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Mast Mounted Sights?


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This question has bugged me for years. How exactly does a mast mounted sight work. A MMS is the instrument cluster found on helicopters like the Kiowa and Apache. What I mean is, how does it not rotate with the rest of the assembly. This seems like engineering magic to me every way I look at it, and it's been bugging me for a long time.

post-46336-0-50654800-1394419636_thumb.jpg

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They mount it to the part of the mast that is fixed so it wont rotate. Think car axil.... your while axil assembly doesnt rotate either.

 

Or look at your ceilng fan, the blades move, but the light in the center is fixed.

 

The mast of a helicopter is not just a solid pipe alone.

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I guess it just seems flimsy and complicated and dangerous to me, Just look at that picture, it's kind of hard to believe there is another cylinder inside that already thin one. I was hoping someone had some pictures of the inner workings. I've also always wanted to see a picture of a torque meter. It's hard to find these things lying around the internet.

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I am sure your local recruiter can sign you up for a personal 10 year field trip. By the end you will know all about the things that make them work.

 

Some things are hard to find online for a reason. Especially military advanced hardware specs for some odd reason..... ;)

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There is a torque tube mounted to the bottom of the transmission which runs up to the top of the mast inside the driveshaft (Apache has a static mast). The MMA is attached to the torque tube, preventing it from spinning. Kind of mind boggling...

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  • 4 weeks later...

I guess it just seems flimsy and complicated and dangerous to me, Just look at that picture, it's kind of hard to believe there is another cylinder inside that already thin one. I was hoping someone had some pictures of the inner workings. I've also always wanted to see a picture of a torque meter. It's hard to find these things lying around the internet.

Dan,

 

Most turbine engines (such as the t700) have a shaft within another shaft The outer shaft is the Ng/Gas Producer Turbine on one end and the compressor on the other. The inner shaft is the Np/Power Turbine on one end and the power driveshaft on the other. The inner shaft is less than an inch in diameter yet routinely carries 2000 horsepower (albeit at very high rpm and thus low torque). Not everything which looks flimsy is so.

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There is a torque tube mounted to the bottom of the transmission which runs up to the top of the mast inside the driveshaft (Apache has a static mast). The MMA is attached to the torque tube, preventing it from spinning. Kind of mind boggling...

 

This is exactly the way the blade deice system works on the H60 series also. The stationary and rotating part of the distributor is at the top of the rotor.

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