Leonardo Helicopters

Custom Screw Jack System

Kelston joined the operator's production engineering team and the design consultant in the initial design concept meetings.

The main considerations in the task of bringing the upper and lower assemblies of a helicopter fuselage together were: operator control of movements; protection of personnel; and allowing access all around the joint position for work-shop personnel.

The issue of providing access all around the joint was achieved by controlling the Screw Jack lifting positions via the electronic control, which negated the need to use hard drive shafting.

The control panels, designed and supplied by Kelston, incorporated a pendant control with simple non-latching push buttons and a key lock emergency stop. The master Screw Jack feedback, which controlled the position of the other three Slave Jacks, also had the following three operational limits attached:

1 - lower stop;
2 - intermediate stop position, where the final adjustments between the upper and lower halves are made. The travel speed is fixed to be very slow between this position and the ultimate stop position;
3 - ultimate upper stop.
A socketed square drive connection was designed into the Screw Jack to allow individual movements on each Jack location.