Originally posted by Savoia
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The stretched model has what looks like cut-down vertical stabalisers which are in fact extra weights to counteract the additional length of the cabin.
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#1831.3Editing a commentAs the cabin is 20cm longer, the 2 vertical fins become obsolete due to the weathercock effect. The small vertical fins are just there to finish the horizontal fins. I think this might be a benefit also against the strong lateral winds compared to std vertical fins. Not sure that these are weights as these could only oscillate even more and weaken the fibreglass shaft holding the H/V fin assembly together. -
I do not agree with that. The tail section needs to have sufficient area to 'keep the nose into the wind'. Note that the 'largest' part of a windvane is always downwind of the incoming air stream. So, when you increase the length of the front fuselage, the helicopter will exhibit more tendency to turn its tail into the wind. Lengthening the fuselage ahead of the rotormast will have a destabilizing effect and therefore would require larger endplates. I know that on certain IFR-certified helicopter types the stabilizing effect has been deliberately reduced to prevent the helicopter from entering a spiral dive.
Cheers, Jos.
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SA342J(S) F-GGTJ (cn 1473) No further details sadlyComment
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More YU-HPZ
Supporting Team 56 in this year's Gumball 3000 Rally.Comment
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Grazie GazEn. Interestingly enough, a while back when we were talking about CofG issues with the 'S'-version, I was suggesting some lead in this very location. It seems though that when with full pax some additional weight in the tail is sometimes required.GazEngineer wrote: The cut down vertical stabilisers are just for show and are not weighted. Extra weights at the rear of the aircraft have their own place inside the lower fairing of the tail rotor.
Serbian Air Force SA341H Soko Gama Gazelle No. 12806 (cn 003) as seen over Pešter plateau. Serbia, in October 2009 (Photo: Dimitrije Ostojic)Comment
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SA341H Soko Gazelle HA-LFK (cn 051) as seen at Budapest's Dráva Heliport (Date and photographer unknown)Comment
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Sav, speaking of HA-LFK, did you know that she's currently up for sale on eBay?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gazelle-SA-3...m=322087593473 -
I inspected and hovered it last year. The aircraft is in mint condition, but it is a SOKO Gazelle with an Astazou IIIB engine, this means that we cannot fly it over here. You can use these only in countries who issued the permit to fly. I think this aircraft has been cancelled from the Hungarian register also and cannot be re-registered for several reasons I will not disclose here. -
Thanks for the info Zis. I didn't know she was for sale. Interesting comments from XB. Presumably one can operate the Soko-built Gazelles in Western Europe if they remain on the Hungarian register?
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SA341G G-BAGL (cn WA1067) as seen at Shoreham Airport on 27th July 1974
'Bagel' was registered to Westland's in 1972 and remained with them until 1987 after which she went through a handful of owners before being placed on the Serbian register in 2006 and becoming YU-HHS, a photo of which you can see here.
On the left of the photo is the tail of Enstrom F-28A G-BBZS which had been imported earlier the same year by Spooner Aviation and was doubtless one of the many craft that Denissimo drove!
See more G-BAGL here and here.Comment
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SA341G G-IZEL (cn WA1098) as seen at Duxford Aerodrome on 25th August 1991Comment
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G-IZEL began life a G-BBHW, of which we have a new photo:
SA341G G-BBHW (cn WA1098) as seen at Glasgow's Abbotsinch Airport on 14th February 1976 (Photo: Fergus Abraham)
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I have been glad to be able to post a number of more nostalgic Gazelles in recent posts, for as Zis knows, I enjoy these slightly rarer shots, most especially civilian Gazelles from the 70’s.
In sourcing this next shot, I have had the privilege of exchanging a number of messages with the photographer, John Biczok, who as it turns out, has a brother-in-law who is a helicopter pilot who has flown in Papua New Guinea! John and I additionally discovered that we have the shared experience of having worked with the Hughes 500 in stream sampling operations, albeit on different continents.
