My worse RW student in 38 years

[Orv Neisingh]

I have pondered writing about this particular student for awhile but I think that some of you might find it entertaining and educational to read. This is a true account and I have shared it many times with other students over the years. 

About 15 years ago I got a call from a 162f owner who informed me that his 162F that he built was already test flown by a Rotorway professional and now he was ready for flight training. We set a date and I purchased the airline tickets to fly from my home airport in Springfield Missouri to LAX where he would meet me. I was waiting for my flight departing SGF when I received a phone call from this client in which he asked me where he could rent or borrow a main rotor blade for his helicopter. Huh?

Why do you need to rent a main rotor blade? I asked. He responded that since we needed to be at an airport for flight training he used his tractor to lift the helicopter onto his equipment trailer. As he was pulling the trailer out of his driveway on the way to the airport the main rotor blades rotated enough to catch an oak tree buckling one main rotor blade. If he could only borrow someone's blade we could continue with our training plans. 

I informed him that owners do not loan out their main rotor blades and that he would need to purchase a new one from the factory for me to build. I also informed him that he may have bent the main rotor mast as well but that would need to be checked when I arrived. I cancelled my trip and told him to let me know when he received the replacement rotor blade. Several weeks later he informed me that he had the replacement blade and was ready for me to travel out to California. After giving him very specific instructions about how to correctly transport the helicopter he decided that he would wait for my arrival so that I could transport it myself. 

When my schedule had an opening I made the fight to LAX, my client met me there and on the way north to his home he told me all about his wonderful helicopter that he had built so meticulously. He lived up in the mountains overlooking the central valley and as we pulled into his yard there sat his 162F in the parking area in front of a small garden shed. I inquired as to where he had built the helicopter, there was no shop building on the property that I could see. He told me that he built it right there, on the asphalt parking space, in the open air with no protection. 

At this point I was really questioning why I had agreed to take this owner on as a client but now that I was here I would help him out. As I gave the helicopter a first over all look, I noticed that the collective lever was stuck in the full down position and I could not raise it. He was surprised because the other expert that he had hired was able to hover it only about 12 months prior to my arrival. So after that expert had hovered the helicopter it had set out in the weather another winter. We loaded the ship onto his trailer minus the other main rotor blade, properly secured and supported the tail boom and drove it over the mountain to the nearest airport. 

Once we got the helicopter into the rented hangar, I began a thorough inspection. I informed my client that it would take me a day to build the new main rotor blade and to do the static lead/lag and balancing so he decided to leave me in the hangar and he would go home to take a nap. First thing was to get the new blade set up and glued so that the blade epoxy would be set by the following day. Next I discovered that the main rotor shaft under the boot and swashplate was so rusted that the swashplate could not move up or down on shaft. 

Using some emery cloth on the rusted shaft I could see that the rust had deeply pitted the shaft to the point of it being un-airworthy. I ordered a new main shaft and pulled his shaft system out of the helicopter to work on it. Robin sent a new shaft next day air so over the next several days I was able to get the new blade finished, painted, installed on the new shaft and was able to get the helicopter ready for dynamic blade balancing, lead lag adjustments and tracking. Overall it took about a week to get the helicopter ready to fly. It needed rework of the wiring system, installation of the fuel tank inner washer to prevent the fuel fittings from falling out, and many other upgrades. 

Once I was finished with all of the needed work my client agreed to join me at the airport for the first hover. All went as planned and I was able to get the helicopter ready for his hover training. The work that I did took the entire week that I had scheduled and I had another student that was scheduled for the next day so we were not able to begin this owner's hover training that first week. With the helicopter secured safely in a sealed hangar we re-scheduled my next trip out.

The day arrived for my trip back to LAX where I was greeted by my client. On the drive back to his home he was very excited about me flying his helicopter over the mountain range to the hospital where he worked. He had gained approval for me to land on the hospital helipad at night and then I would fly the helicopter back to his home in the dark to his unlit driveway. I could not believe what he was asking me to do. This helicopter had never flown to altitude much less it was not equipped for night flight over mountainous terrain. I declined his offer and told him that we needed to get more time on the helicopter before taking it to altitude. He was disappointed as we continued the drive to his home on the mountain. 

