Some heli craziness...

[denverpilot]

Pretty good compilation of heli emergencies. I know one of these was a fatal, and I am bummed whoever the clip editor was, used it, but they probably didn’t really know.

Felt bad for the Robinson pilot who the car wouldn’t stop for who tagged the tree. You could tell he was trying to stay over and the driver just kept coming. Identical problem to the fixed wing landing incident I witnessed earlier this year.

Some are almost comical. The news chopper chasing the other news chopper (KTLA, Los Angeles of course...) and filming it while it’s on fire is rather ... telling I guess ... of that crazy business.

I don’t think I’ve seen many shots of the emergency floats on many helis working out as well as they did on a couple toward the end of the video. That’s neat to see.

 

[Velocity173]

Scratching my head on the Enstrom stuck left pedal. He must have gotten a high power stuck pedal to create that much yaw on landing. The reporter overhead was right, for most left stuck pedals, once he starts to pull in power, the nose should come back around. All I can think of is he came in a little too hot and didn’t give it enough time for torque to bring the nose back right. Then he panicked, cut throttle and the tail spun him. Or, was at a high power setting (vertical take off) when it stuck on him, thus a large left pedal displacement that torque couldn’t overcome during landing. The later being worse case just bad luck scenario. We do them all the time in the sim and even at light weights, there’s enough airflow at higher speeds (30+ kts) to keep it from going broadside and enough torque below ETL to bring the nose back right. Can even land it from a hover with a slight right yaw or just reduce throttle if you want to keep the nose aligned with the runway.

The EC guy landing on the tanker was lucky. Landing short of the H is the worst possible choice. If unfamiliar, always land to the forward on the H. Just a little more flare and he would’ve snagged the tail on something and things could’ve gotten ugly.

 

[denverpilot]

Always cool to hear commentary from someone who’s BTDT @Velocity173. Thanks.

 

[Velocity173]

Always cool to hear commentary from someone who’s BTDT @Velocity173. Thanks.

A good vid on how a stuck left pedal EP is handled. As you can see, they start to develop a pretty good left yaw down low but it doesn’t even come close to full broadside. Once they get below effective translation lift (ETL), the rise in torque because of the increase in rotor drag, brings the nose back right. Could’ve landed it with slight right yaw but the CFI elected to roll throttle off (reduction in trq) and get the nose on centerline.

That Enstrom must have had a bunch of left pedal applied when it stuck. He burned off fuel and got light also. Less weight, less torque, less ability to get the nose back to the right.