On this matter John writes:
In due course I shall post John’s photos of his Hiller crash (yes, he has the shots) as well as some of his Hughes 500 photos from his stream sampling days. These I shall post on the Nostalgia Thread – I may even throw-in a few stories from my time stream sampling with the 500 in PNG!Stream sampling in Canada was not as tricky as PNG I'm sure, but most of our pilots never ceased to amaze me with the tight spots they could get us into. My flying, as a passenger, did start off rather badly though. My very first trip during my summer job in 1978 out in northern British Columbia ended in a terrifying crash in a piston-engine Hiller. Fortunately there was a large snow bank there to cushion the impact.
We walked all afternoon and then throughout the night to get to lower elevations, until we were eventually rescued. I swore I would never fly in a Hiller again after that, and in fact I didn’t for several years. When I relented one summer the damn thing caught on fire during the first trip and we had to make a hard landing in a river with the cabin full of smoke. I've stuck to turbine machines ever since!
Shirley Helicopters Gazelle in the Ogilvie Mountains, Yukon, Canada in June 1979 (Photo: John Biczok)
Of the above Gazelle photo John writes:
In anticipation of Zishelix’s first question .. yes, John 'may' have some additional Gazelles photos and is currently sorting through his slides to see what is there. If he does have some more, then he has promised to scan them and send copies our way, and for which we are most grateful.As I recall, we only used the Gazelle for visits to remote mineral occurrences that we wished to examine, not for day-to-day work like stream sampling. This photo would have been taken somewhere in the Ogilvie Mountains north of Dawson City, Yukon, probably when we were doing a geological examination of a mineral showing. This would have been in June 1979. It was not uncommon to get minor snow storms in the mountains then.
I worked for a company called Mattagami Lake Exploration at the time. Mattagami owned two mines in Canada and was actively exploring in several parts of Canada including the Yukon. In 1982 they were bought out by the biggest Canadian mining firm back then, Noranda. As a result, I was transferred from our office in Edmonton to Whitehorse, and put in charge of the exploration office there.
I have a few recollections of flying in the Gazelle. Firstly, the front passenger seat was so spacious compared to the cramped Hughes 500’s that we had been working in. It seemed like a luxury sports car by comparison, and so fast! One time Wayne (the pilot) put the Gazelle into a dive down a steep mountainside and I remember it reaching 170 mph, which was quite a thrill for us.
The other thing I remember was the clutch system. We had been flying a lot in JetRangers too and always had to watch our heads and stay low when approaching or departing the chopper. Having the Gazelle engine running at nearly full power and the blades not turning seemed like magic! Being able to approach safely and get in before the clutch was thrown and the blades started turning was pretty impressive and a great safety feature. (There had been several unfortunate incidents in the Canadian mining exploration programs that we all knew of where people were decapitated by either the tail or main rotors).
The owner of this Gazelle was Shirley Helicopters who were based in Edmonton as were we. Mattagami had chartered helicopters from Shirley for a couple of summers and initially had great service from them. It seemed though that they started growing too fast in response to the boom in mineral exploration in western Canada in the late 70’s and early 80’s. At one point I think they had over 100 helicopters working on various contracts, but perhaps not enough experienced pilots to go with them.
For us it seemed that they started sending us their less qualified pilots, even though we were operating in pretty rugged and demanding areas and had been a good customer for them. After some heated discussions we eventually switched and began using other companies.
Shirley then had a very unfortunate accident in 1980 right in the city of Edmonton when a pilot spreading fertiliser on a public park lifted off at high speed, forgetting he was still attached to the loaded bucket. The helicopter flipped over and struck two city workers who were on the ground, fatally wounding them. The incident was captured on film and was shown on the front page of the newspapers. My recollection is that Shirley Helicopters faded away after this accident and eventually went out of business.
I'm afraid that this particular Gazelle and its pilot met with a tragic end around 1980. The pilot was slinging a load of wood into an exploration camp when a piece came loose and struck the tail rotor just as he was descending at tree top level. The chopper flipped right over into the trees and the pilot was killed. His name was Wayne Eng and he was a wonderful man.
I don't know if the Gazelle was salvaged and rebuilt or not. I remember back then all the pilots used to tell us only (half jokingly) that if we ever crashed we should try to save the registration plate from the chopper, as that was the starting point for a rebuild!
