Detailed Preflight Inspection of an EC135 Eurocopter Twin Turbine Helicopter

It's a beautiful morning here at the Air Care 4 base operated by Phi Air Medical. Today we are going to make a

detailed

video on a pre-flight

inspection

of this EC135 P2. Let's get started before going into too much detail about the

inspection

. just the general condition of the exterior, make sure the blade tie downs have taken off the intake covers, the engine covers, the static whistle covers, whatever you put on, make sure there's no ice on the plane, actually It's pretty clean right now, I cleaned it last week at the beginning of this shift, so let's go ahead and get started, we're going to start with a fuel sump that has four points on the bottom, all you need to do for the sump of fuel, you have four points on the ec-135, push it up and find the happy place and you're done.

Go, I mean, let it go depending on what the operator wants to do. You must take the right amount of fuel. I'm just doing this as a demonstration. This one goes up more. Some have an extension, but you do the same and upload here. and run it right in front of the cross tube if it's windy, be careful and we're going to go up to the one here. I use a vine while I'm under the plane, it makes it much better and we'll get through it. We go to the line just to get to the line and that's it, that's all he wrote.

Now we check it like any fuel sample to make sure it's clean, clear and bright. Fuel sample is complete. Let's do our internal reviews. We have our external energy. ready to plug in but we're not going to plug it in yet the

ec135

is a glass cockpit which is really nice it has a lot of screens its main flight screen its navigation screen transponder two garmin 430s h launch warning panel fire lights all its indicators wait, the different engine and transmission fuels are shown here, engine controls, starting, avionics controls, autopilot, collective, etc., so like most airplanes, I start here right behind the pilot with the map light, uh, make sure it's properly secured, we'll check the functionality here. in a minute and we have it pointing towards the top because at night the breakers don't turn on to make sure the standby attitude indicator works with the power off you have the power off turn it on you can see the light on the map is on. working glowing near the circuit breakers and then down here it's starting to work slowly, everything is fine, ready, turn off the switch, the fly comes out again, we are checking the

preflight

, make sure everything is in the normal position like for the Las bus connections are in the normal and protected position.

The circuit breakers should all be in except the one that is closed. All switches in front of the circuit breakers must be in the off position, which is towards the rear, toward the rear of the aircraft, or in the normal position. We've started from the rear left, we have the fire extinguisher warning, uh, CD and warning, test our different avionics inverters, while the waiting horizon has our bus display, test our pytostatic heaters, our different switches of environmental control, the windshield wiper lights here for the charging and devouring lights. transfer and then our interior lights and exterior lights control the engine up to fedex and normal or manual mode and then if we need to vent the engine, we can do that as well in front of the switches, we have the rotor brake, it should be in the stowed position and locked or up and locked at this point you can't move it if you wanted to apply the brake, just push down and pull and it should lock to release, pull and release and it should come up and lock. something to hang your headphones or helmet that I don't normally use here is our magnetic compass, which we always want to check for bubbles.

We have the compass card. Make sure we can read it and that we are on the right track. Check the status of the. wind storm screen looks beautiful we have different checklists little pockets you can use looking at the overall condition of your screens nothing is broken everything should look clear here are my ceps let's move those no one needs to see them here on the right or left The side is the radar, the clock is a single winding clock, as you can see, it is already working at this time, so we can stop the counter by stopping it and then you can restart it.

It is a wind-up watch, do not wind it too much. You can still break it like a normal winding watch and then we need to check the time, so let's let my watch have the proper time. If you need to change it, you can take it out and then adjust it and release the master power. The switch is just below the cad and engine controls. Let's turn it on and see the triple turn. It's a very quick test, so you have to be aware of that. We are going to check the voltage and make our bus connection switches and quickly connect the external power to preserve, we are going to open the bus connections and check if there is a minimum or maximum change of one volt so we look good, we are going to return bus connections back to normal. position so check your shed bus go up here do that and it will go down here until the cad shed bus will be on and then everything will work properly then you should be able to turn on the lights on all the outside lights that you can test. and test the priming pumps and transfer pumps to return the shed bus to its normal position so that with external power applied it has 28.6 volts which is on your vemd v rail two.

