Tail rotor balancing

balancing
 Plug the balancer into the external power in the chopper. Hand tighten the accelerometer
into the tail rotor gearbox breather vent. Install the cables and run them down the lower
vertical and place something on top to prevent it from moving. Insert the cable into the
balancer into channel B. make sure you have reflective tape on before you run up on one
of the blades. The reflective tape they use on the radio buoys works good. Plug in the
power and turn on the A/C battery and check you have power before you start up the
chopper. Make sure your PC links are in good condition before you balance. Make sure
there is no play in your lower vertical stabilizer. If it is a 100 hourly balance you should be
able to run it up to 103%. if it is a balance after changing some parts you should check it at
ground idle first. Set the balancer to X10 and also to channel B. Set the strobex to T/R
balance. You don’t have to touch the RPM adjust dial when balancing the tail rotor. If
checking at ground idle set the RPM on the balancer to 229 and run the chopper. Set the
chopper idle to 70% N2. get out and point the strobe and pull the trigger and observe the
clock angle, then while still pointing the strobe at the tail rotor push the verify tune
button on the balancer and observer the new clock angle. If the clock angles are the same
(which they never are) you don’t need to adjust the RPM dial. But you always have to !!.
So if the clock angles differ while holding down the verify tune button slowly move the
RPM dial so the clock angle with the verify button pushed is the same as the clock angle
with the button released. Cont,
balancing
 This is now your clock angle you will use on the chart. release the trigger on the
strobe and take note of your IPS. This is the same procedure you will use at
103%. In flight take note of were your pedals stay at cruise speed with your feet
of them. Depending on the rigging they should sit inline. Some drift apart and
the right pedal sits a bit further forward than the left. The reason to take note
of were they sit is that when it comes time to balance if they drift apart let them
them do that on the ground as well. The book says to lock the pedals in neutral
but that’s OK if they are in neutral in flight as well. There is a big difference in
the IPS if you balance them with the pedals in neutral and at cruise speed they
drift apart. So with your clock angle and IPS you go to the chart for H369 metal
tail rotor. Careful not to use the chart for fiber glass blades. Find where the IPS
and clock angle intersect. There are 2 lines on the chart and one is nearly
vertical and one is horizontal. The vertical line you go to your dot you marked
where your IPS and clock angle intersect and go directly to the right and it will
tell you to remove weight from the either the target blade (the one with the
reflective tape) or the other blade the ‘blank blade’. Always remove weight if
you can. When you run at 103% set the RPM dial on the balancer to 310.
balancing
 If your dot where the clock angle and IPS intersect is close to the vertical line
then you go to the horizontal line and read down and once again it will tell you
to either add or remove from either the target or blank blade. i.e. which ever
line is furtherest from the dot that is the adjustment you do first. If the dot is
close to the vertical line then you go directly down and do the adjustment on
the horizontal line. If the dot is close to the horizontal then your go right of the
vertical line. When adding or removing from the tip the weights are very small
amounts as it is spinning so fast out there. The weights on the PC links are
more as it is spinning slower in there. I forget if the line to the right (vertical) is
for the PC links or at the tip. Anyway carefully read the chart before adding or
removing any weights and record everything you do. So after your first
adjustment, lets assume the dot was close to the vertical line before you started
then you would have gone directly down and done the adjustment for the
horizontal. So after the adjustment you run up and now the dot (IPS and clock
angle meet) should now move down and your new clock angle and IPS should
be on the horizontal line but still away from the vertical line. This should be
you next adjustment which is reading directly to the right of the vertical
balancing
 Line. This will now after your adjustment move your dot closer to the vertical line. I.e.
closer to the centre which is where the IPS is .2 or less. Some choppers the chart will tell
you to add .2 of a gram and you do a run up and the next reading was either no change or
it was to much weight was added, ( the dot went from one side of the line right across to
the other side) you will find out after you balance for the first time. I had one chopper
would ask for 1 gram and it would take 2 grams. To get a move in the right direction. If
you get it to just below .2 try another adjustment and get it lower. If you get below .1 don’t
do any more. That’s perfect. After you have it balanced at 103% go around and feel the
lower vertical so you know what .1 IPS feels like so you will know when it needs balanced
next time if the vibration is worse. This is fuckin hard to explain on paper but I hope it
helps out. Biggest thing is do the balance every 100 hours so you get good at it. Don’t just
leave it until you feel a buzz. Write down every adjustment you have made so you can go
back to the original weights if you get into trouble. When you pick up the chopper in
Guam have a look how many weights are on the PC links. These weights a 1 gram each
and if there is over 12 to 14 of them ask them to do a hub shift. You are allowed 27 grams
there but if there is already a lot of weights there and you have to keep adding through
the year you will hit the limits so get it right before you leave Guam. I always do a hub
shift so Ive only got about 4-6 grams on the PC links.