Brantly Helicopter Report
Brantly Helicopter Report
Brantly Helicopter Report
hat price character? We treasure many PPL(H) at Little Gransden, it would certainly
an Archimedes screw arrangement. The oil in flight. There’s also a drag hinge and damper was not airtight but didn’t rattle. The cockpit
filler cap is lock-wired and there are no sight where the blade proper begins, and both feels quite roomy, certainly more so than the
glasses, so care is needed here. hinges throw grease down the blade. Blade Robinson, and smells wonderfully of old
On the left side of the fuselage is a useful inspection is gratifyingly simple, with almost leather and new oil. After more than 40 years
baggage area about the size of both under-seat everything at or below eye height. – Brantly designed the original B2 in 1953
compartments in an R22, although there’s a The bubble is a double Perspex unit split and had it certificated in 1959, and the B2B
50lb weight limit on it. Above that is the horizontally, with a sort of plumber’s bum came along in 1963 – the Perspex has
inspection panel giving access to the oil fillers, thing going on at the top. Getting in is like clouded slightly in places, but the view is
and above that the unusual (and unique, I stuffing a misshapen parcel into a pillar box. stupendous, all round and back over your
think) Brantly rotor head. Brantly blades The doors are small, there is no step and the head.
proper don’t begin until 40 percent of span – stick and lever are positioned to cause With the exception of a relatively new DI the
the inboard portion, which produces very little maximum interference. I noticed that Ian instruments looked original. Notable were the
lift in any helicopter, is a simple shaft covered simply leapt in with a half-hitch–Fosbury flop fuel flow meter, which has the corresponding
by a fairing of airfoil section. It has a flapping sort of twist, and I’m sure practice makes MAP value on the outside of the dial, and the
hinge at the rotor hub while the blade itself is perfect. big CHT gauge which always seems to be
attached to the shaft with a second flapping To shut the door one must push down and operating at the top end of its range. The cyclic
hinge. This double action is apparently pull in to make sure the top has caught under is a thin chromed tube with a moulded grip
responsible for the smoothness of the machine a flange, then slide the bolt home. The result which sports a single button, for the RT. The