Robinson R-22 Returns After Governor Failure Maintenance

It's.

We'll need that shovel. There's a bunch of wet, crunchy stuff right here. See how it's all.

I spoke too soon.

Yeah, I see how as soon as I moved it, it like dug in.

So we're here at the Hogs hanger and I am getting ready to make oh Hog's famous toasted cheese sandwich. We're waiting on the R22 to arrive. It's coming back from maintenance. And if everything goes good, we're gonna. We'll get an explanation, tell you what. Maintenance has been done. But we had a problem on one of the last couple people. We finished up checkrides. Chris Nelson's bringing the R22 back. When we were flying a couple weeks ago, prepping Joe for his cfi. Add on. Hauser and Joe were out flying. And then all of a sudden the RPM started rising and throttle started acting goofy. There was some kind of an issue to the point of why we train at times with governor off and know how to fly these things without the governor. If all you've ever done is flown with the governor, then it's kind of intimidating if the governor actually quits on you. So they flipped the governor off, came back in, and it was Chris Hauser and Joe. Chris jumped on and talked to Chris the mechanic. Because there's Chris the owner, Chris the pilot and Chris, help me out here. Chris the owner, Chris the instructor, and Chris the mechanic. So you got three Chris's. And then there's times there's a fourth Chris involved. We have somebody that flies for us named Chris as well. Another, we have two instructors named Chris and a mechanic named Chris. And the guy that owns the helicopter's name is Chris. Chris calls Chris the mechanic and he says, well, go in there on these wires by the mag, pull those wires off, clean that up, put them back on and try it again. And basically what they surmised was, and the mechanic knew this somehow when he called and explained what was happening. I guess the mag was losing a little bit of oil or spit out a little bit of oil and made the connections wet. So they cleaned up the connections, put it back together, went out and tried it, and it was fine. So we finished off an hour or two, prepped for that checkride, finished that checkride, and then finished a SFAR sign off for somebody else. Aircraft worked fine, but we knew if that mag was leaking a little bit, that was going to have to be repaired. Chris took it in, sure enough, the mag was basically, it was time for a mag anyway. So he Took it in and got everything fixed up. And he did some other stuff, the R22, while it was gone. And we'll let Chris tell us about that here shortly when he arrives in R22. So we're kind of excited the R22 is coming. R44 is going to be coming back soon. Actually the end of this month. This is mid February. Should be here by the end of February. They're going to drop it at my mechanic locally for an annual the first week of March. And then they will both helicopters be back around the first week of March. Which would be kind of nice because they've only actually both been here together. The R22 and R44 have only been here together for one weekend before the R44 left and went to Vegas for the winter. So if Chris is willing to jump on camera, which he should, because you may know Chris from our video where we did a video about ownership versus renting an R22. Chris chose the path of buying an R22 to build his time. And now at this point, he owns three of them. So we did that video before and butter all over my fingers. That was swift. So I have Chris Bilson on what went on when he gets here. In the meantime, this is a Taz special. When Taz comes here, the only thing he really eats is cheese and bread. So when Taz is here helping us do flight training, we have the famous Taz grilled cheese all week long. I wasn't in it when they had the original problem, but it was RPM started going high and low and things were going wacky. So they brought it in. Yeah, called the mechanic. Mechanic Chris. Because we got owner Chris. Mechanic Chris. Chris flying. Oh, and then we got Chris Ringo sticking his truck too. So we all the Chris's. But anyway, so they brought it in. Chris says, well, take the wires off the magneto. Yep. Yeah, clean them up. Because there was a little bit of oil seeping out of the magneto. Yeah, clean it up. See if we can get by. Which we did. Everything worked fine after because I kind of preempted this video with. Here's why you need to know how to fly with the governor off.

That's right.

Because the governor quit working. Yeah. But how does that tie into the mag? Or what did you find out now that you've taken the aircraft to maintenance, what did you find out and what did they do?

Basically, Robinson has a service bulletin out that states that every 500 hours the mags need to be inspected and serviced. And so we flew it to the Robinson Service center out in Peru, Illinois. And they went through and serviced the mags, rebuilt everything, all new seals, points, everything that goes inside the mags and she's ready to go again another 500 hours. So.

And so it was almost. It was time for that anyway.

Correct.

So as we had a issue.

Yeah.

