Robinson R-44 Video Preflight
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We're going to get started with the Robinson R-44 Preflight and I'm using the Robinson R44 POH on iPad. First, remove all covers and tie downs. We have the aircraft hangered so there are no tie downs whatsoever on the aircraft, so we're good to go there. Remove even small accumulations of frost, ice or snow especially from rotor blades. No problem, again we're inside. Check maintenance records to verify aircraft is airworthy. I went through that in our preparation video for the trip back home why we believe that this aircraft is airworthy as far as all the inspections and service bulletins. An 8 foot step ladder is recommended for a preflight inspection of the main rotor.
Robinson R-44 Video Preflight
However, the main rotor may be reached by first opening the right rear seat and stepping on the seat support and then stepping on deck below the auxiliary fuel tank. Let's take a look at that. It is acceptable, lift the seat up and it says on the seat support so that should be right here. Then you can step right here and it shows it has 2 words, step here, with an arrow so it's acceptable to stand right here. Next, we have the general condition of aircraft to verify no visible damage, fluid leakage or abnormal ware. What I want to point out is we're inside in a hangar so I'm going to leave some of these panels open as we're opening up the doors.
In general, I don't leave doors open on an aircraft, even if I'm going to open the door and I'm going to come back in just 30 seconds or in 5 minutes I close the door. I first got that from one of the young guys I flew with many years ago and he said, "Anytime you open the door, you close it back up and you latch it, even if you're coming right back." The reason is and I totally get this because I've seen what happens later, you get lazy and you're on a ramp somewhere and you have a door open or a cowling open and then you got to do something, you're coming right back another helicopter lands in or lands besides you and in my example a Sikorsky comes in.
Robinson R-44 Video Preflight
It almost blew the door off of the Jet Ranger I was flying. If that door would have got damaged that'd been thousands of dollars a damage and now you felt like a total piece of crap for letting that happen. Since we're inside and the hangar's doors closed, nobody around, I am going to leave certain panels as we're going around the aircraft but I don't generally do that. Generally, if I open something up I latch it back up even if I'm coming right back in just a couple of minutes. Back to the general condition of the aircraft, since it's been back there's a couple little drips of oil on the floor so we keep an eye on that. You want to take a general overview of how does the aircraft look.
Anything that seems abnormal you want to check out right away and figure out what's going on. We had an example, one place I worked where all of a sudden one day I went to work and noticed the landing gears all mangled and nobody fess up and we checked the log sheets for helicopter what just so happen the owner's son who was the last one to fly the aircraft and of course he didn't do it, and the guy before him said he didn't do it. Nobody ever fess up to who mangled the landing gear on this helicopter, so it does happen where somebody will damage something, you come back in, put it away and they don't tell anybody they just leave.
Robinson R-44 Video Preflight
Before you even get started a full general look over the whole entire aircraft make sure that nothing looks out of place, how's the aircraft sitting, is it sitting normal, just general overview of everything. Next it says, verify no fretting at seams where parts are joined together. Fretting of aluminum parts produces a fine black powder while fretting of steel parts produces a reddish-brown or black residue. During the preflight we're working our way around. We all be looking at the rivets along the aircraft making sure that there's no fretting.
Verify Telatemp show no temperature increase that cannot be attributed to a change in operating conditions, mechanics draw a reference line to the right of the highest temperature square which is darkened in operation. Verify torque stripes on critical fasteners are not broken or missing. We're going to check those Telatemps as we go around the aircraft.
Robinson R-44 Video Preflight
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