Although the investigation to date has not found one big "smoking gun" fault for the uncommanded torque splits, they have found numerous, most likely unrelated snags.
What has happened over the years is that when some of these snags all line up at the same time you could get these torque splits.
The three major snags are:
1. Mismatched engines (power output over the life of the engine)
2. Faulty or erroneous torque indications due to air in system
3. Throttle quadrants out of tolerance
1. We will now be verifying power output more often and ensuring that engines are better matched in each aircraft. They come out of overhaul with nearly identical power output but over time each engine changes at a different rate and this could be a cause factor.
2. The torque system maintenance recently changed with the new gearbox. With the old gearbox we used to change the tranny and leave the lines installed. We would plug them off and then upon re-installing a new tranny the lines were still full of fluid. When we changed to the new gearbox, the procedure now included removing the lines right up to the gauges. Upon re-installation we were not refilling the lines first. The introduction of air has been found to indicate wrong when bench tested and probably introduced significant torque splits despite our aircraft gauges showing matched torques. The procedure has been changed and all systems are being drained, bench tested, recalibrated and re-installed.
3. The throttle quadrant is original 1963, we are the only pilots flying H3, S61, Sea Kings, whatever you want to call this beast, with the original throttle quadrant. It is worn out and when checked at the beginning of the investigation 85% of the aircraft were out of tolerance. We are re-rigging all quadrants and increasing the inspection interval to ensure they remain in tolerance. Those that require parts are very very hard to repair as parts are nearly impossible to get.
Now there are other little things as I have stated but those three were the big three. Considering how poor our supply system is for parts and that that most aircraft need something fixed and that explains the three month timeline a bit.
The concern about training comes out of practicing simulated single engine failures in the aircraft. With the new engine-transmission combo we had ceased to practice those because the extra power from the "new" engines could easily overtorque the transmission. The safest way for us to practice these is to use our waterbird. This is an aircraft specially rigged for water landings. Although the aircraft is amphibious, it is far from watertight for long duration water ops. So we will now rig two airframes and re-train all pilots in single engine from hover in the waterbird. By using the waterbird we avoid the risk to hard landings on wheels. AETE from Cold Lake working with HOTEF from Shearwater developed a revised procedure for us to use. One aircraft is rigged and the other will be done soon. For now we will have both in Victoria at 443 Sqn. By summer time one of them will return to 423 in Shearwater. We use to have the waterbird only in Shearwater and only during the summer, not all pilots got the chance to fly it. We will now have at least one machine available all year and all pilots must fly a complete single engine failure training curriculum every year.
So I hope this all makes more sense. Before all the restrictions are lifted, all the aircraft have to be checked and repaired or recalibrated and all pilots must do their training in single engine failures. When the press made the remark that we would now be taught "how to ditch", they were referring to our waterbird training. So first we fix all the machines before the aircraft is released from the restrictions then we re-train the instructors who then re-train all the line pilots before we are all released to full ops again. HMCS Toronto Detachment will be the priority. Once they are ready, their aircraft will be shipped by commercial vessel to meet up with their warship and the personnel will be flown over to fly it onto their ship. They should be heading off in about a month at most but it will be summer before the entire fleet is released.
As you can see there is much more to the story than they printed and they took the training for single engine failures by using our waterbird as "how to ditch training" so it was taken somewhat out of context. So there you have the straight poop in a very wordy answer. 😉
