They walked away from this

SkyShark · Post by **SkyShark** » July 19th, 2006, 2:40 pm

HOLY SHIT LINK BATMAN

Looon · Post by **Looon** » July 19th, 2006, 2:48 pm

spanky · Post by **spanky** » July 19th, 2006, 3:16 pm

Just Damn!

RRDTm3 · Post by **RRDTm3** » July 19th, 2006, 3:24 pm

fuck, not work safe.

SkyShark · Post by **SkyShark** » July 19th, 2006, 3:50 pm

RRDTm3 wrote:fuck, not work safe.

Huh?

I am going to edit this post and add that you must have a very strict office.

BruteForce · Post by **BruteForce** » July 19th, 2006, 3:54 pm

SHIT! As a former UH1H crewmember, I can tell you that a low altitude tail-rotor loss (which is what looks like happened) here is the scariest thing that can occur.. No autorotate time or capability there. :o

KW Driver · Post by **KW Driver** » July 19th, 2006, 6:45 pm

as a pilot, I can say, that I think this was a case of Loss of Tail Rotor Thrust. whatever caused it (tail rotor driveshaft failure)or fixed pitch settings, they can be servivable, or recoverable (to an airfield).

I'm not trying to backseat the pilot, because he had a lot of experience, and I have no idea the true nature of his problems, but, if it was controlable, he should have maintained cruise airspeed, taken it to an airport, and executed a run on landing, and essentially just slid it down the runway. the way that works is, the vertical fin is canted on most helicopters so that at cruise speeds, they provide enough sideward lift to almost completely offset the torque effect of the main rotor. speed gets to slow, and you're going to spin with no tail rotor.

another problem with that helicopter, that I don't think happened here, is they get a hydrolics lockup, whick locks up the flight controls, resulting in a cyclic hardover if it doesn't release quickly enough. the hydrolic servos in it are just barely big enough for the job, and occationally a backpressure surge will lock them up.

I'm sppeaking in generalities here and don't know what problems this guy was having, but he was working his ass off to keep that thing level, which is what saved them. so he did a hell of a job wrestling that thing. if he had stopped on the first roof, it would have been much less dramatic, and if they hadn't rolled completely over by the time they hit the second roof, it probalby would have killed them by having the transmission crush into their space.

BruteForce · Post by **BruteForce** » July 19th, 2006, 6:57 pm

Now mattter how you slice it, that ride had to suck!

On another note, do your crew chiefs provide cookies/treats on each mission? All the pilot's I've flown with (especially the 'NAM vets), required that we provide at least a good 2 dozen cookies per mission.

KW Driver · Post by **KW Driver** » July 19th, 2006, 7:01 pm

sure, just throw them up. my CEs just stand around on the gorund and wave to us as we take off. ain't got but two seats, and they full of pilots...