When we pulled into the driveway there sat his helicopter uncovered on the asphalt parking area. He told me that the hangar that he had borrowed needed to be used by the owner so he brought the helicopter home. I informed him that the helicopter cannot live outside and needed to be kept in a hangar, not parked out in the weather. We called around and found a vacant hangar at an airport down in the valley about 20 miles from his home. We transported the helicopter to the new hangar and began his hover training. 

This student was a slow learner so it took all week and he still was not at the point that I could sign him off for solo hover flight. We scheduled another trip for my return and after that week I was able to endorse him for solo hover. 

About a year later he called me asking if I would provide him with additional altitude training. He informed me that he had been flying with another flight instructor around the local airport and that he needed more altitude time, the other flight instructor had decided that they were not a good fit so he declined further instruction....wise man. 

I agreed to instruct him so once again I made the trip out to LAX and when he picked my up at the airport he told me that he had the helicopter fueled and prepped and wanted me to fly us out to the Pacific coast so that he could take photos of the ocean waves from the air. I only had his word on his altitude training and told him that we would need to see how the week progressed before attempting a cross country flight over two mountain ranges. 

We arrived at the airport and I inspected the helicopter. Previously I had set up the secondary angles and all of the other rigging for safe flight. I made the mistake of assuming all of that had not changed. I asked him if he had done any work on the helicopter and he told me that it was just like I had left it and I took his word for that. I asked him where his fuel dip hose was and he told me that I did not need it as he had just filled both tanks after his last flight. I informed him that since I could not see the fuel level, i needed to verify how much fuel was in the tanks. I found a piece of wire and used it to dip the fuel tanks and found only about a gallon of fuel in them. 

"OH Yeah, I forgot that we flew one more time after I fueled up". The fuel pumps were about 50 yards from his hangar so we pushed the helicopter across the tarmac and refueled. We started the engine, it ran fine, so we pulled it into a hover and I had him demonstrate his hover skills to me. He did an acceptable job of hovering and he informed me that he had flown about ten hours with the other flight instructor in the airport traffic pattern. I had him hover out to the taxiway and asked him to demonstrate his takeoff and climb while staying in the pattern just like he had done with the other flight instructor. 

His takeoff went fine but as we gained altitude the taxiway ended below us and beyond the airport boundary was a huge vineyard with ten foot tall steel posts supporting the grape trellises. As he began to fly over the vineyard I questioned his route. He informed me that his other flight instructor had him fly straight out over the vineyards until he reached 500' above the ground. As he was responding I guided the helicopter into a left turn explaining that we do not fly over hazardous landing areas at low altitude if we have other options in case of an engine failure. There was a canal with a levy road along the bank running under us and I explained that should we have an in flight emergency, if we were over the levy road we could auto rotate onto the dirt surface. 

As we continued our climb following the levy road I pointed out a bare patch of ground ahead where about an acre of grape vines had been removed. I told him that the clear area was a good place in case of an emergency..BANG! We were about 250' above the ground when suddenly there was a loud bang from behind us and the helicopter nose jumped to the right and the engine RPM raced. We were in a climb under maximum power so the helicopter required a lot of right pedal to keep the nose straight. In a climb the main rotor pitch is increased so there is more drag than when in level flight.

In a climb the pilot has about a second to realize that something has happened and to immediately slam the collective to the floor to remove the positive pitch on the main rotor blades as the RPM plummets , pull back on the cyclic to allow the under side of the rotor disc to grab the on-rushing air to establish and maintain the un-powered rotor RPM. I headed straight for the open area were the vines had been removed, initiated a very aggressive flare, leveled the helicopter and set it down into the soft dirt with no forward ground speed. 

As we sat on the ground with the engine idling and the rotors winding down he asked me what had happened. I had no clue. I explained to him that had we not turned to stay over open areas and had maintained his original course over the ten foot tall grape trellises we would most likely have been impaled by metal stakes. His response was "I am paying you darn good money to make sure that we are safe". I was shook but pleased that I had been able to establish a good auto and set down with no damage to the helicopter.

What had happened? I removed the rear dog house cover and immediately saw that the cog belt had come off of the rear driving sprocket and was leaning up against the side of the doghouse. There was a slice about half way through the width of the cog belt and the anti-excursion ring that is bolted to the top of the driving sprocket was missing. All 5 of the screws that held the anti-excursion ring in place were sheared off at the top of the sprocket. Now I knew what had happened to disconnect the engine power from the rotor system but why did it happen? The cog drive system had proven near bullet proof once we started using the cog belt tensioners. I found the missing anti-excursion ring wedged between the back side of the pilot side fuel tank and the frame tube, it was still in good condition. 

