A New Journey Begins

[HeloJunkie]

Hey Everyone -

 

I have finally decided to go ahead and get my 500 fully restored and to blog the complete restoration on my website as I have done in the past. This will be, by far, the largest undertaking I have started with an aircraft that I have owned. I have concluded that I really like the 500 and it will hopefully remain as my favorite helicopter for many, many years and as such, needs a complete, frame-up, restoration.

 

Its going to be a 4 to 5 month project and include a full and complete tear down to bare metal and then a complete restoration back to (as close as possible) a new ship.

 

As usual, I will have lots of pictures and information on the restoration project and would always welcome comments and thoughts from my friends here at VR!

 

I plan on one or two articles per week depending on the speed and level of the work. I have just posted the first in the series dealing with the delivery and initial inspection.

 

Enjoy

 

 

http://richard.sears.net

[Goldy]

Richard- You never fail to wow us !!

[HeloJunkie]

Richard- You never fail to wow us !!

 

I keep thinking one of these days I will do something to get you down to San Diego Goldy ! :-)

[HeloJunkie]

Hey Everyone -

 

Week Three pictures and updates on my MD500e restoration project have been posted at http://richard.sears.net

 

Let me know what you think!

 

Thanks !!

[BOATFIXERGUY]

Awesome as usual Richard. Looking forward to future updates!

[HeloJunkie]

Awesome as usual Richard. Looking forward to future updates!

 

Thanks !!

[HeloJunkie]

Hey Everyone -

 

Another update posted with some more pictures. The 500 is almost totally apart now and they are removing the bottom skins for replacement due to some bad antenna installs.

 

http://richard.sears.net

 

 

Cheers

[RPMN Editor]

Hey Richard, I would like to invite you to chronicle the rebuild and allow us to follow it in Rotorcraft Pro. We could do a one page story, with a few pictures, each month until completion. I think our readers would enjoy it. Let me know,, ron@rotorcraftpro.com

[copter doctor]

Richard,Great pictures! Thanks for sharing the process with the rest of us Rotorheads. Keep the updates coming.

[Inferno]

Wow, that's interesting. That looks like an amazing shop too. Any more pics?

[HeloJunkie]

Wow, that's interesting. That looks like an amazing shop too. Any more pics?

 

Hi Inferno -

 

I post updates as I get them from PHI. This is a work in progress with me posting updates in as near real time as I can with the work schedule and PHI's timing on the pictures!

[HeloJunkie]

Richard,Great pictures! Thanks for sharing the process with the rest of us Rotorheads. Keep the updates coming.

 

 

Copter Doctor -

 

Thanks for the kind words! I will let everyone know when the next batch of photos go online!

[ADRidge]

Richard, that bird is amazing. I love the pics, cant wait for the next batch!

[HeloJunkie]

Hey Everyone -

 

Sorry about my absence lately and lack of updating the website on the MD500 restoration. I am back after spending some much needed time diving the Great Barrier Reef!

 

I have posted an update to my 500 project (http://richard.sears.net) or if you just want to see tons and tons of photos without all of my verbiage then you can hit my flicker page HERE. I am up to about 500 or so photos of the restoration process already!

 

Let me know what you think!

 

Thanks

[copter doctor]

Richard, thanks for the update, it is neat to look at all the work going on.I look foward to seeing the process and of course the end result.

[HeloJunkie]

Richard, thanks for the update, it is neat to look at all the work going on.I look foward to seeing the process and of course the end result.

 

Thanks! Its a fun project, but it will be more fun when its been completed!!

[edspilot]

Richard:

 

BTW what is the estimate for a completion date?

 

What does a complete teardown, restoration, reassembly, paint and tweeking take?

 

A "first class" approach to a "first class" ship!

 

 

edspilot

[HeloJunkie]

Richard:

 

BTW what is the estimate for a completion date?

 

What does a complete teardown, restoration, reassembly, paint and tweeking take?

 

A "first class" approach to a "first class" ship!

 

 

edspilot

 

 

Edspilot -

 

Initially we were looking at 3 to 4 months for the entire project. However, once the teardown started, we found a bunch of little things that I wanted taken care of since it would be easier with everything torn down than trying to go back later and try to do some of it.

 

Right now we are going into month four. I suspect it will take another two to three months before I have a flying ship back into my hands. Now that I do not have it, its easier to approve additional repairs or upgrades, some of which are time consuming.

 

I just approved the complete removal of the rear belly skins so we could gain full access to the fuel bladder area, replace the fuel cell liners, rework the fuel cell itself (which could have been done without removing the bottom), replacing the bottom skins with thicker metal and redoing the rear floor with new, thicker metal. This added a full three weeks to the project for this one additional change. But I have much stronger belly and floor skins which adds rigidity to the ship overall and the fuel cell liner can be replaced as opposed to trying to patch or fix it through the small holes where you shove the fuel bladder normally. I had already choose to replace the front bottom skins, but was going to try and repair the rear skins which looked like swiss cheese after her old mechanics got done spending twenty years putting holes all over here for heaven knows what. My choice at that time was to patch or replace and in the end I chose to replace and in doing so gave complete access to the fuel cell area where PHI will be making some major improvements.

 

Over the next few days I hope to put some additional pictures and commentaries on my blog and I will let everyone know when I put up a new article!

 

Cheers

[Rick McWilliams]

Thanks for sharing the progress on your MD500. I am curious about the swirl tubes. I thought that these were to make the airflow more uniform and to reduce noise. The swirl tubes will also act as a diffuser recovering some pressure from a lateral flow. The filter elements will help with the steady flow, but not much with noise. How do these filters affect noise and performance?

[HeloJunkie]

Thanks for sharing the progress on your MD500. I am curious about the swirl tubes. I thought that these were to make the airflow more uniform and to reduce noise. The swirl tubes will also act as a diffuser recovering some pressure from a lateral flow. The filter elements will help with the steady flow, but not much with noise. How do these filters affect noise and performance?

 

 

Hi Rick -

 

The swirl tubes were basically there as a filter. The air goes through the swirl tubes and any debris gets tossed overboard via centrifugal force. I am replacing this with the AFB barrier filter kit from Donaldson.

 

The AFS kit is supposed to be far more effective and give me a power increase as well over the factory swirl tubes.