A few latches and four camlock fasteners at the firewall and the top cowling comes off. A half dozen screws on each side at the firewall and a couple of hook latches on turnbuckles and the entire lower cowling comes off easily in a single piece. This gives great access for working on the engine.
As you can see, it’s a pretty clean and straightforward installation. That’s the battery box at top center of firewall, generator control box, electrical relay box, then main fuel inlet and filter along with EPA can at the bottom LH side.
And on the right hand side you have the brake master reservoir, oil cooler, and bleed air conduit for cabin heat.
This time it was due a fuel nozzle inspection.
Pacific Helicopters next door have a nice overhaul facility where they can do our nozzle flow checks, inspection, and testing for us.
Here Linden Millist is helping with the borescope inspection on the hot section.
Not much under the cabin floor other than a couple of fuel line interconnections and the flap motor. The flap system uses a torque tube interconnecting both sides driven with a single motor.Notice the nice flat floor with brown line track and large rubber bumper along the door sill. If you look close you can also see the brown line track running down each cabin side. This makes it easy to load and use tie down straps almost anywhere to secure cargo. The passenger seats also fold to stow either in the aft cargo area beyond the door or in the belly pod.
Here I’m inspecting and lubricating the electric elevator trim system. I’ll let you guess what the boxes are mounted on fuselage side?
I’m a lucky guy to have a wife who is not only willing to live halfway around the world with me, but also lends a hand to help out wherever needed. Here Bonnie is doing some paint touchup work.
And a final cleaning of the cockpit and windshields at the end of the inspection.So what does the beast fly like? Stay tuned for a future episode.
