Why don’t you fly rotor wing?

Clip4 said:
Because you can’t have a great looking babe wing walk in a helicopter.
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Because most helicopter pilots are smarter than that and get the "babes" to ride inside and wiggle the cyclic. ;)

Look up David Keith Martz about 10-12 years ago. He bought the farm later in life but was notorious for "babe" flights.
 
Bell206 said:
Because most helicopter pilots are smarter than that and get the "babes" to ride inside and wiggle the cyclic. ;)

Look up David Keith Martz about 10-12 years ago. He bought the farm later in life but was notorious for "babe" flights.
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There is a reason they didn’t have TC fly a Cessna

 
BladeSlap said:
There is a reason they didn’t have TC fly a Cessna

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Oh yes.... must have been later seasons, there was a clip of that helicopter doing a high performance flare to land on a road or some small clearing in the woods....
yep, that helicopter was one reason I liked to watch that show...even though it didn't really get a lot of screen time.
 
BladeSlap said:
There is a reason they didn’t have TC fly a Cessna
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FYI: The funny thing is the actor that played TC actually had a private helicopter certificate but wasn't allowed to do his own flying stunts. And for some more trivia the pilot that flew in season 1 CFIT'd the aircraft killing a cameraman and lost his ticket. Then the second pilot, Steve Kux, that did the flying afterwards, was flying the "magnum" aircraft later in life and had a run-away trim in a hover on a utility job. Unfortunately, he suffered career ending injuries, but there is a video of it along with a big Hawaiian guy named Tiny lifting the wrecked aircraft off Steve during the accident sequence.
 
I have about 0.7 hours in an R22. It was something like $250/hour not including the CFI. It was painted a sexy shade of dark purple, the kind of color with flecks of glitter embedded in the paint so it sparkles. It was amazing, like having one's own flying carpet.

My contrast, I have unlimited marital privileges with the 172. It's beige. I've taken it tens of thousands of miles, for the cost of gas (+ being married).
 
Too many moving parts that are important.

If the cables to my elevator or rudder snap, I can make a sloppy but survivable landing. The same in a helo just sounds unreasonable hard. :dunno:
 
Bell206 said:
FYI: The funny thing is the actor that played TC actually had a private helicopter certificate but wasn't allowed to do his own flying stunts. And for some more trivia the pilot that flew in season 1 CFIT'd the aircraft killing a cameraman and lost his ticket. Then the second pilot, Steve Kux, that did the flying afterwards, was flying the "magnum" aircraft later in life and had a run-away trim in a hover on a utility job. Unfortunately, he suffered career ending injuries, but there is a video of it along with a big Hawaiian guy named Tiny lifting the wrecked aircraft off Steve during the accident sequence.
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Did not know
 
BladeSlap said:
Speaking of fly ins, what’s the rules of us participating in spot landing contests?
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For funsies, the Air Wing would conduct bombing contests behind the boat on deployment to break up the monotony. We even allowed the whoppity guys to play, they just could not hover or go backward. Inevitably the helo bubbas still lost, somehow. An NFO strapped into the E-2 while standing on his/her seat dangling the practice bomb out of the overhead ditching hatch made for a more accurate bombing platform than a helo. YMMV
 
Reasons I want to fly helos: Airwolf
Reasons I do not want to fly helos: $$$, they are ugly, the dunker.
 
Rich Holt said:
...the dunker.
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579086.jpg


Nauga,
every three years
 
I don’t think helicopters are ugly. Not at all.

On a vacation, I really admired the beautiful red R44 that our tour pilot landed on a glacier near Anchorage.

The next day I wanted to fly myself there, so I rented an Arrow, with an instructor. That was fun, too, but the old Arrow was much uglier than the R44. And it was unable to land on the glacier.
 
Because they have a tendency to tear themselves apart. Too dangerous.

 
Helicopters are cool. I'm not cool. Therefore, I can't fly helicopters because I'd be out of resonance.
 
I have an hour intro flight in an AS350. My in-laws are in the helo business on the opposite side of the country. I would love to get more time in one but no local instruction available.
 
BladeSlap said:
44s are 400ish a hr, 22s are about half
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And there you have half the reason I don’t fly one and never will. The other half is the fact that there’s no such thing as an LSA helo. But the cost and limited cruise speed are the two biggies, and the reason I didn’t get into rotary wing flying when I could have.

