Those that have been around Rotorways for a while will have noticed that many ships have reversed the front landing gear and then extended and reinforced the skids. About 25 years ago Greg Anderson hired me to travel to Rapid City, SD to go over his new kit and to make recommendations as to what improvements I would make to the kit if it was my own. The Rotorway community had lost a number of helicopters due to rolling over during emergency or precautionary run-on landings. The first change that I suggested was to improve the helicopters ability to perform a run-on landing without the helicopter experiencing a dynamic rollover. Today most 162f gear and several Talon gear have incorporated this modification which allows a much more robust support for that one time that you need to slide it in. You can read the full story and view photos of the mod by clicking the green button at the top of the page, go to Hints and Tips, then Landing gear. Happy and safe flying.

Many have noticed that the Talon landing gear is weaker than the 162F landing gear and spreads outward with time and non-perfect set downs. It is common to see folks use ratchet straps to pull the rear gear legs toward each other to load the helicopter on a trailer. When you see some Talons their tail boom sits lower to the ground than the 162Fs due to the rear gear spread. One of my students had a simple solution to the gear spread. He used a bar of 1/4" steel rod welded to end plates and then the end plate was bolted onto a connector that wrapped around the read landing gear leg just below the step. I have also seen similar fixes using cable and turnbuckles.

In the summer time
Many of our helicopter engines run hot so I have been installing this simple modification for years now and it works great. The common way most owners have used is to piggy back an auxiliary oil cooling radiator above or below the coolant radiator. This helps a little bit but either the aux cooler is being cooled by hot air that has been heated by the radiator or the radiator is being cooled by hot air from the aux oil cooler.

The simplest and most effective solution that I have found is to add an 18” transmission cooler pictured below. It is a simple add on with all plumbing exposed and easy to inspect. It also lies just inside of the lower passenger side body cut out so it is cooled by unheated air flowing into that opening with no need for a fan.

If you are flying a Rotorway that is over 10 years old you need to verify that the fuel tank outlet fitting has been modified with the addition of the internal washer to secure it securely inside of the fuel tank. I had one fall out at altitude on a customers helicopter and we are fortunate to be alive. I heckled Rotorway to add this mod to their kits and eventually after several other fitting incidents they finally made the change. For a full discussion on this go to my web site info at the green button at the top of this page, click on Hints and Tips, and then Fuel System.

I have an A600 Talon that the owner landed in a residential cul-de-sac and was reported to the FAA by a homeowner, he lost his license as a result and so parked the helicopter for about 7 years, it only had around 60 hours on it when it was parked. I recently got the job of bringing it back to airworthiness. I drained and purged the fuel system, lubricated all of the service points, drained and added fresh oil and filter, installed new elastomeric bearings, a new battery, and performed a few other maintenance items. The helicopter fired right up and ran smoothly so I lifted off solo and put about an hour of hover on it. 

Next I asked my 230# buddy to be my ballast weight to see how it flew with full fuel and at gross weight. As we brought the engine up to full RPM all was running smoothly, then I added collective and when we reached around 26" of MP the engine had a slight miss, it was no longer running perfectly smooth. I elected to keep it at that power setting to allow the SEA FOAM that I had added to the fuel to clean the injectors before we picked up. We ran at that power setting for about 3 minutes when all of a sudden the engine seized immediately. I was very happy that when this happened we were still firmly on the ground and there was no damage to the helicopter. Had it been at altitude then you never know how the auto will actually turn out. 

On Inspection once the engine cooled down I was able to rotate it about 15 degrees in either direction with a hard stop at each end. It appears that this engine was another one of those stock Rotorway engines that have experienced a broken crankshaft. The factory did not line bore the main bearing journals all the way through, they went from one end to the center then bored from the other end to the center often causing the journals to be out of line by several thousands of an inch. When the case is torqued around the new crankshaft that shaft is slightly bent and runs that way until if finally breaks at its weak point. Joe Huff has seen a number of these breaks as I have as well. The only solution is to install a properly designed crank as Joe does when he does his engine conversion on the reworked case that has been perfectly line bored by Joe. One of my own ships had a catastrophic engine failure at around 200 hours so I had Joe Huff build a great engine for me. 