At first you were like ah, dang, I wish I would do that right now. But then you found out that oh well, the mags needed rebuilt anyway.

Yep. Yeah, we were at like 503 on hours for the mags. And so right there just tells you, you know, it's time to time to get them looked at at least.

Good reason why if they say get them done at 500.

Yep, yep, that's right.

Obviously they need rebuilt. And did you tell them ahead of time that we had that little bit of issue with it or did you just.

Yep, I kind of preemptive told them what was going on and they said yeah, that's common for those mags at that time, you know, at that age. They also hadn't been rebuilt since 2019 I believe, so they had a few years on them. Right. You know, it just goes to show you this aircraft hasn't flown a whole lot in the last several years.

Right.

It's been taken really good care of but just not flown a lot.

So I didn't realize I would miss it. We've actually missed it. I know. Yeah. At first it was like ah, you know, whatever. But then it was like, well, when are we going to get the R22 back? Yep. It's been kind of weird not having it around.

Yeah, it was a good flight out. I mean I was there at 8 o' clock this morning, picked it up. They already had it in the other hangar ready to go. We just put some fuel in it and fired right up and it was about an hour long flight to Lansing. Then I put it in the hangar there at Lansing for the day, worked and then flew it out here. It was another good flight I got. There was there's some ground wind, you know, some surface wind, but then up like 1500ft there isn't much wind but I. So I went up to 2,000ft and I was able to get about a seven knot tailwind. So I was able to get here a little quicker.

Nice.

So I just kind of played with my altitude a little bit to help me, help me get out here.

So what else did you do while you had it back home?

Did you do some other stuff too? So one other thing that's kind of a common issue on. On the Robinsons is it's a more of a wear item type of thing. And what we did over here to the co pilot door is they put a little doubler plate in the door hinge pin area right here. So they were able to fix that and make the door a little tighter. So it's sealed a little bit better.

Because you have before it would be latched but it stuck out just a little bit.

Right.

Like it was. Seemed like it wasn't quite all the way closed.

Yep, yep. So now it closes nice and latch holds up good. So it's a. But it's a. It's a common Robinson wear thing. It just happens, you know, you open these doors and close them so many times. It's just, you know, but that was it. Otherwise it's. It's ready to go. So just, just a little tlc. She needed and ready to go.

All right, well I guess that's time to get on the schedule for R22 advanced auto rotations. And the R44 is going to be heading back probably the end of next week. It's going to get dropped off in Rochester, Indiana to where for our maintenance guy go get the annual. We're gonna get the annual down to R44. So then they're both here. So fac time advanced autos or whatever else you want to do. 5 7-4767. 1797. That's the first time I've known of anybody really having a problem having to switch the governor off.

Yeah, it's not, it's not. Definitely not very common.

Not very common. You just don't hear about it really happening. But still need to train so that when it does happen, no big deal, you can fly it without just turn it off and continue flight. We were lucky. Since camera's rolling, we were getting ready for a check ride. And it was like the last day. It was like the day before. I think it was the day before his checkride and they were going out to do like one or two last flights. And he came in, I heard him. I knew they were coming in early. I'm like, oh, something's going on. So at first we're kind of like panicking because it's always, you know, you're trying to get everything done on a checkride really, really quick and get somebody done. And all sudden, oh man, we got problems. And luckily mechanic was handy and he goes, oh, get in there, clean those connections, put it back, see what happens. But you should be good and probably have to replace the mag. And so it got it. We got it back together. Was able to finish out the check ride. You were able to get to. Moved over there. And we're all good?

Yep, all good. It just goes to show you how everything can be going right. Your mag checks are good, the aircraft's operating perfectly fine, and then something just, you know, gets a little funny with them.

Well, but didn't we mention how, remember before it seemed like they were a tad bit low?

Yeah, it was once in a while, I know Chris had mentioned it, that it was. They were a tad bit low.

Does that change or is that still the same?

No, I mean, everything looks good from. From my perspective. So maybe that was it could have been a little bit of a precursor to. To the actual issue. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so cool.

All right, so that's all I got. Peace out again. Subscribe too, and click that little notification bell and leave a comment down below. Okay, bye. When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground, hit the hogs. No, Go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com I'm looking for a knife. We didn't get knives. Right? Huh? Right at it. It's the orange box right in front of me. He's out.