I haven't recognized the cad which is its caution prompt screen since I turned on the power, so normally this is what it should look like except I just plugged in my external power. If there is an input fault, an input fault will be displayed at the bottom, I think in white in the center column, but once you recognize it, you can hear it on my helmet, the beep, a lot of people recognize it before they screen appears, which may be an error, so we will recognize it by pressing the select button or the reset button on my group. or my cyclic, we'll hit it right here and look at the cad, watch what happens, all of those just show all the errors, all the warnings that it can right now, showing what's not working but what's not right, let's check more than the checklist asks us to force a habit I like to check as much as I can even for my pre-start checks I prefer to know now when I don't have a flight request because something isn't working versus when I have it on the plane and I need to fly then I find out something is not working properly so we will start from left to right top to bottom so it's like reading a book so I check the screen of bus one and bus two to test them. nothing should change in your pft and your standalone or navigation screen, so we'll go to bus one and then bus two.

Nothing changes passes the test. We will check that the buyer one works and turn it off. Let's shoot. two number two side works, we're going to check our warning unit, which is all of our lights on the top, there you can hear the little gong, the beep, we're going to recognize that with the cyclic and check our CDs, the lane of the two right screens. one and two on the right side, so lane one, lane two, those numbers should be the same and then the one on the left will be different. You'll check your high number, your jack and the fan light fail, so just the jack.

It turns on and then the fan fails, so let's let it go. I'm going to come and test our attitude indicator. Make sure it works normally with the battery turned off. You would try it and then we have already tried it. tomorrow and it works so we'll just turn it on if the cage goes forward we'll check the copilot and pilot pedo heaters so the copilot everything looks good now when I turn these systems off watch what happens. notice, it is highlighted and will remain on that screen until you recognize it, either by pressing this select button on the cad or by pressing the reset button on your cyclic, we will recognize it and it will disappear, we will review our fans for our fan fans work with ventilation maximum passenger fan we're not going to check our windshield wipers, so we're going to turn on our main pumps, which is what we started before or what is what we turn on before starting the engine number one two work, I'm going to turn them off and the warning will go off alone, but now it says I have no fuel pressure, so we'll recognize that we're going to turn on our transfer pumps, which should be on at all times when we're when the engines are running, so turn both on, look in the center console or the center column, now when you turn these lights off, they won't come back on for several minutes, so we'll turn them back on. off, uh, moving forward, let's go ahead and turn on our load, let's devour the strobe and put the lights on your landing light and the search light controller on the collective, so let's go for the landing light, let's go ahead and slow down towards Go ahead, let's make sure it works.

Mobile search light, fixed landing light, them. both position lights work, this strobe light works although it may not appear in the video, our dvorah light on the back and a collision light and a position light work. They devour the strobe position light and one more light to check, and that is the cargo light. It's not very big, but it works decently, turns off the lights, turns off the landing light and we're going to go ahead and save the search light so it's off and fully retracted. Let's turn off the parking lights. light load devour and we'll let the anacollision light on the fuel pump back and forth just come on.

I missed it in the video, but they literally turned on and this was a couple of minutes after we made our light. controls, so let's recognize that those go away, um, the triple tax should be zero. Field elevation everything looks caged, we'll turn off our holding attitude indicator and the airspeed will look like zero. I want to check our Fedex, this should be 133,990 and 16. it should be saying on both, we'll do it again just for people's reference, so let's turn them off. Notice we get the acknowledgment so it should be 133990 and the fli should point to 16 on both so do one see what this does and then come back we will check fadic number two you will also get these training lights Fedex minor idle and training mode, if everything passes the test, all those lights should also disappear or turn off for Fedex to disconnect. another part of our cad is our fuel under lane one, we have lane two of our vmd, we have the outside air temperature, we can go through this screen to check our battery amps, generator amps and how much is coming out of our battery we have the engine oil pressures and temperatures and the transmission oil pressure and temperatures generator 1 and generator 2 switches we always leave them in the normal position unless there is a malfunction in flight we have the top of our jack at At the top of our button we leave it off until we are ready to use them.