So we have a complete A600 Talon with an engine core that either needs a replacement engine or have this one sent to Joe Huff for a complete conversion to the 172 engine. The owner does not want to put any more money into the helicopter so it would be a great buy for someone who wants to get a Talon with the Joe Huff engine conversion. 

If you are flying with a stock Rotorway engine you may have a well aligned crankshaft or you may have one that is fatiguing with each hour of flight. I now have three helicopters in my hangar that have experienced this catastrophic engine failure, two while at altitude and this on on the ground. Two are flying now thanks to Joe Huff, the third will be flying again for a new owner who wants to upgrade.

(07-03-2026, 11:33 AM)Orv Neisingh Wrote:

I will try this again as the first attempt did not seem to post. A few years ago before Joe Huff was offering his engine building services as fellow in Montana by the name of Kasey advertised that he was an engine expert and would rebuild Rotorway engines that needed service. I personally know of three of those engines that blew up and was flying in two Rotorways when those engines came apart in flight. If anyone is interested we can discuss what this person did to destroy our engines. 

I recently began working on a Talon that has sat unused for several years. The fuel had turned to varnish so the entire fuel system needed to be flushed out and fresh fuel added. When I got the engine running it ran rough so I added a bottle of Sea Foam to the fuel tanks and topped off with fresh fuel. My client and I hovered the helicopter for about 30 minutes and it was amazing how the sea foam cleaned out every old deposit and the engine just idled perfectly and ran great at full power.

we all know the factory is gone, but the machines live on building time, hours, and wear.

we have wonderful support for parts with Robin, Chris, and Homer doing an amazing job of sourcing new manufacturing resources aswell as cataloging and selling off new old stock.

i fear there are a few things that will come up and be a hard stop for some people that may require a work around since off the shelf isnt exactly available for some of the things rotorway sourced.

the Swashplate bearing is one of those items, it sits somewhat exposed with just a thin rubber seal but that can still hold water on top of it if a machine is left neglected in a semi assembled manor which so many are. mine included... i've been looking for a reasonable swashplate bearing thats not $1200+ that wont require additional machining of the factory parts. i dont like straying away from the factory known design too far in this regard so i wanted to hear the community thoughts on items like this, or if there's any other consumable items that have been of concern. i'm super happy Elastomerics seem to be under control!

There have been several of my clients who have installed lithium batteries into their Rotorway helicopters recently. I new very little about lithium batteries until one ship that I was instructing in recently suddenly had a complete electrical failure and engine out at altitude. I was able to perform a successful autorotation into a small field with no damage to us or the helicopter other than a slight bend in one skid. When the engine quit so did all of the electronic instruments and I had no airspeed or rotor rpm displays so it made performing a successful auto pretty intense. 

On examination we found both of the 30 amp fuses near the alternator blown shutting all power from the alternator. The ship was running only on the lithium battery and showing 12.7 volts in flight. After about 45 minutes of flight the battery was depleted to the point that the internal circuitry shut off all power to the electrical system even though it had been displaying 12.7 volts up until the time of the electrical shut off. We researched the issue and there is a complete and reliable fix to the electrical system that we can discuss if anyone is interested. Don't let this happen to you.

I have listed on my site a 162F with very low time that has just lowered the price to $44k , this a well built ship that still has the chain and no radios. Only has test and adjustment times. I have hovered the machine and it is reasonably smooth, but will require finial adjustments make at some point. I have a cog belt available if buyer wants one. Also have some radios.
This ship has not been registered yet so buyer could get that done and list himself as the builder so he could do all annual inspections. There are people who can help with that if needed.
If interested, call me 937-477-6911
Homer