I’ve blown up John’s photo as much as I can and the best I am able to read from the registration is C-GE?? I’m not even sure if it’s ‘GE’ but given then there seem to be no CE’s then I assume it must be GE.
Jos has already offered his assistance by sending me a specific list of Canadian Gazelles and there are only two which begin with GE. Firstly C-GEJE (cn 1057) which seems to have been converted to an SA342J and may have connections to F-GOSO, and secondly C-GEML (cn 1017) which went on to become N341GH.
Does anyone know which Gazelle is most likely to be in John's photo above?Comment
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N342GZ Cancelled
SA342M N342GZ (c/n 2055) was cancelled from the US register on 21-Apr-2016 as having expired. She may not have reached a CoA.
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I was under the impression she was sold to SA years ago.Originally posted by Rotorspot View PostComment
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SA341G HA-LFC (cn 1155)
Currently for sale. Ex-G-BLAP.Comment
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Army Air Corps SA341B XZ338 (cn 1682) escorts Polly Vacher's Piper Cherokee during her 'Wings Around Britain' challenge in 2007
Registered as G-CHZF in 2013 but has since been withdrawn from use.Comment
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More AAC ..
Army Air Corps SA341B XX453 (cn WA1454) as seen over the Lake District on 9th October 2012 (Photo: Thomas Catterall)Comment
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RMAF
Royal Moroccan Air Force SA342L CN-ACE (cn 1901) as seen landing at Marrakesh Menara Airport (Photo: Peter Foster)Comment
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G-UZEL
SA341G G-UZEL (cn 1413) as seen at Lasham Airport on 29th August 2007 (Photo: Ashley Middleton)
According to Jos' list this craft is now flying as N341GL after having become HA-LFT in 2012. She was first registered in the UK as G-BRNH in 1989.Comment
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Information Notice Airbus 3015-I-00
Current status of worldwide Airbus Helicopters fleet as of end-2015, among 18,345 helicopters delivered 11,858 are still operated by 3009 customers in 154 countries.
GAZELLE:- Number of helicopters built: 1.269
- Number of helicopters in service: 516 (The actual number is probably higher as they do not know exactly how many military aircraft are in service, but it is probably closer to 600)
- Flight hours in 2015: 74.000
- Total flight hours till end 2015: 7.106.000
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Interesting, I thought 1267 Gazelles rolled off the production line. Oh well, the producer knows better how many helicopters they've made!Originally posted by xbdt View Post
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More HPZ ..
SA342J(S) YU-HPZ (cn 1473) as seen in Luxembourg on 3rd May 2016 (Photo: Peter Bakema)
Supporting Team 56 during this year's Gumball Rally.Comment
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Blue Eagles
On board with the Blue Eagles from times past
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YU-HEY
SA341G(S) YU-HEY (cn 1320) as seen at Cromer Northrepps Airfield on 8th May 2016 (Photo: Graham Reeve)Comment
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Gazelles Over Serbia
Serbian Air Force Gazelles by Bojan Vozar
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New US Registered Gazelle
N341DT, SA341G, c/n 1110 (ex RP-C1110, N708EZ, F-GIGN, D-HMTD). Registered 05-May-2016 to Southern Aircraft Consultancy Inc Trustee in the UK.
Cheers, Jos.
ps: To see a photo of c/n 1110 when she flew as D-HMTD with the Polizei Nordrhein-Westfalen, click here.Comment
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I-PNIC Landing in Rome
Watch that tail !!!
Please Change My Blade Tape!
Kuwaiti Air Force Gazelle '511' revealing the need for some new blade tape!
I'm not sure if this is all just severely worn blade tape or whether there is also some leading edge damage?Comment
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F-WTNA s/n 1001 at Farnborough in September 10th, 1976 (Photo: Mick Bajcar)
This three HOT missile configuration was for display purposes only.
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SA.341F 1335/AWC & 1504/AWD sky ballet over Le Luc AB in June 2005 (Photo: Paul Schaller)
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HA-LFH
SA342J HA-LFH (cn 1775) as seen at Gloucester Airport on 9th May 2016Comment
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Red Arrows First Display of the Season Interrupted by Gazelle
(Forward to 11:30)Comment
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