Robinson chopper down

Only for the person who thinks it doesn't need to be here since it's already somewhere else.
 
DavidWhite said:
Ugh thats horrible. RIP to the deceased.

edit: helicopter pilots, could this be caused by mast bumping?
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If you chop off the tail with the rotor with a semi rigid system (teetering) like the R44, you can bet the hub stop contacted the mast. Even worse things can happen in that scenario though. The mast bump can be so bad that it completely shears the mast off. Never want to do aggressive inputs at 0 G or low Nr in a semi rigid. Well, don’t wanna do aggressive inputs to any type of rotor system for that matter.

 
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Velocity173 said:
If you chop off the tail with the rotor with a semi rigid system (teetering) like the R44, you can bet the hub stop contacted the mast. Even worse things can happen in that scenario though. The mast bump can be so bad that it completely shears the mast off. Never want to do aggressive inputs at 0 G or low Nr in a semi rigid. Well, don’t wanna do aggressive inputs to any type of rotor system for that matter.

Click to expand...

Yikes!
 
Very few aircraft (Helicopters) do you want to unload the rotor system. An Aircrew training task initially for the AH-64 was a Hi-Lo maneuver pulling 3 plus g’s positive followed by a pushover to go negative…not sure why we did it and doubt it’s done today. We could chop off the front of the forward crew cabin with the rotor system with a full forward cyclic on the ground…unfortunately it has happened.

Flying AH-1’s ( Cobras) we always flirted with mast bumping while doing an RTT ( Return to Target) a maneuver used while daisy chaining with 2-3 other guns on a rear area target. Staying positive was important and think of it as a modified split S but using tail rotor to make the turn…My platoon had a mast separation in my first unit. Rotor was 1/4 mile away from the main impact. RTT is no longer in anyones playbook.
 
Holy crap that's a scary video. I wonder if the g forces involved would've caused them to black out before they got close to the ground.
 
Happened to one of our H3's in Central America back in early 90's. Saw power lines at last second, dumped collective and pushed cyclic if I remember. Whacked the top of the cockpit. Spent some time at an airport while our metal benders fixed it.
 
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