OVERCOMING BARRIERS Not directly related to NOTAR®


, but


solidly connected to sales, is the ques­ tion of industry uptake. I clearly remember the concern on the street in the mid­2000s about purchasing and owning an MD helicopter. That ques­ tion was, “Can MD support my helicop­ ter with parts and spares?” The answer at the time was “not very well.” The Internet and word of mouth are power­ ful mediums, and tales of operators waiting months for parts with aircraft sitting idle were commonplace on industry message boards. Looking back, the support problem


seemed to manifest and take root dur­ ing that dark time from 1997 to 2005. This was the time when the MD line was bounced around like a pinball between McDonnell Douglas, to the Boeing Company, to the Dutch RDM Holdings, and finally to its current owner since 2005, Patriarch Partners and Lynn Tilton. Lauded as business turn­around mas­


ters, Lynn Tilton and team put their ears to the ground and listened to the cries for better support from the industry. Recognizing that inadequate support was the biggest barrier to MD sales, and a barrier to getting NOTAR®


tech­


nology into the field, they tackled the support problem head­on. According to MD, the company is focused on internal process improve­ ments, supply chain product flow, and fuselage ramp­up. There has been a significant emphasis on the sales of spares as well as the repair and over­ haul business. Part sales have also shown a significant increase in orders per month. A testimony that bolsters the fact


that MD has adequately addressed its past issues surrounding support of its clients and aircraft is the award of mili­ tary contracts. According to Bill Cusick, MD Helicopters’ VP of Customer Support, “OEM’s are not awarded mili­ tary contracts without comprehensive, proven support and quality control sys­ tems in place.”


28 August 2013


ADDRESSING MYTHS With respect to flying NOTAR®


air­


craft, two myths that I’ve heard in pilot circles, were that (1) anti­torque control authority lacked performance and (2) that it “felt” significantly different to fly as compared to traditional TRs. I humbly submit that based on my own limited experience flying the MD 902, those impressions may have been per­ petuated by people with even less expe­ rience flying with NOTAR®


than me. My “no­spin” opinions (pun intend­


ed) on the topics are these: First, from the standpoint of performance, at approximately 3000’ DA and 80% MGW, NOTAR®


technology performed per­


fectly under all normal flight regimes. There was never a moment when pedal


authority was limited or felt even the slightest bit degraded. Even more impressive was when Production Test Pilot Nick Page demonstrated left and right pedal turns at a rate of 60 – 70 degrees per second! If you do not believe that, watch the associated video for this article. Second, with respect to how differ­ ent NOTAR® “feels,” I say, “So what?”


It’s no different than when I first flew the AS350 (with a clock­wise main rotor) for the first time after decades of flying Bell, Sikorsky, and Agustas, which are all counter­clockwise. Nothing can be more different than completely opposite pedal inputs. The bottom line is that you instinctively move the pedals in the direction the nose needs to go.


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