I mean, they’re cool and all, and I can see some real pluses. But I can say the same about a McLaren or a Scottish castle or really hot college girl, and I’m not writing the check for any of those either.
 
Velocity173 said:
The air. Slap probably isn’t the best word to describe it but it’s simply the rapid changes in pressure that can occur in the 3 examples above.

The older Hueys are probably the most common or well known example. The popping you hear at a hover is the blades cutting the preceding vortex called blade vortex interaction (example 1). In some flight regimes the descending blade on the retreating side stalls during what’s called retreating blade stall (example 2). The loud crack you hear from approaching Hueys from a distance is from the shockwave that forms on the advancing blade during transonic speeds. (example 3).

Some of your more modern helicopters have minimized (swept tips) the blade slap noise problems. You can still get a pretty good slap in say a Black Hawk but you’d have to be maneuvering pretty aggressive to do so…or descending rapidly and blow through Vne. ;)
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How anyone ever thought they could sneak up on someone with a Huey. Not only do you hear it, you know what it is.

Pi1otguy said:
Too many moving parts that are important.

If the cables to my elevator or rudder snap, I can make a sloppy but survivable landing. The same in a helo just sounds unreasonable hard. :dunno:
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Any aircraft that has a Jesus nut on it doesn't interest me.

Besides, airplanes are expensive enough. Helicopters are just too expensive to even think about.
 
Ghery said:
Any aircraft that has a Jesus nut on it doesn't interest me.
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FYI: only a few models have a single nut. The rest are all firmly bolted down with a number bolts. No problem.;)
 
DaleB said:
The other half is the fact that there’s no such thing as an LSA helo. But the cost and limited cruise speed are the two biggies, and the reason I didn’t get into rotary wing flying when I could have.
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But there are LSA gyroplanes
 
The Navy made me requal every 4 years to escape from a crashed and sinking helo. I took that as a powerful message about me and rotary wing. :D
 
I used to know a pilot that flew Al Copeland's Augusta 109. You know Al. A restaurant tycoon from New Orleans. (Copeland's & Popeye's) Al lived on the north shore of L. Ponchatrain but partied in NOLA. He also raced an unlimited hydroplane. My friend, who shall remain nameless said that the 109 was used as a chase/photo ship on the boat races in the area. Mostly it was used by Al when Bourbon street closed. (Or what passes for closing in NOLA, know what I mean?) The pilot was on call to then load up Al & the strippers and blast across the lake at 160 KTS. Landing was at Al's home. P.O.ed the residents no end at 0 dark early. The ongoing party just gnawed at the locals about the same as his decorations at Christmas. They were epic and grew year to year.

My bud told me that if you could stay in the 109's saddle for a year, Al would reward with a Popeye's franchise. My friend could not and moved back to Mississippi.
 
I've always wanted to do it, but like most others here can't justify the cost if I'm not going to find a way to continue with it.
 
Always laugh at the “Jesus Nut” failure fear. “Don’t fly anything with a single point of failure.” A wing spar is a single point of failure but we still fly airplanes.

The mast retaining nut is probably one of the least likely things to fail on a helicopter. I imagine it’s happened before but I’ve never heard of it. There are multiple other components on the helicopter that failure could end in a bad day as well. Mast cracks. PC links failing. Swash plate(s) failing. The mast separating from the transmission gear box. The scissor / idler link(s) separating from the mast. The blade retaining nuts failing. Etc, etc, etc.

Like structural failures in FW, all these things are extremely rare. Odds of me making a catastrophic error in ADM is far greater than mechanical failure.
 
Maxnr said:
I used to know a pilot that flew Al Copeland's Augusta 109. You know Al. A restaurant tycoon from New Orleans. (Copeland's & Popeye's) Al lived on the north shore of L. Ponchatrain but partied in NOLA. He also raced an unlimited hydroplane. My friend, who shall remain nameless said that the 109 was used as a chase/photo ship on the boat races in the area. Mostly it was used by Al when Bourbon street closed. (Or what passes for closing in NOLA, know what I mean?) The pilot was on call to then load up Al & the strippers and blast across the lake at 160 KTS. Landing was at Al's home. P.O.ed the residents no end at 0 dark early. The ongoing party just gnawed at the locals about the same as his decorations at Christmas. They were epic and grew year to year.