These controls pretty much select between system one, number one or number two, so if we had a malfunction with maybe number two, sorry if we have a system malfunction with number two, then we would say okay, let's choose our air data computer for system number one and let's rely on that, so same thing with icp or ahars, you can learn more about that, so satellite communication here is our autopilot controls, navigation source, uh, radar altimeter adjustment, um. altimeter adjustment ics panel the collective here is the collective lock should always be locked if you are on the ground and you are not ready to fly so it is unlocked right now it is locked here are your different lighting controls your control to make the light of search, which you don't You don't have to have it to control Oops and it's spinning um you have the spin button and the wiper button here are your throttles for engine number one engine number two is in the normal position neutral position I should say and you manipulate them, you never manipulate them These, unless you have some kind of fuel control problem, this is how you control number one and number two.

If you were to manually turn off the engine, you would come over here and press this little button here. and close completely never had to play with it unless we were training uh holding the collective normally I put my middle finger between both of them and hold it lightly like the avionics in ebonics connect or recognize the autopilot light with our cyclic here Let's Start the radar test. You don't have to do this until you go outis closed, our ground power door is nice and secure, our avionics inlet to cool the avionics bay inside, which is clear.

The drain line is clear right here, the cover or the event opening on the side of the number two engine is clear and these latches are the same as the ones on the transmission, so it's tricky to do with the cam, so let's go to open that up and The first thing I usually do is check the engine compartment. I reach in here and turn the drive shaft. I make sure the clutch is working. The next thing I do is go back. Overall condition: no obvious leaks. Safety of wiring harnesses. Engine support. The starter generator looks good.

The engine oil level looks good, the engine inlet looks clean, there's no grass, there's no tools, there's no parts hanging in there, everything looks nice and safe, nice and clean, and then we'll go to the engine compartment. battery. I have the charging hinges secured once again, oh, here's my The static ports are nice and clean, no ripples, no dents on the side of the plane, open the battery door, um, not much here, you got the little vacuum pump back here, give the battery a shake, everything's fine and secures the tail arm even. although it stops here, it actually continues and attaches to the actual fuselage here, so it's actually a couple of feet longer than what it looks like on the outside.

General condition. Here is my AC compressor. Up there is where the axle comes in. The vents look clear, no cracks. on the frame the overall condition and safety looks good let's close it up so for the exhaust just check that it is properly secured and there are no large cracks. Here's the cabin, the clam shells, they're closed properly, but this is inside the cabin you want. make sure they are fully latched on this is your avionics tray up, make sure this other one is fully latched. You can swing them back, but I'll take them back so they don't hit anyone again.

Clam shells work. let's close it this is a completely monocoque tailboom so any dents are structural so looking down it's really nice to have a nice clean tailbone these things get dirty with both engines here so low let's look at the safety of the antenna, nothing is bent, conditions the the tail boom looks nice and secure the access panel looks secure the horizontal stabilizer of the antenna the fins I would recommend not washing these things with the brushes, you can dent them quite easily, that's it TheSame goes for any plane that goes down the tailbone, you have several antennas and two drainage holes, one here and then on the fenestron bumper, there is one down here at the bottom, which is right here.

You probably don't see it, but this whole bumper here is just a hollow section to protect the finish drawn on the pilot side of the tail arm, on the right side you have the tail arm and on the finished rod you have a frame of ring right inside. Here the connection point, um, make sure there are no cracks, this is just paint. Here you can see where the paint lines are. Make sure there are no cracks here. This is the first airplane I have flown with this type of tail rotor. system or anti-torque system there are 10 unevenly spaced blades.

