Todd Marsh
05-06-2004, 03:12 PM
Good question eheli, I am trying to find out the manufacture of the washout assembly bearings. Mainly the #106-02. I have brand new 2003 Tempest with some pretty poor washout unit bearings. I have felt some on a old XL-Pro and they felt proper. No doubt mine are junk- might have been tightned too tight, might have gotten locktight into the bearing, or maybe they were just not up to par on delivery. The real peoblem is getting the bearings out of the washout arms without messing up the washout arms & the bearing seat itself.
carey shurley
05-06-2004, 03:19 PM
Actually every model helicopter rotor head is based on designs that originated on their full size counterparts. The Schluter heads actually are quite similar to the rotor heads used on the Hiller full size helicopters (it even had flybar paddles)
If you're implying that the original XCell rotor head was a copy of the Schluter head, it was not. Although the general layout was similar, its dimensional, damping and flying characteristics were quite different as were the materials used.
Over many years, the original design was refined and improved and turned into the Extreme rotor head.
The Tempest rotor head, although it uses SOME of the parts from the SE, Pro2, and Extreme rotor heads is dimensionally very different, has a different damping setup and offers variable mixing ratios that aren't available on the other heads. Overall, it has a smoother response than the other heads.
Most of the bearings are NMB, with characteristics selected specifically for the particular role each is used for. Some of the special purpose and high speed bearings come from other sources.