AH-1Z upgrades and Maintenance.

UIH,

This is not actually a build story but a maintenance event that will cover some upgrades, go over some things to look for during a maintenance event.

This aircraft is maybe 5-6 years new. Belonged to a modeler in the northeast and was sold to another in the area. Into the first flight, pilot noted a noise followed by a vibration then LTE, throttle hold, and hovering auto safely.

The owner looked things over and felt someone else should have a look then reached out to me. Started tearing the drive trail down and found a screw holding the IGB case halves had worked loose allowing the IGB output flange to wobble causing the vibration. This also loosened the gear mesh in the IGB causing the gears to jump under load, hence, LTE.

Fortunate this was caught before a mishap, this event lead into some improvements, upgrades and some scheduled maintenance checks in the future.

We will cover the IGB fault and future post to go over the upgrades to the tail drive system.

A few photos of the IGB.

Thanks for dropping by,

UIH,

Butch.