Squawk, trend, trend

While today was probably the least fulfilling flight-wise, it was interesting none the less.

I was lucky enough to get two flight slots today, and even got two patterns to top it all off.

During the run up procedures before a flight, there is a safety check for the altimeter. The reason this check is in place is that you need to accurately know your altitude throughout the flight. The field altitude of airports is generally known, but since helicopters can land almost anywhere, you can't always know how high above ground level (AGL) or above mean sea level (MSL) you actually are.

The test consists of adjusting the Kollsman knob to calibrate the device to actual air pressure, right now, and then read the altitude. In our case, the altimeter read approximately 100ft. HIO is 208ft MSL. The test just showed us that when set to the actual outside air pressure the helicopter sitting at 208ft thinks it is at 100ft. Thats pretty bad. The limit for mis-calibrated altimeter is 75ft.

Now, when our altimeter is calibrated to have less than 75ft error, we then re-calibrate it to actual field elevation... since we know that for a fact and choose to trust that more. When it is more than 100ft, well, we just don't know what is wrong. Question is... do we need our altimeter? Is is required equipment for VFR Day Flights?

Glad you asked. Yes. Like in every field, there are mnemonics and acronyms to help you remember required lists. In this case, the mneumonic for VFR Day Required Equipment is: CAMALSFOOT.

• C: Compas
• A: Altimeter
• M: Manifold Pressure Gauge
• A: Airspeed Indicator
• L: Lights, for night
• S: Safety Belt
• F: Fuel Gauge
• O: Oil Pressure
• O: Oil Temperature
• T: Tachometer

Altimeter is in that list... so if it's not working... we're not flying... and we squawked it.


Later on in the day we had another flight. During the pre-fight check I came to the clutch actuator. This is the component that tightens the V-Belt that transfers engine power to the rotors. This one was leaking grease, not just a little, but significantly. Now, there is no rule or acronym here... just common sense. If your clutch bearing is leaking grease... don't fly it.

Trend it.

Just to be a good citizen I finished out the pre-flight check... plus it had been a while since I completed one and I wanted to keep on my game. I also found that he white position light on the tail was burned out.

Trend it.


At this point, it was too late to transfer to another helicopter. So, I headed home.

Squawk or Trend?

S q u a w k !

For a bit of background:

A squawk is the term for a maintenance issue of significant size to effect the air worthiness of an aircraft. Think, fuel line leak or crack/dent in the tail boom. Basically, a big deal.
A trend is a maintenance issue to note that does not effect anything significant on the aircraft. A rattle in the cockpit or night-time running lights being out during daytime operation.

Anyway, today was rather messy weather-wise - lots of ground fog. The entire airport was grounded at 7am. So, while we were waiting for things to clear up, Kristie ran me through the pre-flight check procedures for a Robinson R22. This involves checking and touching every control surface for cracks and deformations, testing each and every flight control fastener, and sampling fuel at various stages in the fuel system. It also involves reviewing the maintenance folder for the helicopter. This particular helicopter had 2 trend forms attached. See if you can guess why we chose not to fly today:

Trend #1: "Cracks in main rotor belt. Felt nail underneath."

Trend #2: "Main engine gasket leaking oil. Oil spraying all over carburettor and electrical system. Possible electrical system and/or engine fire."

First of all, we noticed nothing like this in the pre-flight inspection. Not even a hint of a leak or a crack. However, someone chose to notify maintenance of this, and we were not about to fly with that type of trend. Second, and more importantly, this is clearly not a trend at all... this is a major squawk and the aircraft should not be flying. This was confirmed in 5 seconds from the maintenance crew chief after reading the records. Someone is going to get their butt chewed over this.

Anyway, I did get about 1 hour of ground training out of this. Unfortunately I did not get to fly to the PDX heliport. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon. We did get up on the big board.



I did, however, test out my new headset. It is quite obvious that the best is the best for a reason. In the off position, headset decreased ambient noise by about 75%. When I switched on the ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) circuit I might as well have been on the moon. Silence.