We were able to haul the helicopter back to the hangar that evening and decided to start our investigation the following morning. That night I went through every possible scenario that I could think of and decided that the only way such a failure could occur was if the secondary upper shims had been removed allowing the secondary to tip forward allowing the cog belt to ride up the sprocket with enough force to rip the anti-excursion ring off and the belt to come off the sprocket getting torn on the way off. 

The next morning we took the rest of the panels off of the helicopter. I got my digital protractor out and measured tilt angle of the secondary shaft in relation to the main rotor shaft. I had originally set it at 0.1 degrees aft and 0.1 to the pilot side. It now measured 0.7 degrees forward and centered laterally. It had been drastically changed. I asked my student what he had done during my absence of around a year. "Nothing, I have not touched it. You set it up, you must have set it up wrong, this is on you". 

On closer inspection I noticed that the two shims that I had installed between the upper secondary bearing and the frame cross tube were missing. The only way that they could be absent is if someone had unbolted the secondary and removed the shims which are held in place by the two bolts that hold the upper bearing in place. There was a small workbench in the hangar and as I approached it I saw the two shims sitting on top. I asked my student how those shims got off the helicopter and onto his workbench. "Oh, yeah, I forget that I changed out the main drive belts because they were at their 5  year life limit. I must have forgot to put the shims back in".

Had he told me that when I arrived and asked him what work he had done on the helicopter I would have known to check his secondary alignment to verify that it was correct. His failure to install the shims nearly cost him his ship and had the other instructor been with him flying over the vineyard on climb out, as was his procedure, they both very well have been impaled on those stakes. 

The story with this client goes on with more unbelievable events.

If you are interested in hearing about them let me know by replying to this thread and I will write a further post.

[Jared Hartzell]

Yes, very interested to read more Orv! It's crazy that the belt could do that, really emphasizes the importance of maintaining all tolerances in spec!

[Lyle Swallows]

It's scary that this student and builder... could have assembled a machine as complex as a helicopter with such little regard to the design and drawing specifications...

I would greatly like to see any more stories you have to hopefully help others see how critical these design tolerances are...

thank you for your wisdom and shared experiences Orv.

[Orv Neisingh]

The true account continues. The level of my frustration with this student ( he is a very educated individual who holds a doctorate but no common sense) grew by the day. At the conclusion of the first day down in at the valley airport, when we were finished with our day, we got into his Prius and headed back up the mountain toward his home. On the first straight portion of the road I observed him lay his forehead onto the top of the steering wheel and closing his eyes, this made me a bit concerned that he may be experiencing a medical emergency. As he did this the Prius drifted to the side of the lane and the tires hit the rumble strips in the concrete.

Feeling and hearing the rumble strips and with my left hand now on the steering wheel to correct the drift, he looked up, centered the car in the lane and once again laid his forehead back onto the top of the steering wheel and closed his eyes. I grabbed the steering wheel and demanded that he pull over, again thinking that he may be passing out. 

He pulled over to the shoulder and we had a little conversation that went like this: "What are you doing!?!" His response was "You can't imagine the benefit of a short 3 second nap when you are tired". "You are taking a nap on the interstate??? You are going from one rumble strip to the other without watching the road!" " That is what they are there for" he educated me . 

I told him that from that point on I would be driving the Prius if I was in the car with him. We swapped places and the settled into a solid nap as I drove us to his home. He would not let me drive over 55 mph on the interstate because any higher speeds would negatively effect his overall gas mileage and he was going for some kind of record. Ok, his car, and I am on his time by the hour. Works for me.

Back to the helicopter with the torn cog belt. I called Robin and she over-nighted a new cog belt for us. The next day as we were waiting for the cog belt to arrive I gave the helicopter a good inspection and determined that the cog belt, the secondary drive sprocket anti-excursion , and the secondary alignment was all that needed attention. Since the 5 screws that secure the ring onto the top of the drive sprocket had sheered off flush with the top of the sprocket I determined that the most expedient way to attach the ring was to rotate it so that the screw holes in the ring were now evenly spaced between the old screw holes in the sprocket. Now we needed supplies. 

