I didn't like the mushy feeling when torquing the 5 bolts to 14 ftlbs.
So I milled off a 1/16" on the top wood filler blocks.
And milled off 1/4" on the bottom wood filler blocks.
And replaced them with 1/16" steel and 1/4" aluminum plates.
Now the bolts torque up nice and solid and the steel straps don't dig into the wood filler blocks.
Also the blade straps are straight and not wavy, because the bolts, when torqued, warp the straps.
Put a straight edge on length ways, on top of your straps, you'll see what I'm talking about. See less

Jared, can you add pdf files to post like we do jpgs?
I had to convert my pdf to a jpg before I could post it.

The two 30 amp fuses that protect the two circuits from the alternator have a problem. One fuse protects the wire that goes to the battery for charging and the other fuse protects the wire that goes to the overhead panel from the alternator. A proper pre-flight inspection would have the pilot remove the rubber cap over the fuse every time to check to see if one of the fuses has blown. If one fuse is blown the system will still work because all of the engine systems are fed from both the battery and the alternator in the standard Rotorway wiring configuration. 

How many of you actually remove the rubber cap and inspect those fuses on every pre-flight? I know that I did not. If one of the fuses has blown then we are flying with only half of the electrical system powering the overhead. If the other fuse should then blow it will shut off all alternator power to the overhead panel. 

A simple solution is to install reset able breakers to replace the fuses. If the breaker trips a red flag drops down and is easily seen during your preflight inspection. With a standard battery installed it would require two 30 amp breakers to replace the fuses. If Lithium batteries are installed then it may require a 30 amp breaker to feed the overhead and a 60 amp breaker and heavier wiring to feed the battery. Along with that a special voltage regulator for lithium batteries must also be installed. In the photo below you can see the installation of the breakers and also the wires from the alternator run through an amp sensor to give me an amperage reading on my instrument panel so that I can verify that current is flowing from the alternator during flight verifying that my electrical system is in proper order.

Has anyone contacted Ron Curry to see if he would release the ROG archives to Jared.
It would be a shame to just let all that information go away.
This forum would "take off" if that information was available here!

I have received a bunch of messages requesting more information on the Fatal Flaw in the overhead electrical wiring panel on the 162Fs and Talons. What made me aware of this wiring issue occurred when I was flying with a student in his 162f when suddenly the entire electrical system shut down. Since the engine ignition, fuel pumps and FADECs are all controlled by the electrical system, the helicopter got real quiet at 500' AGL. 

I was able to perform a safe auto to a grass field below us and upon inspection found that both of the 30 amp fuses at the Alternator were blown. Looking further I found that the 30 amp fuses in the overhead panel had also blown cutting off all power from the battery. How could this happen? We have redundant systems to prevent just such a dangerous condition from occurring. 

I got the wiring diagram out and traced out the power feeds from the alternator to the overhead pane, the feed from the battery to the overhead panel, and the feed from the alternator to the battery. What I noticed was that both of the "REDUNDANT" systems shared the same power feeds from the alternator and the battery, they were not separated but jumpers went from one 30 amp fuse to the next to the next in the overhead panel. The designers idea was that if one supply failed the jumpers would carry the power from the other supply over to the other system and the pilot would not ever know that there was a failure of one power feed. 

This worked but... what if one of the power feed wires should short out to ground...Power would surge to the short blowing every fuse in the path between the short and the power source. Now that made sense so we began inspecting the power feed wire originating at the alternator and traveling up along the frame to the overhead. At one point the wire was rubbing on the sharp metal edge of a frame bracket and when the insulation rubbed through, the wire shorted directly to the frame taking out every fuse in the power feed system to critical components needed to run the engine. 

The fix for this flaw in the wiring was to isolate one FADEC, fuel pump, and ignition system completely from the other, not by just switches but by separating the power feeds themselves. After replacing the alternator feed wire that had shorted out, and the blown fuses, we change the wiring overhead. We ran the alternator power through one 30 amp fuse in the overhead then to the individual fuses that protected one FADEC, one fuel pump and one ignition system. We then ran the power feed from the battery through a 30 amp fuse to the other fuses that protect the other FADEC, fuel pump and ignition system. With this new wiring routing if one power feed would short out, one system would shut off and the pilot would immediately know that there was an issue as they would get a FADEC warning light, but the other system would continue to keep the engine running and the occupants safe.

Above is a photo of what I observed on a students 162F when I arrived to give it the condition inspection prior to beginning his flight training. This owner had recently purchased the helicopter without a pre-purchase inspection and there were so many things wrong with it mechanically that it took a week of working on it to get it airworthy. At $1200 per day for my time, it cost him $8400 plus my travel and lodging just to get the ship ready for flight training. If he had hired someone knowledgeable like Homer or myself to do the pre-purchase inspection, he would have known the condition of the helicopter and could have factored that into the purchase price. 

