Governor Failure... a learning opportunity!

Flight #: 042
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.2hrs
Cumulative Time: 47.4hrs

Another prep flight... this time, with a little twist. I could not get to the airport in time to get a pattern, so we headed north to Scappoose for some practice. It is a nice flight north out of the airport. Get to cross over a ridge, follow a valley and cross the river to get there. Had not been up here in a while, so it was a good refresher on uncontrolled airspaces.

We got there, and I entered the downwind leg on the 45º as is appropriate, but flubbed my call to Scappoose traffic. Not badly... just forgot a few things in my call. I figured it out on my own, and fixed it, but it was a little weak. We came in for an approach and I hit the mark... dead on. The key... eyes outside.

Don't you hate it when they are always right?!

In the hover, Kristie wanted me to do a max performance takeoff. As I maneuvered down a little bit on the taxiway to clear some space for landing aircraft to taxi off I saw a "Governor Off" light flick on and off. Odd. Anyway, this is the procedure you use if you need to get up, fast, to clear an object. Think... landing in a clearing and you need to get out without whacking into trees.

There is, as with almost everything, an acronym. MIPOC:

• M: Magneto Check. This ensures the Robinson's dual magnetos are operating correctly. To do this, you roll back on the throttle, turn off the governor, and isolate each magneto to ensure it is operating correctly.
  
• I: Instrument Check. Once you complete your check, you check instruments to make sure you have everything "in the green". You are going to push the helicopter close to it's limits and want to ensure everything is good to go before you try.
  
• P: Performance Check. Since you can be, and in this case we are, at a different airport, we need to make sure the engine can give us the performance we need given the altitude and temperature of our spot.
  
• O: Obstacle Identification. This verifies the object you need to clear is well understood and that you are really focusing on what you will need to avoid.
  
• C: Clear the helicopter. A quick look outside and around the helicopter and you are good to go.
  

All was gooving along nicely until we finished up the magneto check. After we had an all clear on both magnetos I turned on the governor and the "Governor Off" light stayed on. Hmm... flicked the switch back and forth... nothing. Governor failure. Now, it was working for our flight out... but now... done.

The Pilots Operating Handbook (POH) gives the procedure for a failed governor... basically, switch it off, manually override it, and land as soon as practical. In this case, we were about 20 minutes away (by air) and 40 by car from the airport. A governor is part of our required equipment to start a flight, but since we were mid flight we were in a bit of a grey area. Since you don't need the governor to fly, and it is OK to land as soon as practical, we opted to fly back to home base for repairs. This meant we had to cut the flight short... but safety is always #1.

Ok, so what's the governor? Well, this is an electronic piece of magic that does fine grained adjustments on the engine RPM so that you don't move out of the green zone as you are messing with the main rotor pitch. Along side the governor is the correlator. The correlator is a mechanical linkage between the collective pitch control and the throttle that increases the engine speed as you raise pitch. (This is because as you increase pitch on the main rotor blades you are increasing drag and potentially slowing down the MR blades.) Anyway, the correlator does very coarse adjustments to the throttle... usually too much. The governor is there to protect things a little. Engine over speed = bad.

So, the fact that the governor is dead is not the end of the world, but it is now up to me to make sure the engine is not going into the red. Just one more thing to worry about, eh? Well, the correlator, as it turns out, it very very obnoxious. As you raise collective to lift off, it slams down the throttle and engine RPMs head up into high-red. You have to be there to roll it back down. Once you have it right, you are pretty much good to go... until you land. But at least you don't have to be on top of it so intensely during the flight.

Just a little drama for the flight, but it was great experience for "governor off" flight.

Headed back early, but got some good experience.