I made a list of what I needed and we headed for Home Depot across town. Needless to say, I drove the Prius. The central valley of California was very warm and that day the airport temp rose to 109 degrees F. I was not looking forward to working in the hot un-insulated hangar but we needed to get the helicopter repaired. At home depot I selected a drill, drill bits, a 10/32 tap, a pack of 10/32 socket head screws and some thread locker for the screws. I also picked up a case 24 bottles of drinking water to keep us hydrated. 

As I was collecting my supplies my client came back with 200' of heavy 3/4" garden hose and a hand spray nozzle. I assumed that he needed those at home so I did not question his selection..dumb move! I drove us back to the airport and as I began working on the helicopter in the extreme heat, my client was laying out the garden hose across the concrete ramp to a hose bib around 150' away from the hangar door. Oh, he is going to hook up a mister system to keep us cool as I worked- good thinking I thought. Wrong again!

By this point I had downed two of the plastic water bottle contents as I worked and sweated. He sat in a chair in front of a large floor fan with the hose and spray nozzle at his feet. Soon I was ready for another bottle of water and as I reached into the plastic case where there were now 20 bottles left he stopped me. "Water is expensive so we are going to refill the bottles from the hose and drink the free airport water". I could not believe what I had just heard him say. We had just spent $2.49 on a case of bottled water. He had also purchased the heavy garden hose that was now stretched out across the hot tarmac for over $200.00. He thought that we would save money by drinking hot nasty water from a new hose laying in the sun at near boiling temps. 

I did not want to argue with my client, I hesitate to call him my student because by this point I had determined that even though he had his doctorate, he was probably incapable of learning from me. I completed the repairs and by late afternoon had the helicopter flying once again. We hovered around for about an hour to insure that the cog system was operating correctly, rechecked all of the measurements and angles and belt tension. '

All was good so the following day I decided to do a few quick stops to put full power on the drive train prior to taking the helicopter to altitude. The wind was calm so I did a quick stop, turned the helicopter 180 degrees and saw a trail of fluid on the asphalt under our route of travel. I then noticed the water temp gauge climbing so I set the helicopter down and shut the engine down immediately. On examination, the coolant reservoir was nearly empty and steam was coming out of the coolant tank overflow. I really wanted to throw my hands up and tell my client "your helicopter, your problem" but I did not. He was incapable of fixing it so there I was. 

How did all of the coolant depart the helicopter so quickly? I had not experienced this before. Sure it was hot out but this was way past fluid expansion from the heat, this was a serious problem. I decided to do a differential leak down test so I set up my test rig and tested each cylinder. Cylinder #3 would not hold pressure, hmm. If it was a hole in the piston then the combustion gases would have pressurized the oil tank and we would have lost oil, the liquid on the ground was coolant. How could the combustion gases pressurize the coolant? 

I filled the now-cooled engine cooling system with water, from the hot hose, and put my pressure rig on #3 cylinder and added air. As the pressure increased it forced water out of the coolant reservoir and onto the ground. OK, we have a hole in the water jacket. If the leak had been at the base of the cylinder where it is pressed into the water jacket base we would see coolant in the oil. In this case we had combustion gases entering the water chamber, pressurizing it and forcing the coolant out. 

This helicopter engine had sat for a total of around 6 years now with the original coolant and rust had eaten away at the steel cylinder liner from the coolant side until a small hole formed in the cylinder wall.

I called Robin and asked if she had a new set of water jackets with cylinders and piston rings, she did so I asked her to over night them to us. The next morning was spent disassembling the engine. Exhaust, oil drain and coolant hoses, intake manifold, sensors and wiring all had to be removed. My client did not have an engine stand, hoist, or much of anything so I improvised. I was able to do the work while the engine remained in the helicopter. I removed both cylinder heads and with much difficulty was able to get the water jackets unbolted and removed. My client played on his phone in front of the fan as he sat in his chair in the heat. 

About the time that the new cylinder heads arrived it was already 110 degrees f. outside and nearly 120f in the hangar. Of course my client did not have a ring compressor, I needed two of them to get both sets of rings on each water jacket. I had brought a couple of bottles of water from the hotel and had consumed them but the water bottle Nazi wanted me to use the garden hose to refill my bottles. "Hey, I need you to get me four each 4" hose clamps for piston ring compressors. Also the Prius is almost out of gas so be sure to stop and the gas station at the airport entrance to fill up before going into town" I told him.

