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Still has a lot of the classic Huey lines on it
The AW139,
when it first came out, it was called the AB139 (Augusta Bell). The company I worked with ordered twenty of the early production batch.
It certainly went through more than a few problems.
They initially were built with a titanium exhaust system, which had a habit of cracking and collapsing, this was changed to a stainless steel system which gave a 39Kg weight penalty aft of the C og G.
The tailbooms started giving problems too, they weren't made strong enough to take the yaw stresses. A stronger one with reinforced stringers and alloy rahter than composite honeycombe sandwich was used. This was 14Kg heavier, again well aft of the C of G. (One of our 139's went through three tailbooms before it had 500hrs TT on the airframe).
Subsequently AW moved the MAU's and some electronics from just rear of the mast into the nose and extended the nose cone to help with restoring the C of G problem. Though they still hovered almost ten degrees nose-up.
There were many other problems, but it's pretty much okay now and they are better suited to a more temperate climate.
Whoever designed the MR-Head deserves a medal though, we received the brand new aircraft in large crates and assembled them ourselves. Taking the MR blades out of the delivery boxes and when checking initial vibration levels, they were incredibly low. No adjustements were necessary, they were showing readings of 0.07 IPS and lower. We even removed an in service blade from one and fitted it to another and when checked it didn't need any adjustment whatsoever.
As a comparison, the Bell 212s and 412's were were operating, we were lucky to get (particularly) the 412's below 0.3 IPS and they would not stay there for long before an elostomeric bearing or damper gave trouble and it went out of track or balance, or both. Whereas the 139's would remain good and wonderfully smooth right up to VNE.
Attachment: 1] The company's first AW139 in June 2016.
2] Gulf Helis tail boom 2009.
All or those problems seem ti have been fixed. The tail booms have been strengthened and the other kinks have been worked out.
I have to wonder why they did not use the US Army's new UH-72. Mission sure sounds similar. Photo from Wikipedia.
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I have to wonder why they did not use the US Army's new UH-72. Mission sure sounds similar. Photo from Wikipedia.
View attachment 554381