Jump to content

CH-47D Rotor Head Detail


Recommended Posts

I have been looking for detail photos and have come up with minimal usable ones. I am starting the 1/35th Trumpeter CH-47D and am wanting to bring the detail level up a notch on the build overall. Thank you ahead of time for your input.

Jager

Link to post
Share on other sites

Floyd, this is my point of confusion also. I can not determine the color of the striping on the blades and mast head. I am also looking for the 'plumbing' also. At least it is not a CH-53 rotorhead. I may have to seek out a real bird and take some pics. Our Air Guard is flying Lawndarts, I mean Crash hawk, no really BlackHAWKS. I have no Chinooks stationed in our state. (Correction: South of Oklahoma City there is a base w/Chinooks. I may have a 2.5 hour drive in my future.)

Jager

Edited by jager
Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the images Silva. I noticed that one of the shock absorbers has a corresponding red band on it. The others do not. Are there corresponding color bands on the blades somewhere? What is the purpose of the bands?

Jager

Edited by jager
Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the images Silva. I noticed that one of the shock absorbers has a corresponding red band on it. The others do not. Are there corresponding color bands on the blades somewhere? What is the purpose of the bands?

Jager

I can explain the bands. When you take apart the rotor head it is so everything goes back together in the proper place. It makes a big deal in weight, especially if you put a blade in the wrong spot. It is also used during rotor smoothing to let you know where to put the weight after the vibrex or Chadwick or whatever you use tells you to put so many grams of weight on red. Now you know which blade to put the weight on.

Floyd

Link to post
Share on other sites

As Floyd said it is for track and balance of the head and blade. We put swopped two Aft blades over one time not on purpose)before we took the aircraft on a ground run and wondered why we the readings that we were getting were worst than the previous run. It was only after the Chinook had stopped the run and the people who were doing the test walked off the rear ramp and looked up that the mistake was spotted. Luckily the Chinook did not go flying, although I think that the readings and the pilots may have felt something was odd before it would have taken off. On Royal Air Force Chinooks all the head, damper and blade colours both Fwd and Aft are Green, Yellow, Red with Yellow being the master blade

Link to post
Share on other sites

Jabba, the yellow blade is the master blade? Is the double interrupter keyed to the yellow blade also?

Silva, there is no white stripes on the heads. I've seen the yellow stripes fade to near white many times over the last two decades.

Floyd, on the -47, we don't measure the weights for the blades. There are up to 10 removable weights in each blade, each nothing more than a flat , roughly 5 x 2 rectangular piece of steel, about the thickness of a dime, and theoretically all weight the same (cant recall the individual weight of a typical -47 blade weight).The Chadwick tell us how many to remove or add for each blade, but we have to know how may weights are in each blade first. Normally, the number of removable weights ( as opposed to the core weights, which are left alone) is written on the end cap with a paint marker.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's a couple more…

CH-47D_Chinook_Rotor_Head_a_700x525_zpsc6156601.jpg

Pitch_Varying_Housing_zpsa4676aa4.jpg

CH-47D_Chinook_Rotor_Head_b_700x525_zps00828ab7.jpg

As already mentioned, the blades are red, green and yellow. The red pitch housing for the head is the heaviest and the other two are balanced to it as a matched set. The head comes factory balanced with little round weights that sit just inboard of the vertical hinge pin tanks (the flat, round tanks on the extremities of the head). The blades are then fitted and balanced through the chadwick, vxp or some other form of vibration monitoring gear at various speed regimes in the hover and forward flight. Once the blades are balanced to the aircraft they generally stay that "colour" unless they are either damaged and repaired or reach their throw away life. Blades are statically balanced in a frame by adjusting span-wise internal weights. There are only two types of blades; forward blades and aft blades. Each blade damper usually is marked for its position's colour.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...