Well off he went and I continued to work on the engine. The trip to get the hose clamps should have taken around 30 minutes. After about an hour I was out of things to do, I needed those hose clamps. What to do? I sat in his chair in front of his fan and drank bottled water from the 24 pack. When finished I filled them from his garden hose and replaced them into the pack noting which bottles had the nasty toxic garden hose water and which had the clean fresh purified water. I tried calling my client several times but just got voicemail. I called my wife and told her that I was enjoying the fan in the now 120 degree hangar. She advised me to just come home. 

After being gone a total of four hours my client finally pulled in with his Prius. I inquired as to what took him so long to get gas and 4 hose clamps. He replied that gas was ten cents per gallon cheaper at Costco so instead of stopping at the nearest gas station he felt he could make to Costco, after all it is a hybrid Prius. Well about half way there the Prius ran out of gas. He had to wait for a roll back tow truck to pick up the car and deliver it to Costco to get his gas, then had trouble getting the car started. At ten cents per gallon and about ten gallons of gas he saved about a dollar and paid me around $400 to sit in his hangar waiting for him to return.

The following day I was able to complete the engine reassembly, add fluids, and do the first start up. My week was finished and I got paid and headed for home. What a week and I did not ever want to return to this client again...ever.

I not heard from this client for several months when my phone rang and caller ID showed his name. My blood pressure soared, I broke out into a cold sweat but I reluctantly answered his call. He reported to me that he had flown with Mark and another instructor that he had found but neither of them would return his phone calls for more instruction. He begged me to come back to finish his altitude training. I did not want to but I very reluctantly agreed to help him out, IF I was able to do so. 

I arrived back at his hangar and thoroughly inspected the helicopter. It had logged another 6 or so hours with two flight instructors but there was no indication in the log books that any changes had been made. I gave the ship it's overdue condition inspection then we fueled up and did some hover work. All went well. Time for some pattern work. 

I instructed my client that I wanted him to take off and climb to 500 feet AGL straight ahead, we were now flying in a different heading over open fields. At 500' he was to clear the area and make a left turn and continue the climb to 1000' AGL at which time he was to make a left turn to head down wind. Simple yes? NO. He initiated a nice climb profile and blew right through 500 feet and kept going straight ahead. I reminded his to make his turn so he did at around 600'  and continued to climb right through the 1000' limit that I had set. I told him to level off and turn, we were now at around 1100'. 

We had rehearsed this pattern and altitudes and turns several times on the ground. He just could not put two and two together. Now remember that this man works in the medical field and has his doctorate degree. We did a total of 5 patterns that day. His takeoff and climb was good but each time he would fail to turn or level off or begin his descent or slow his descent for landing. I was beginning to loose my cool by this point. On the 5th approach to landing I decided to not save the helicopter with my control inputs as I had done every time previous. I coached him to turn, level, descend and told him that he had to slow the helicopter and level it for a landing, not me. He told me "I have this" RIGHT!!

As he approached the runway at 70 mph he made no attempt to shallow his descent or to slow down. I allowed him to continue to barrel in up to the point where it was not safe to not intervene. I took the controls and leveled and slowed to a hover, pointed the helicopter back toward the hangar, air taxied and set it down. I told him that he was on a trajectory to kill himself and that he needed to sell his helicopter and take up a safe hobby like basket weaving. He was very disappointed as the other two flight instructors had each given up on him in about 3 hours each. He explained that in the medical field that he worked in, those practitioners had to have one track focus to do the work that he did. He said that he had trouble multi tasking. Really??

This client is the only person who I ever told to not call me again because there is nothing that I could do to help him become a pilot. He sadly told me that he might just keep the helicopter and hover around the airport. I told him that if he took it to altitude he most likely would not live to fly again. I wish him the best of success in anything that he attempts outside of aviation.

[Tim Morris]

Well Orv, I hope you are a much wiser instructor now!  There are sometimes we just need to say no.  I refused to give a local pilot his IPC once when it was obvious he did not take it seriously.  Rules were for other people.

[Tony Evans]

It's good to know now how much I can get away with during our next BFR Orv. Thanks for posting!