EASA certifies the new gear shaft of Airbus Helicopters' Super Puma
The European agency certified Airbus Helicopters' bevel gear shaft. It will be available on all EC225 helicopters from the second half of 2014
The EC225 Super Puma sheds its skin: the EASA certified the new bevel gear shaft of Airbus Helicopters’ rotorcraft. The certification will enable the French-German company to start producing new materials that, from the second half of 2014, will be installed on all models currently circulating.
The new design of the gear is free of all of those factors that, in the past two years, had caused two unexpected vertical shaft ruptures of the drive shaft. In detail, the redesigned gear shaft guarantees resistance to corrosion, compensates for residual stress, and eliminates stress hot spots.
THE ACCIDENTS
The changing process of the drive shaft started in 2012, before the accident in Aberdeen that involved a Super Puma carrying 17 passengers and two crew members.
According to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch’s report, the helicopter crashed in the sea because of ‘a damage to the lubrication system of the main gear box (MGB), and, consequently, to the alarm signal that detected a break in the emergency lubrication system’.
In the video: The design of the new drive shaft of the EC225
EASA REGULATIONS
EASA’s report pointed out that another EC225 helicopter was involved in an accident in May 2013, when the bevel gear of the gear shaft collapsed. Following the AAIB’s warnings, the EASA issued airworthiness regulations that set the required controls on each helicopter’s old bevel gears (old or carrying an old serial number). Following the Agency’s announcement, Airbus Helicopters has started working on it, and finally achieved EASA’s certification of the changes.