This is why GA gets a bad rap...

RyanB

RyanB

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Doing stupid things like this helicopter pilot does in this video is exactly how accidents happen.

 
Tail number easily read, open road and public area. Hello, FizDo.
 
So what's the problem? It looks like they were having fun.
 
Pretty cool video though. Some of the camera angels may make the helicopter seem closer to the terrain/power lines than it really was.
 
oregonboy109 said:
Pretty cool video though. Some of the camera angels may make the helicopter seem closer to the terrain/power lines than it really was.
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Thats true, I thought about that. Still, looks like an accident waiting to happen to me.
 
Unit74 said:
Any FARs broken?
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Depends on the eye of the beholder. Is it careless or reckless? Does their altitude pose a hazard to persons or property on the surface?
 
Supposed to stay 500' above cars, people, boats and structures in non-city areas (like this) unless landing or taking off.
 
What gives GA a bad rap is when someone kills someone on the ground, like the forced landing last week that killed a motorist. People will give you a wide latitude to do goofy stuff, as long as it doesn't affect them. However, if crash into a house or a car and kill someone who is not involved in GA, that's not going to be tolerated for long.
 
Ah yes, right you are about not for helicopters. I forgot that one.
 
FormerHangie said:
What gives GA a bad rap is when someone kills someone on the ground, like the forced landing last week that killed a motorist. People will give you a wide latitude to do goofy stuff, as long as it doesn't affect them. However, if crash into a house or a car and kill someone who is not involved in GA, that's not going to be tolerated for long.
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What gives GA a bad rap is how the media portrays it as a whole. SnF was good and it was a safe week for GA. A lot of people flying and enjoying themselves yet people die every 15 mins in a car accident.
 
Lots of things going on, but this isn't what's giving GA a bad rap. It's all those pickup lines that pilots are using in bars. And monkeys.
 
mrjones30 said:
What gives GA a bad rap is how the media portrays it as a whole. SnF was good and it was a safe week for GA. A lot of people flying and enjoying themselves yet people die every 15 mins in a car accident.
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People will tolerate auto fatalities because almost everyone in this country rides in a car at some point. Most people don't fly GA, for them it's a risk without a reward. We all assume the risk, we need to make sure we don't lay some of it on those who didn't sign up for it.
 
I wonder if he saw the power lines that he was flying near. Hitting those would ruin their day.
 
Watch him manage his energy - seemed solid to me, good job, no issues that rattle my cage.

A lot of what passes for "safety" best practices in GA is nonsense, or least common denominator stuff. We got too many people flying who should just be watching. Or boating. . .
 
ateamer said:
No.

91.119(d)(1).
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(d) Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft. If the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface—
(1) A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA;


You quote the regulation without the body which I have done now. So is this a route or altitude prescribed for helicopters by the FAA?
 
FormerHangie said:
People will tolerate auto fatalities because almost everyone in this country rides in a car at some point. Most people don't fly GA, for them it's a risk without a reward. We all assume the risk, we need to make sure we don't lay some of it on those who didn't sign up for it.
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I didn't sign up for a fatality due to drunken driving as a pedestrian, but our society unequivocally tolerates that outcome orders of magnitude more than dying because an aircraft clipped you on the beach or sidewalk. I have two coworkers who either got killed or had loved ones swiped away by drunk drivers, one as a motorist, and the other while no kidding standing on his own front yard. Nobody I know has been killed by an airplane falling on their head however. Flying is orders of magnitude safer for bystanders/pedestrians than automobiles are, even while the former is more "dangerous" per capita for the operator. How you like them apples? You couldn't get a better irony if one crash landed on your head.

Hell, they'd sooner ban sidewalks than do away with their precious American staple of social drinking and driving oneself buzzed back to the house like a selfish Richard. Meh, the whole "didn't sign up for it" is a double standard preached by the performers of majority behavior (automobile drivers, and drinkers). Dying at the hands of majority behavior is "caveat emptor, pal", but dying at the hands of minority behavior is all of a sudden blasphemy? Roger, copy. :rolleyes:
 
Not the most advisable thing to do in a ninny society that sees anything drawn outside the lines as "dangerous", and where everyone has a camera on them. But I didn't see any particularly worrisome piloting behavior there either.

Up here, the hover would have been ill advised since the performance of those things sucketh mightily at our altitude.

We ask our military kids to do harder stuff in helos with more people's lives in their hands than this, all the time.

We ask crop dusters to fly low, too.

