Yesterday, 08:56 PM
Several of years ago one of my students was in need of an engine overhaul and Joe Huff had not yet offered his engine overhaul services at that time. My students contacted a guy named Kasey in Montana who advertised that he was an engine expert and for a mere $34k he would rebuild the engine.
After two years at the Montana shop my students contacted finally had his engine back and we installed it into his 162f turbo ship. We put 25 hours of hover time on the helicopter to insure that the rebuilt engine would be reliable. At that point we began his altitude training and headed to the local airport for some pattern work.
The wind had increased to around 20 knots and it was time for fuel. The wind was out of the west so we hovered up to the pumps from the east facing west. After fueling I went into great detail on how we should depart the pumps and rejoin the pattern. We had hangars to our south, the FBO building to our west, and a large maintenance hangar to the north east. I explained that we would pick up into a hover and continue to keep the nose into the wind as we began moving to the north and gaining altitude.
I explained to my student that if we followed that course we would have the best option to land the helicopter should we experience an in-flight emergency. I noted that there was a wooded area several hundred yards to our north and should we experience an emergency over those trees we could veer off to our right toward the clear area of the taxiway and runway.
We lifted off, made our radio calls and followed our planned takeoff profile. As we gained speed and altitude we were about 300 feet over the trees when the engine suddenly quit. I immediately dropped the collective and turned the helicopter to a hard right toward the runway. The stiff wind caught us and accelerated us toward the runway. I did not wish to attempt a downwind landing so I applied right pedal and cyclic to turn the ship back into the stiff west wind.
As we quickly approached the runway from the northeast I realized that if I landed on the north-south runway facing west, the airport would be shut down until we could retrieve the ground handling wheels and that would incur a lot of red tape that preferred to avoid. I had just enough rotor inertia left to set the helicopter down in the grass between the runway and taxiway preventing an airport shutdown.
We walked to the FBO, borrowed a courtesy car, and went back to my training center for the truck, trailer and ground handling wheels. On inspection we found that the builder had installed hydraulic lifters in the engine which failed breaking the cam shaft in the process. When I called the engine builder his response was “that’s interesting”. We never heard from him again.
After two years at the Montana shop my students contacted finally had his engine back and we installed it into his 162f turbo ship. We put 25 hours of hover time on the helicopter to insure that the rebuilt engine would be reliable. At that point we began his altitude training and headed to the local airport for some pattern work.
The wind had increased to around 20 knots and it was time for fuel. The wind was out of the west so we hovered up to the pumps from the east facing west. After fueling I went into great detail on how we should depart the pumps and rejoin the pattern. We had hangars to our south, the FBO building to our west, and a large maintenance hangar to the north east. I explained that we would pick up into a hover and continue to keep the nose into the wind as we began moving to the north and gaining altitude.
I explained to my student that if we followed that course we would have the best option to land the helicopter should we experience an in-flight emergency. I noted that there was a wooded area several hundred yards to our north and should we experience an emergency over those trees we could veer off to our right toward the clear area of the taxiway and runway.
We lifted off, made our radio calls and followed our planned takeoff profile. As we gained speed and altitude we were about 300 feet over the trees when the engine suddenly quit. I immediately dropped the collective and turned the helicopter to a hard right toward the runway. The stiff wind caught us and accelerated us toward the runway. I did not wish to attempt a downwind landing so I applied right pedal and cyclic to turn the ship back into the stiff west wind.
As we quickly approached the runway from the northeast I realized that if I landed on the north-south runway facing west, the airport would be shut down until we could retrieve the ground handling wheels and that would incur a lot of red tape that preferred to avoid. I had just enough rotor inertia left to set the helicopter down in the grass between the runway and taxiway preventing an airport shutdown.
We walked to the FBO, borrowed a courtesy car, and went back to my training center for the truck, trailer and ground handling wheels. On inspection we found that the builder had installed hydraulic lifters in the engine which failed breaking the cam shaft in the process. When I called the engine builder his response was “that’s interesting”. We never heard from him again.