My bud told me that if you could stay in the 109's saddle for a year, Al would reward with a Popeye's franchise. My friend could not and moved back to Mississippi.
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Is this still available?!
 
Velocity173 said:
I imagine it’s happened before but I’ve never heard of it.
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The only one I'm aware of was a Bell 206B in Canada. But it wasn't a failure as the nut wasn't reinstalled. They actually flew for about 5 minutes before the hub and blades departed. But I agree plenty of single point failure points... TT straps, cyclic stick, and so on. Funny thing is there are many more fixed-wing in-flight break-ups than rotorwing self-destructs.
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2000/a00q0046/a00q0046.html
 
Bell206 said:
The only one I'm aware of was a Bell 206B in Canada. But it wasn't a failure as the nut wasn't reinstalled. They actually flew for about 5 minutes before the hub and blades departed. But I agree plenty of single point failure points... TT straps, cyclic stick, and so on. Funny thing is there are many more fixed-wing in-flight break-ups than rotorwing self-destructs.
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2000/a00q0046/a00q0046.html
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Anybody remember back to the Great War in SE Asia when Cobras where getting into mast bumping when nosing over after a climb and going neg G. A group of widows sued Bell. They lost and got a bill for court costs. I did it once and got away with it.
 
Maxnr said:
Anybody remember back to the Great War in SE Asia when Cobras where getting into mast bumping when nosing over after a climb and going neg G. A group of widows sued Bell. They lost and got a bill for court costs. I did it once and got away with it.
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I remember some mast bumping with tge Cobras but don’t remember the lawsuits. I do remember some widows sued Bell over some Oh-58 crashes though.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I guess you're not flying in any GA aircraft then.
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I'm not certain what you are talking about.

Velocity173 said:
Always laugh at the “Jesus Nut” failure fear. “Don’t fly anything with a single point of failure.” A wing spar is a single point of failure but we still fly airplanes.

The mast retaining nut is probably one of the least likely things to fail on a helicopter. I imagine it’s happened before but I’ve never heard of it. There are multiple other components on the helicopter that failure could end in a bad day as well. Mast cracks. PC links failing. Swash plate(s) failing. The mast separating from the transmission gear box. The scissor / idler link(s) separating from the mast. The blade retaining nuts failing. Etc, etc, etc.

Like structural failures in FW, all these things are extremely rare. Odds of me making a catastrophic error in ADM is far greater than mechanical failure.
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True, but you hear about the Jesus nut on helicopters a lot more than you hear about wing spars being a single point of failure on fixed wing aircraft. Real or not but...
 
Ghery said:
I'm not certain what you are talking about.



True, but you hear about the Jesus nut on helicopters a lot more than you hear about wing spars being a single point of failure on fixed wing aircraft. Real or not but...
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It’s just easier to visualize. Helicopters look as though they are flailing themselves to a quick mechanical death while airplanes sit there all stoic. They both have the same primary point of failure… the pilot.
 
The thing is, helicopters are different from airplanes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly and, if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in the delicate balance, the helicopter stops flying, immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter. This is why a helicopter pilot is so different a being from an airplane pilot, and why in general, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if anything bad has not happened, it is about to.

Harry Reasoner
 
Referencing my earlier post… what does one do with the rating after they get it??

I understand the profesional aspect, but recreational just seems…. Non existent.
 
Ghery said:
I'm not certain what you are talking about.



True, but you hear about the Jesus nut on helicopters a lot more than you hear about wing spars being a single point of failure on fixed wing aircraft. Real or not but...
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That’s because of the name. If we called the spar on airplanes a “Jesus Spar” the uninitiated would be terrified in flying in airplanes. In reality, I guarantee you there are far more airplane structural failures than helicopters. Just the PA28 series alone has had 22 inflight breakups. Rotor hardware is overbuilt for its purpose and if not abused from an inept pilot, mechanic or production defect, it’s gonna maintain its integrity. Not to mention, a mast retaining nut is far easier to inspect and replace vs a 50 year old original spar buried in a wing.
 
Ghery said:
I'm not certain what you are talking about.



True, but you hear about the Jesus nut on helicopters a lot more than you hear about wing spars being a single point of failure on fixed wing aircraft. Real or not but...
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Any single wing attach bolt failure will kill you in most GA airplanes. Hell - strut-winged Cessnas have 6 of them. Any single one fails and there goes your wing.

True of really the entire fleet until you get into transport category aircraft.
 
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