Erickson announces FAA certification for composite main rotor blades. Erickson image.Erickson Incorporated has announced final FAA certification for the composite main rotor blades on the S-64F and CH-54B helicopters. Earlier this year, the company received approval for the S-64E model. This recent announcement finalizes the certification of the S-64F and CH-54B, solidifying FAA certification for the entire fleet of S-64 Air Crane® E & F models, as well as the CH-54 Skycrane A & B models.
The advanced design of the blades provides a significant performance advantage, especially with hot and high conditions.
This Certification brings considerable advantages, such as:
- Performance gains
- Fuel savings
- Reduced vibration, meaning reduced wear and fatigue on the entire aircraft
- Blade interchangeability with the E/A models
“It was quite difficult, but extremely satisfying to see this project through to completion. There are a lot of blood sweat and tears in those blades.” – Billy Johnson, Chief Engineer at Erickson Incorporated
3 Comments
Questions from a dummy-
Are the new blades carbon fiber?
Were the old blades aluminum or an alloy thereof?
“An advanced composite blade construction for a helicopter rotor blade using for the most part fiber reinforced plastic materials in which the major assembly of blade elements is a single step co-cure operation and in which an integral spar/skin carries centrifugal, flapwise and chordwise loads and also incorporates redundant means to carry torsional loads and a honeycomb core carries shear and aerodynamic pressures loads.”
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Notice that the above is (wow!) one sentence!
Plastic reinforced materials are as follows:
glass
Carbon
aramid
Basalt
As far as I can find rotor blades for the S-64 were made of aluminum. No mention of alloys.
I have some good footage from the Colorado 2020 fire
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