gadgetdude
Senior Heliman
Location: Southern California
| reddragon:
Good question. They are usually seen on helicopters that fly at low altitude such and Air Medical Helicopters. See below for a explanation I found from the web:
On the front of most U.S. Army and many civil helicopters you may notice a knife like fixture on the top of the cockpit, and one on the bottom of the aircraft near the chin bubbles. These are not antennae for radios like most people believe. They are part of the Wire Strike Protection System (WSPS). The WSPS is made up of several components to protect the helicopter from high wire strikes. It was developed because of the increased risk of wire strikes while flying at low altitudes. If a helicopter hits a power line (Telephone line, electrical line, guy wire for a tower, or any other wire obstacle), the rotor system may become entangled with the wire, and catastrophic failure of the rotor system could lead to total destruction of the aircraft. The WSPS was developed to reduce the severity of a wire obstacle collision by diverting the wire into the cutter blade assemblies. The cutter blades affixed to the top and bottom of the frontal area of the aircraft will usually cut the wire and eliminate the hazard. The WSPS system protects 90% of the frontal area of the helicopter, and reduces the hazard from most wire strikes. With the WSPS, the pilot has a 95% chance of surviving a single wire strike. The odds of survival decrease as the number of wires increases. 2 wires will reduce the chances to 75%, 3 wires to 50%, and 4 wires to about 25%.
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I tried your suggestion of gripping them with pliers and form them to the ball. It helped, but ever so slightly. Last night I went to the LHS and bought some ball links because I was going to convert them to regular ball link pushrods. I get home thinking that I would use the existing push rods that came with the kit and just swap the ball links. NOPE, not that easy