I have an idea of why the previous owner bent the rod end on the top of the collective control rod, but it was bent and un-airworthy. It was replaced with a new one along with other needed replacement parts that Robin sent to us overnight. From the photo it is obvious that the passenger side of the doghouse was positioned too close to the collective controls during the body alignment. The doghouse lip prevented the collective control rod and rod end to align with the collective fork lever so the builder simply bent the rod end shank to get a better angle as well as hacked away the fiberglass on the doghouse. 

Bending the rod den shank like that can introduce stress cracks leading to eventual break and separation. Imagine what the rotor system on that helicopter would have done had the helicopter been flown and that rod end broke allowing the main rotor blades to go to full pitch and stay there until they stalled. That would have been another lawn dart story for us to learn by.  

You can also see where the doghouse was cut, the raw edge of the fiberglass is rubbing on the soft aluminum control rod. IF that was the only issue, and it is not, the fiberglass would erode the aluminum tube at the contact point weakening it and that eventually could have caused another disaster in flight. 

The hack job on the dog house lip fiberglass is just one indication of the overall build quality of the entire helicopter. There are some really great builds out there and then there are horrible builds that can get someone killed if they try to fly them.

As I was on the airliner to my students location to begin his flight training in his Rotorway Exec 90, he was checking his chain master link by slowly turning the main rotor by hand while looking down through the window in the chain bath to inspect the master link of the drive chain. He inadvertently steadied himself by putting his other hand on the non -rotating swashplate. When the rotating swashplate came around his finger was crushed and torn open between the two. He was there alone and due to the one way clutch (Sprague) that prevented the rotor system from reversing, he had to push the rotors further to finish tearing through his finger to free it. I took this photo when he arrived back from the hospital emergency room. Be careful where you put your hands around moving parts.

Another area of control movement that may be an issue on your helicopter is that you should not fly with the passenger collective control installed unless flight training is taking place. When you fly solo you will usually need more right cyclic travel to offset the shift in CG to the left. I suggest you try this if you have not already done so: Install your passenger collective control. Now sit in the pilot seat of your helicopter, finished or not, and raise the collective to the normal flight position, about parallel with your center thigh. Now move the cyclic control to the right as far as you can. You will find that your right thigh may be sandwiched between the pilot's cyclic control and the passenger's collective control. Now lift your right leg out of the way and see how much more cyclic travel you are able to achieve without your leg in the way. This is why I advise all of my students to remove the center collective control while practicing their solo flight maneuvers.

looking for confirmation on the tail rotor pulley placement on the shaft,

the book says 1/2" toward tail rotor side,

i'm assuming this is pulley/belt centerline, and not off the edge of the pulley.

Several years ago received a phone call from the son-in-law of a former student and friend. He informed me that while returning from a fly-in event his father-in-law was involved in a fatal crash of his Rotorway helicopter. The news hit me particularly hard because the victim of this crash was one of my former students from several years prior. I had spent nearly 30 hours strapped into the passenger seat of his helicopter providing him with his helicopter flight instruction. What had gone wrong? How could this happen? There were many unanswered questions swirling around in my mind as I attempted to gain perspective on this tragic event.

Over the next several days I was able to gather bits and pieces of information that filled in some of the blanks in the train of events that led to the accident. There was one witness who heard the helicopter fly over, and then saw it drop vertically from the sky. The helicopter’s vertical stabilizer was found some distance from the wreckage along the helicopter’s flight path. Speculation at first was that the departure of the vertical stabilizer had caused a condition in which the pilot was unable to control the helicopter. It was thought that due to a forward shift of the helicopter’s center of gravity the nose had pitched forward and that it had crashed as a result. It is possible that this may have been a factor in the crash case but other evidence points to another possibility.
It was reported that the helicopter was seen falling vertically without the blades turning. The crash site photos showed an impact crater that looked to be over a foot deep in the soft ground where the helicopter landed. Other photos indicate that neither the main rotors or the tail rotors were turning at the time of ground impact. All of this would indicate the probability that the helicopter had experienced a condition known as Rotor Stall. This aerodynamic phenomenon occurs when the speed of the main rotors declines to the point that the aerodynamic drag on the main rotor blades becomes greater than the engine’s ability to keep them turning with the result being a rapid increase of drag on the rotors leading to their stoppage.

It is needless to say that once the main rotors of a helicopter stop, they can no longer produce lift and the helicopter will from the sky. This scenario appears to be what may have happened in the case we are discussing. One can assume that prior to the vertical stabilizer departing the helicopter it would have made some unusual noise, vibration, or both that alerted the pilot that something was wrong. I always teach my helicopter students “If in doubt, auto out”. This means that if something occurs out of the ordinary; an unexpected noise, an unusual smell, or maybe just a feeling that something is wrong, the first action that the pilot should take is to enter an autorotation, pick an appropriate landing spot, and then if time permits on the way down the pilot can try to determine the cause of the unusual event.

