Aerospatiale Gazelle Startup and Takeoff from Stapleford Aerodrome (EGSG)

As part of a potential business, I had the privilege to fly on one of the most well known helicopters in the history of aviation, the Aerospatiale Gazelle as part of a test flight for a client owned Gazelle. The flight included me, the pilot and the flight engineer.
The test flight was to measure the vibration at top speed in flight. You will notice the engineer hold an oddly shaped object, this is a device used to measure the vibration that occur during the test.
#aviation #gazellehelicopter #helicopter

[@DaFunkiB]

Reminds me of my days maintaining these in the British Army. We used the Rotor Tuner system, which measure blade tracking(which is the device the engineer is holding) rotor head balance by attaching 2 accelerometers. There are little wieght pots inserted in each blade arms and we simply added tiny lead weight balls to these pots and the roto tuner told us exactly how many grams to add to each pot. The blade tracking is done on the ground, hover, 60,80,100,120 knots at any point the balance is out or tracking is out of limits we return to base and do the correction. Then repeat again

[@user-ei2nt2qd2b]

was the flight part of a pre-purchase for a client? Did they buy it? cheers for the vid

[@AmanLegoman]

It was already bought, I assumed the test was part of the maintenance schedule

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

*_Cool._*

[@paulmajor6517]

To make sure all the blades are following the same track, or you get vibrations

[@paulmajor6517]

Blade traking.

[@AmanLegoman]

Cheers, didn’t know that

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

I noticed that as well.

[@aileronhelicopters]

Pheww