I'm thinking about buying one of these with a couple partners. One, like me, is comm SEL. The other is comm everything and CFI everything except rotor. The plan would be for her to add rotor to her CFI certificate and then train the two of us. So this would basically be for us to get our comm rotor ratings and maybe 50-100 hours rotor time before we outgrow it. What's the gouge on these craft, and are there any gotchas to using one for this plan?
If this is a built aircraft, build quality and total time is everything. Also have your CFI check to make sure she can find someone who is willing to do her add-on in a Rotorway. Bottomline, I would get someone with extensive Rotorway experience involved from a flying and maintenance standpoint before you consider spending your first dollar.
First rule of a Rotorway: Never hover any higher than you are willing to fall. I have considerable rotor time, and I won’t get in one much less fly it. If you are serious about flying helicopters, get a certified one.
Wait, so you want someone who has never flown a helicopter to get her add on, then be your instructor?
The guy that taught me to fly helicopters and work on them said pretty much the same thing. I've never gotten close enough to a Rotorway to form my own opinion on them but I respect his.
20 years ago, my hangar neighbors had two of 'em. In 5-8 years "living" next door to them, I never saw either helicopter get more than 10' high. Later, one of the guys purchased several completed 162F's and converted them to use a small turbine. He sold two of 'em. Both crashed due to >different< mechanical problems. The one that my neighbor kept also suffered a crash when the tail rotor drive shaft fractured. Thankfully, he was only 4' high and got it on the ground before Mr. Toad's wild ride got too exciting. Only the skids were damaged. Bottom line, I'd stay away.
Do a search in the NTSB database. Crappy design, problematic engine, belt driven tail rotor, very sensitive to lateral CG. Don’t walk away, run.
Apparently comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is into them and according to Wikipedia, has built four of them.
I nearly bought two different ones. Ask yourself a question: Why is it that all the ones for sale tend to have been sitting a while, have very low flight time, and require tons of maintenance per hour flown?
128, in my 1998-2021 homebuilt accident database. Fatality rate is rather low, only 9% resulted in fatalities, vs. typically ~25% among homebuilts. ~28% of the Rotorway accidents were due to mechanical issues with the engine (including ignition system and rotor drive), vs. about 8% for the overall homebuilt fleet. Eighteen of the 128 accidents involved the rotor drive systems. That's about a third of all loss-of-power accidents. 116 of the accidents involved Rotorway engines (which, IIRC, are converted maritime units). It's difficult to assess the severity of these issues because, since it is a homebuilt helicopter. That's a much more challenging situation than your ordinary fixed-wing homebuilt, or even a homebuilt gyro. There's not much to compare the Rotorway helicopter to; there are only 204 homebuilt helicopter accidents in my ~4700-accident database, so the Rotorway is the most-prevalent model. There are 14 Safaris, 26 Mini-500s, five Baby Belles, etc. A rather broad search of FAA records shows about 360 Rotorway helicopters in the active registry. There are over 800 in the list of deregistered aircraft, so over time the fleet size has been pretty significant. Ron Wanttaja
What's telling is to find a used one with a lot of time on it. They are typically several years old with less than 100 hours. I know a couple of people that built them, then after the initial test flights wouldn't fly them anymore.
Certainly RotorWay is history, and interestingly the "continuation" model is called the Phoenix. Don't know if someone bought RW, or just the rights to the 162, but I do note that today's pricing is, um, pricey.
Half the folks I work with are former rotorcraft drivers, and based on the disdain of many of them for Robinsons, I'm guessing the 162F would be a definite no-go.
Seems like 99% of rotor wing pilots are doing so for money. And probably 90% of THEM are flying turbines. Which means the vast majority of experienced pilots are going to look at ANY piston chopper as super-sketch. Yet Robinson is by all accounts very successful and makes more piston helicopters than all other manufacturers combined. C.
I would recommend staying away. I have not flown one. I have gone through an extensive walk around/preflight on one that was for sale. I elected not to fly. After looking closely at the design and materials of the kits I decided to never fly one. Just my opinion. Worth what it cost. R-22 is ok but you have to be on the ball r-44 is a fine machine If it was me I would get a Hughes 269C
For piston helicopters, the Schweizer/Hughes 269's are good. So is the Robinson R44, and the Enstrom's. Even the Bell 47's were good helicopters and the Hiller's. BTW, calling helicopters "choppers" is well, just silly.
FYI: most helicopter pilots spend their first 1000-1500 hours in piston rotorcraft to meet the minimums for mainstream ops. There was a remarkable change in the industry when it switched from military trained (turbine) to civilian trained (piston) entry level pilots with just about all in Robbies after the mid-90s or so. For those adventurous enough, some went the Helicycle route to gain their time which was as a bonus all turbine time.
As a baby aviator I was a helicopter harlot and would fly pretty much anything that I could get my hands on in order to build time. With a grand total of 250 hours, I was convinced to fly the first 10 hours off of a Rotorway 162F. It paid $15 per flight hour. The good - the 162F had FADEC of sorts. It was fast, and nimble and as long as you remembered to put the compensation weight on the skid for solo flight you didn't have much of an issue with weight and balance. It cruised reasonably fast. The bad - At about hour 3, the belt for the tail rotor drive started to slip and I lost tail rotor authority resulting in a run on landing. A preflight item was to push a tensioner rod into a hole to verify belt tension. It passed on preflight and after the slippage, failed miserably. That drive system has since been improved I have been told. It's very tight in the cabin for 2 average sized people. At that time I was about 5' 11" and 200lbs with an athletic build. This is NOT an aircraft to learn to fly in in my professional opinion.
I talked to an experienced civilian pilot about a RotorWay a long time ago. He said, "find one with 200 hours that is still flying before you buy one." Still looking. I personally love the Hughes 269C/300 that I am currently checking out in. Highly recommend Highland Aviation in Springfield, TN (M91) as the place to get your potential partner her CFI. Hughes/Schweitzer 269C/300s well maintained with highly experienced instructors. My instructor has 6,000 hours, mostly helicopter. (2,000+ combat hours).
200 hours is right about the median aircraft time, for the 128 Rotorway helicopter accidents in my database. Probably a good target. Ron Wanttaja
It's about the median for Rotorways that have crashed. No data on how many hours are flown by the ones that haven't. Highest time aircraft had 1537 hours at the time of the accident (LAX00LA071)...pretty good, even for a fixed-wing homebuilt. NTSB says it happened during transitional training. Probable Cause, "...fatigue fracture and separation of the secondary drive shaft, which resulted from the manufacturer's inadequate quality control process." FAA registry shows the owner as "Cobb International Inc.", but the aircraft manufacturer is listed as "Cobb International Inc DBA Rotorway Int". So the helicopter was being operated by the kit company. Ron Wanttaja
FYI: 200 TT is also about the time the first round of certain drive parts need to be replaced. Seems some decide not to replace or some make an error during the replacement.
I'm hoping to use them to finish my Instrument rating in a few months. Shoot me a PM, I'm curious who your instructor is...