There is one indisputable fact that every helicopter pilot must be aware of and must practice at all times, maintain main rotor RPM. The first law of helicopter flying is “Those who loose rotor RPM will surely die”. It is not a pleasant thought but it is an aerodynamic reality. No matter what happens while piloting a helicopter, it is the pilot’s foremost responsibility to maintain the main rotor rpm within the range prescribed by the manufacturer.
It is likely that my former student became aware of the problem of the vertical stabilizer becoming detached from the tail boom and became distracted by trying to determine the cause of the unusual indications that he was getting. When flying a helicopter without an engine governor, it would be easy to fixate on a problem and to not pay attention to the one indicator that must be maintained at all times, the main rotor RPM needle. The main rotors of a helicopter will stall at some point where the RPM drops below the RPM indicated by the redline on the rotor RPM gauge.

Mark, Jim’s son-in-law asked me to get the word out to the experimental helicopter community on the possible causes of this tragic accident in the hopes that others may not find themselves in the same situation. The Vertical Stabilizer separated due to the builder drilling two holes in the attachment bracket instead of the one hole that is called for in the plans. One of the holes had a sharp nick on it where a crack began and propagated along the bracket until it broke, allowing the stabilizer to depart the ship. See the photo below of the offending bracket.

[font][font]It is very important to check the integrity of the stabilizer bracket before every flight. [/font][/font]
Back in January I received a phone call from the hospital room of another former student of mine. When I first talked with Jim Dorman he had told me that his dream was to fly as a medevac helicopter pilot. I suggested that he gain the required 1500 hours in an experimental helicopter and to then get his instrument ticket in a certified machine. Following our flight instruction sessions, Jim had accumulated over 1400 hours in his Rotorway 162F helicopter. He was having the time of his life flying all over the Kansas City, Kansas area with his wife Mia navigating from the passenger seat. Many of Jim’s flights were with his hangar mate Don (another former student) who flew his own Rotorway 162F.

Jim kept his Rotorway well maintained and flew it at every opportunity. As with all of my students I instructed Jim and Don to check and verify the tension on the tail rotor drive belt in two locations prior to every flight. First a simple squeeze test is performed by reaching up between the frame members at the first tail boom bulkhead. The belt is squeezed and the pilot determines if the belts are tight or loose by the tension felt. The pilot then verifies his findings by using the belt tension tool to check the tension of the rear drive belt. If the belt pulley swing arms are free to move as they are designed the two tension tests will verify one another. If there is a discrepancy in the two tension measurements, the pilot investigates to determine the reason for the discrepancy.
This is a very simple but important check that should be performed prior to each flight. The process is quite simple and fast if the rear body panels are removed. If a belt tension adjustment is indicated the aft tail boom covers must be removed to allow access to the tension adjustment mechanism. The Rotorway helicopters look much better when they are flown with all of their covers and body panels in place. Once they are all in place it takes time to remove them to make the tension checks and adjustments. I always leave these panels off the helicopters when I am instructing a student so that we have easy access to make inspections and adjustments prior to every flight.
Jim and Mia departed from their home airport and flew to New Century airport in Eastern Kansas where they joined up with Don Eikel. Together they flew their two helicopters to the Paola Kansas airport to have lunch at the on-field restaurant. Jim had all of the helicopter inspection covers and panels installed. He used his belt tension tool to check the tail rotor belt tension prior to boarding his helicopter. He noted that the belt tension was on the loose side of the range but still within the factory specified range where it had been for the past 100 hours. Jim recalled that I had instructed him to never run the belts on the loose side of the middle mark but the factory instructions indicated that running the belts in that range was acceptable.
Jim had secured a hangar at a different airport so when they got close to home Jim and Don went their separate ways. The area over which he was flying had plenty of open areas interspersed with patches of dense forest. (Another important technique that I instruct my students to follow is to avoid over flying anything that they do not want to land in. Altitude is our friend and with sufficient altitude we can usually keep our helicopters within autorotation range of suitable emergency landing areas.)
Jim decided to cut across a densely forested area to expedite the trip home. About midway across this patch of forest Jim heard and felt several bangs behind him followed by a left yaw of the nose. He immediately entered an autorotation and looked for a suitable opening in the forest in which to land the helicopter. As he rapidly scanned the area ahead and to the sides there it became apparent that he had only one option, he was going to be forced to flare his beloved helicopter into the tops of the trees and hope for the best.
Jim headed for an area where the canopy looked a bit less dense. He remembered the first rule of helicopter survival: “maintain rotor RPM” and the second rule “always fly the helicopter”. By immediately entering and maintaining an autorotation Jim was able to maintain main rotor RPM in the proper range. Even though his landing options were next to non-existent Jim continued to “fly the helicopter” by maintaining airspeed to allow for the all-important flare that he knew he would need to execute to slow the helicopter as he descended into the forest canopy.
As the tree tops rushed up to meet them, Jim told Mia to hold on as he executed a perfect flare just above the tree tops. He said that he continued to fly the helicopter as it fell through the tree branches chopping wood all the way down. The ride down felt like slow motion to both Jim and Mia. At some point during the crashing, chopping, ripping and twisting ride through the oak tree canopy the helicopter rolled onto it’s left side and impacted the ground as Jim continued to manipulate the controls. Jim and Mia were alive!

