Kevin O'Brien wrote:

I have some concerns about the Solar turbine exploding


They don't seem to do this in the Boeing-Vertol helicopters that they
are the APU in, particularly the CH-47.


Boeing-Vertol helicopters and the CH-47 don't run an APU 45% over their
rated duty cycle. They also contain the APU within a housing area that
will contain the shrapnel.


may not be enough protection around the turbine vanes to protect the
pilot.


the pilot's arse is not inline with the vanes. Of course, if they shred
the structure it doesn't really matter because his arse is headed
for a reckoning with terra firma.


The pilots "arse" is 2 foot away from the APU. A Claymore mine explodes
in all directions, sending shrapnel "mostly" one direction. So dose an
APU. How many pieces of shrapnel sent the pilot's way is acceptable?

But that don't matter at all. As I said to Dennis Chitwood:
"But worse than anything, due to the high rpm of an APU, the compressor
and blades are under a great deal of centrifugal force. If you have ever
seen an APU explode, you will never forget it. APU's are only used
inside an aircraft where it is encased in an explosion proof housing, so
that when it explodes it will contain most of the blast, which goes out
sideways in every direction, not out the tail pipe like that idiot Joe
Rinke and Rick Stitt says. Therefore, when an APU on a Mini-500 (or any
other helicopter) explodes, and it will someday if it is used long
enough to fail, it will immediately cut off the tail boom causing the
helicopter to tumble end over end falling to the ground and taking the
pilot all the way down, probably alive while knowing a horrible death is
seconds away."


Also, Solar, themselves will probably do what
they can to help B.J. in making it more reliable and more safe.


This, I doubt. 1) Lawyers. (need I say more?). 2) the market
can't afford new Solars, only surplus ones. Surplus availability
hinges on a shrinking military, or one that is growing so
fast that it can replace equipment with new marks. I don't
think either is in the cards, given the world situation and the
budgetary one.


You are absolutely correct there. They wouldn't touch you guys with a 10
foot pole! If you can't keep a proven 2 stroke running, you sure as heck
can't handle an APU.


They are just so complex
and so much can go wrong\

Often experienced people get killed because they don't have the
RIGHT experience. think of the Mini -- some of those guys were
very high time in fixed wing. I know Allen was your friend, but
Bill, do you think if he had all those hours in low-inertia Robbies
that he would have tried to go over that wire? Instead his time
was almost all in high-inertia Bells... they would have forgiven
him, the Mini, which put him in that position in the first place
with its bad design, had no forgiveness in it.


That's not correct. Allen loved his Mini-500, and enjoyed flying it over
anything else, and said it had great characteristics. He stood up in
front of groups of people and said that.

Also, the Mini-500 has a high inertia blade system. It demonstrated
hovering auto's as high as 15 feet routinely at air shows in front of
thousands of people.

Furthermore, the Mini-500 was not at fault at all in Allen's death.
Allen failed to install the correct jet's the flight before, and seized
the engine, recovering with a perfect Auto rotation. He called me and
asked what to do. I said overhaul the engine, he decided not to. The
next flight he took off and "he" decided to fly low over the power line.
As that point the engine failed again due to the damage it sustained
from the flight before. He milked as much inertia from the system as he
could, but couldn't span the great distance. I don't believe there was a
helicopter built that could have gone that far.

As for the Mini-500 being a bad design, then why has there never been a
crash due to the fault of the Mini-500? Sure, you can spew your
propaganda, but the facts speak for themselves.

Dennis Fetters