Maybe the ends justifies those means more than having some fun in a Robinson. I dunno.

Risk? Yeah. No doubt. But we didn't used to be quite so averse to it.

The knee jerk thirty years ago would have been, "Oh man, I'm jealous."

The knee jerk today is "Call someone. He shouldn't be doing that!" And "Ooh, someone is going to see that video and come and get you!"

And my favorite from the video...

Showing the media has done their damage...

"Is he crashing?!"

LOL.

Someone out playing with their helo.

I'd be more worried the Robinson would break than about where he's flying it. Ha.

Nobody would bat an eye watching a Jayhawk drag someone out of that canyon with a basket. He should paint the R44 up in white and orange and then everyone except us that know better would think he was "doing something official".

Or olive drab if he wants to be more subtle about that mind game. Haha.

Anyone look up the tail number? I'm gonna laugh if it says "TMZ". It is California after all.

Hahaha. That thing being a paparazzi helo would make my night.
 
bikert said:
(d) Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft. If the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface—
(1) A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA;


You quote the regulation without the body which I have done now. So is this a route or altitude prescribed for helicopters by the FAA?
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Excerpt from recent FAA Interpretation to Mr. Noah Haydn-Myer (July 16, 2014)


Your letter poses three questions. Your first question is whether the pilot must comply with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA when conducting aerial filming or photography. If the FAA has prescribed any helicopter routes, or altitude restrictions, then the helicopter operator must comply with those routes or altitude restrictions for that particular area, regardless of the nature or purpose of the operation. If no routes or altitude restrictions have been prescribed for a particular area, then the helicopter operator may operate below the 500 foot minimum, provided that the operation can be conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface.
 
ghogue said:
Excerpt from recent FAA Interpretation to Mr. Noah Haydn-Myer (July 16, 2014)


Your letter poses three questions. Your first question is whether the pilot must comply with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA when conducting aerial filming or photography. If the FAA has prescribed any helicopter routes, or altitude restrictions, then the helicopter operator must comply with those routes or altitude restrictions for that particular area, regardless of the nature or purpose of the operation. If no routes or altitude restrictions have been prescribed for a particular area, then the helicopter operator may operate below the 500 foot minimum, provided that the operation can be conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface.
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Is there a regulatory reference in there, or is he just making it up as he goes?
 
coloradobluesky said:
Supposed to stay 500' above cars, people, boats and structures in non-city areas (like this) unless landing or taking off.
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The helicopter part has been covered but just to add clarification, it's 500' FROM, not 500' above in this example, which looks(to me anyways) to be sparsely populated.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Is there a regulatory reference in there, or is he just making it up as he goes?
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He refers to 91.119 (d). I didn't post the entire letter to keep from using so much space. I think the wording in the reg is not as clear as it could be, but as a retired helicopter pilot, I understood the meaning. If helicopters were limited to flying just those specific routes, most operations being flown would be illegal. It would make their utility almost pointless.
 
Ugh. There's no route, no assigned altitude here by the FAA. They can fly as low as they want as long as they meet the power failure requirement of 91.119 and not a hazard to persons or property on the surface.

No FARs have been broken here unless some inspector comes up with careless or reckless. That would be a stretch. It's a helicopter and doesn't have specific altitude mins like FW do. In Part 135 even, I can fly at 300 AGL in a congested area. Seen power line guys in downtown Atlanta maybe 100 ft up. They're helicopters. It's what they do.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
The helicopter part has been covered but just to add clarification, it's 500' FROM, not 500' above in this example, which looks(to me anyways) to be sparsely populated.
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It isn't. That's a very expensive neighborhood in the middle of Los Angeles. That particular site appears to be south of Burbank, not far from the Hollywood Bowl.
 
Smart no...my only observation is the guy fly's sort of sloppy...
 
MAKG1 said:
It isn't. That's a very expensive neighborhood in the middle of Los Angeles. That particular site appears to be south of Burbank, not far from the Hollywood Bowl.
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EXACTLY! It is a major scenic drive in the north LA area. Not a seldom travelled country road. And what you don't see in the photos are the celebrity homes all along there.

Back to the OP's original point of giving GA a bad rep, regardless of whether anyone thinks the guy was acting reckless, the people who have the money to hire a lot of lawyers are the ones that are going to be blowing up the FAA's phones. You might as well orbit Mar-a-Largo at 100'. At least you'd only be pi$$ing one rich dude off.

Not really helpful.
 
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