As they lay on the ground inside the battered fuselage fuel began pouring from the fuel sender fitting (due to the weak attaching method Rotorway uses for attaching the fuel sender. If you are flying a Rotorway, now is a good time to modify this attachment with rivets or nut plates installed on the inside of the tank flange). Jim yelled for Mia to get out fearing that the helicopter would burst into flames. Before he unbuckled his seat belt he flipped off all of the electrical switches and turned the fuel valve to the off position. He then unbuckled the seat belt and fell to the ground on his back but could not exit the helicopter because his left leg was pinned between the instrument console and a large tree branch. The impact of the crash snapped the pilot cyclic control and it was also wedged against his leg. Mia scrambled out of the wreckage and tried to free Jim’s trapped leg before the gushing fuel might be ignited by the hot engine. It was no use, his left leg had sustained double compound fractures with the bones sticking out of his pant leg and the lower part of his leg was held fast between the instrument panel and the tree.
The couple joined forces and with his right leg Jim pushed up with all of his might on the instrument panel and Mia lifted the nose of the helicopter with all the strength that she had. The wreckage shifted just enough that Jim was able to grab his leg with both hands slide it free. The leg flopped onto the ground with both leg bones protruding from his torn flesh and ripped pant leg. With Mia’s help he was able to semi crab crawl away from the ship.
It was immediately obvious that Jim needed immediate medical attention. Since Mia had sustained only a few minor scratches in the accident and because the fuel had not ignited Jim asked her if she still had her camera, she did. He asked her to start taking pictures and those are the photos that you are viewing in this article.
As he lay on the ground he looked around and noticed that laying right next to him were two branches that had been chopped off by the main rotors and a roll of electrical tape that had been in the floor storage compartment. Grabbing the branches and the tape he fashioned a splint to immobilize his leg and then crawled as far as he could from the wreckage. Another miracle was that lying right next to the roll of tape on the ground was Jim’s cell phone. Mia was able to use the phone to call 911 and rescue services were mobilized. The phone had GPS capability that enabled the 911 operator to pinpoint the location of the crash.
Soon rescue vehicles could be heard in the distance and a helicopter seen overhead but the emergency services could not spot the wreckage due to the dense tree canopy. Mia hiked through the dense brush to an clearing where she was able to flag down the rescue service personnel and lead them to her injured husband. He was stabilized and carried to the waiting medevac helicopter that had landed in a nearby clearing and then transported to the Kansas University Hospital.

Jim has made a full recovery from his accident and is now flying for Air Evac as a medevac helicopter pilot.
Jim asked me to print this quote from him “If it wasn’t for Orv’s autorotation training, it would not have turned out as well as it did. Orv taught me to always fly the helicopter all the way to the ground. I few it to the trees, through the trees and was still on the controls when I was upside down on the ground. I stopped piloting when it stopped moving. Orv and I must have done 100 or more autos in my Rotorway and it was just natural to immediately enter an auto when I knew we were in trouble”.

Mia added “ Having Orv come to our home to give Jimmy his flight instruction and auto training was the best money we ever spent. The training that Orv gave Jim saved our lives. That is why we invited Orv & Sheila to celebrate our 25th anniversary with us on an Alaska cruise.”
We had a great Alaskan cruise with Jim and Mia this past June. Jim is now in the process of rebuilding his bent Rotorway and plans on having it flying by the spring of 2008. If you remember anything from these stories it should be: 1. Always maintain main rotor rpm while in flight, and 2. If in doubt, AUTO OUT!!.
Jim is now the lead pilot of the Poplar Bluff Missouri Air Evac helicopter air ambulance company. In spite of this set-back, Jim's little Rotorway made his dream of flying medevac helicopters become a reality.

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This was the nicest Jet Exec that I had ever inspected. I did the pre purchase inspection for the new buyer and told him that it was a really nice machine. I told him that I would be happy to provide him with transition training in his helicopter but he said he had a friend who would do that for him.

The friend picked up the helicopter and got 5 hours of stormy weather flying before he went down in the firestorm due to fuel exhaustion. The NTSB report is an interesting read.