You can see that the space here is very different from the space between these two, which is a little strange, but I guess they changed that because these things were making a lot of noise. They separated them and silenced the operation, that was reduced quite a bit. Something I find interesting about this, it's not a pre-flight element, but this rotor system back here, the tail and a torque system, whatever the finish is called, rotates. nine times per revolution, so nine to one compared to your 407 206. um, I think it's about four to one, so this one spins a lot faster than your normal tail rotor.

Inspecting the finishes is quite simple, you can run your fingers up and down. the blade is aluminum, so you can take a Scotch Brite pad. I don't do it, my mechanics do it. You can scrape them off. There is a small notch depending on the severity. You can just polish it and make sure they can move, they shouldn't be too tight, some of them may be a little bit stiffer, but they can more or less move, run your hand through each one and go around them, um, each one of the Check the blades for looseness and should also be evenly spaced between them. the body and the edge, so there is not much space, but they should all have the same space, make sure the cover has not slipped and you can do this by making sure these two lines are still aligned with each other, this vertical stabilizer in the tail is about 11 and a half feet tall check the overall condition safety here are these little veins here check for cracks here on each one where it's not painted check that each of these retaining screws are inside and you can check on this screen here see If I can get it, check the fluid level.

I don't think I can see it here anyway. Check the fluid level with the transmission. It's got a double badge right here. I guess in the early days they didn't have this. and they started having problems with cracking so they put this duplicator here so before the flight make sure there are no cracks but as far as I understand there hasn't been any problem since I once again went up this side of the tail feather the same as the other. overall condition side no dents everything should be nice and clean these tailbones get dirty real quick here is the exhaust section once again look up look on the side make sure these fans are clean two more clean static ports checking the condition of the clamshell door hinges are clear, clear, here's the number one engine on the passenger side, same as the first one.

The first thing I check is the driveshaft and then I will split it into three sections. I access the combustion section of the gearbox intake

turbine

. turn it towards me and if it can move freely check the oil level of the accessory gearbox section it looks good no leaks in the lines everything looks safe the engine deck is clean the engine mount is secure you have the entry here free of obstructions close this secured coming back here all your fuel lines, two tee lines, everything seems secure and you have the engine mount here secure facing rear, as well as the driver's side, transmission cover on the side left, you have the oil cooler for the engine transmission, its intake, make sure all its fins are clean no grass has been absorbed into the exhaust section of the cooler looks clean and secured everything has safety pins or wire no real leaks the drains are clear eros supports, which are the big supports for the transmission, they are secured and adequate indication that you have the space that runs all the way here is the generator inlet make sure it is clear reaching the top you have your system hydraulic your quantity level see if we can do this quantity it looks good the amount of air in the system can be up to half right now nothing is shown and then you have your hydraulic reservoir for the brake rotor the quantity looks full , check the top of the plane for leaks of foreign debris, etc., once again, the bump event and filler cap are secured, see it the other way around. there all the door vents look good and you can get another view from this side down into the transmission compartment area everything looks good on the top once again check the security of the protection against cable hits, the oil cooler fan, see it there, make sure it is Clean, check the condition of the fan, check the window, in case it hits, the fresh air outlet of the cabin, where the equipment is located doctor, it's up here, make sure it's clear with everything done on the top with the engine transmission main rotor system and the intake. it is checked at the top it is checked with its detonation event and antennas and cable strike protection and the upper part of the windshield is checked come back down here check the left side of the fuselage in the window the vents door step fuel make sure your door works and is properly securing your windows, everything looks good, functionality looks good, landing gear check under under fuselage for dents, any damage to antennas safety, you have your fresh air vent for the or the noc event, what's your fresh air vent for the co-pilot, right?

There is the pitot tube, one of the two cables, here is your radar, check the status of your window wiper, here is the other pitot tube and with that the pre-flight of this

ec135

p2 should conclude, this is a model 2005.