade. Use gentle pressure to push it around as much as you can. Once you get it about halfway around, then reach around, grab the other side and pull it the rest of the way around.
Then again, just as we did the other side, feather bearing, check all the nuts, coning hinges, cotter pins, torque striping, flapping hinge there. Just make sure everything is the way it should be as we checked on the other side."
