Monday, April 28, 2008
Factory School
I attended the Brantly factory April 21-25 for a basic maintenance class of the B2b.
We had 5 students; myself, Fred, Charlie, Jerry and Anders. We were all A&P's, Anders and myself are actively employed as such while the others are using them mainly for their own aircraft. It was a great group of guys and I really enjoyed the course. Chris, our instructor, did a terrrific job and set up the course with a great mix of theory and practical sessions. Overall I'd say it was one of my favorite maintenence classes I've attended. The factory was even brave enough to let us work on two of their own ships. We were able to watch Anders get checked out in one of the ships a student of his had bought. While he was getting the checkout from Gary, a local instructor, the rest of us got a lesson in running up a Brantly sans outboard blades using Fred's machine. Thanks Fred!!
On Friday the guys at the factory provided lunch with some fantastic BBQ'd brisket cooked by Doyle. We then we had a little informal presentation of certificates and the transfer of ownership of the new helicopter to Gary and said goodbye as he and Anders departed for home.
It was great to see things picking up at the factory with all the lights on and people working making parts for inventory and getting things geared up to begin producing ships again. I'm looking forward to returning to Vernon to attend the level 2 class sometime soon.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
You must be kidding me!?!
Someone please tell me that this is not the way they wired this from the factory? Hrrmmpph, I would have expected better...
Ah, the wiring...
So, now the part of the disassembly that caused me the most head scratching - the instrument panel and wiring.
My original thought was to end up with an IFR trainer. I believed then and still do that the Brantly would make a great little IFR trainer. Ah, but how to do it? I originally thought I would use a Dynon D-10A as an HSI, especially now that Dynon has their neat, new HS34 HSI expansion module. The HS34 would allow me to use nav inputs from an SL30 as well as my Garmin 496 which would easily cover the bases for the IFR requirements as well as allowing for a little more modern equipment added to the mix. Ah, but then I heard about Aspen avionics new EFIS. It seemed like just the ticket; 2.2 lbs, slide in replacement for both the artificial horizon and HSI/DG. Alas after talking with the Aspen rep at the local aviation expo he told me they had determined it would not work in a helicopter at this point. They are working with Robinson to correct that but it will be some time yet. Well, that points me back to the Dynon...
So what does this have to do with the instrument panel and wiring I hear you ask?
1. I had bought a new panel from Brantly to allow me the extra clearance from the six pack to the upper three 2 1/8 holes for mounting the Aspen EFIS. Out with the old, in with the new and at less than $200 another reason to love the Brantly!
2. I needed to know what extra wiring to lay into the harness for future modification to make this an instrument trainer as at this time the budget does not allow me to install all the goodies I would like to at this time.
My final determination is that I will provide for the installation of an SL30 radio, Dynon D10A with HS34 expansion module, GTX327 transponder and either a 12 volt attitude indicator or a second Dynon D10A. I will be installing the wiring in anticipation of installing this equipment in the future so that all that will be required is to simply do the mounting of the equipment and plug it in.
My original thought was to end up with an IFR trainer. I believed then and still do that the Brantly would make a great little IFR trainer. Ah, but how to do it? I originally thought I would use a Dynon D-10A as an HSI, especially now that Dynon has their neat, new HS34 HSI expansion module. The HS34 would allow me to use nav inputs from an SL30 as well as my Garmin 496 which would easily cover the bases for the IFR requirements as well as allowing for a little more modern equipment added to the mix. Ah, but then I heard about Aspen avionics new EFIS. It seemed like just the ticket; 2.2 lbs, slide in replacement for both the artificial horizon and HSI/DG. Alas after talking with the Aspen rep at the local aviation expo he told me they had determined it would not work in a helicopter at this point. They are working with Robinson to correct that but it will be some time yet. Well, that points me back to the Dynon...
So what does this have to do with the instrument panel and wiring I hear you ask?
1. I had bought a new panel from Brantly to allow me the extra clearance from the six pack to the upper three 2 1/8 holes for mounting the Aspen EFIS. Out with the old, in with the new and at less than $200 another reason to love the Brantly!
2. I needed to know what extra wiring to lay into the harness for future modification to make this an instrument trainer as at this time the budget does not allow me to install all the goodies I would like to at this time.
My final determination is that I will provide for the installation of an SL30 radio, Dynon D10A with HS34 expansion module, GTX327 transponder and either a 12 volt attitude indicator or a second Dynon D10A. I will be installing the wiring in anticipation of installing this equipment in the future so that all that will be required is to simply do the mounting of the equipment and plug it in.
Bag and Tag!
A big part of the disassembly is the bag and tag method of keeping track of parts. I've been the unwilling victim of other mechanics omitting this step and it's guaranteed to engender the discovery of new four letter words when putting things back together. Of course it helps to take lots and lots of pictures. Ain't technology grand?
Trailer mount
So the helicopter showed up mounted to a trailer using a pretty ingenious method and I thought I'd take a quick break and show a few pictures of how it was done. Kudos to Bob Kallenberg for coming up with this idea. Home Depot Aviation Supply!
Disassembly
Once I got the helicopter settled in, it was time to begin the process of disassembly to make way for the restoration. A lot of time was spent staring and thinking about how and what I wanted to redo when I began the reassembly.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Moving time
About a year ago I moved to Seattle. One of my friends in Seattle offered to let me use his hanger to rebuild the Brantly. What a hanger a too! It's a 70'x70' heated corporate hanger. I've got to say it beats the heck out of working out of a drafty T-hanger.
Fortunately the helicopter was still mounted to the trailer it came up on so towing it up was a fairly easy endeavour.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The saga begins...
N2195U showed up on it's trailer looking a bit the worse for wear. After contemplating just doing the minimum to get it flying again I decided to to just go ahead and rebuild it. I mean, it's a simple helicopter, how hard could it be?
Starting out
This is my attempt to chronicle the rebuild of my helicopter, a Brantly B2B. I'm not sure what to write here as this is my first attempt at a blog or anything similar.
I suppose I'll start off by telling a little bit about my helicopter. I purchased N2195U about two years ago. From what I gather I believe it may have been the last commercially working Brantly in the world. It was used in the early 90's to support surveyers in the Alaskan bush. It languished in the late 90's and early 00's when it was dissasembled prior to a 1200 hour inspection and trailered to Oklahoma for Harold Jenkins to conduct the inspections and reassemble it. I purchased it in it's diassembled condition and it was trailered up to me in Oregon. I only really began to work at reassembling it in the last six months. After looking at it's condition I decided to rebuild it from the skin up. This blog is my attempt to chronicle that journey.
Feel free to leave comments or suggetions.
I suppose I'll start off by telling a little bit about my helicopter. I purchased N2195U about two years ago. From what I gather I believe it may have been the last commercially working Brantly in the world. It was used in the early 90's to support surveyers in the Alaskan bush. It languished in the late 90's and early 00's when it was dissasembled prior to a 1200 hour inspection and trailered to Oklahoma for Harold Jenkins to conduct the inspections and reassemble it. I purchased it in it's diassembled condition and it was trailered up to me in Oregon. I only really began to work at reassembling it in the last six months. After looking at it's condition I decided to rebuild it from the skin up. This blog is my attempt to chronicle that journey.
Feel free to leave comments or suggetions.
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