Originally Posted by
Hughes500
I was just curious in how the minimum of 50 ft on a line actually came from
Most likely from flight-testing of the Bambi's, as it is taken from the user manual for the buckets and 50ft has been deemed to be long enough to avoid this problem.
need some very sporty handling
Associated with turbulence close to the fire/ground and a bit uncoordinated handling, it is possible as there is not a single factor leading to this. It is not happening every time obviously (was probably not the pilots first bucket either!?), but this thread illustrates that it
can happen!
John's pictures seems to be taken in cruise with unknown speed and away from the fire and ground with presumably smoother winds/turbulence (stable flight). The BK's tail is also higher than on the 350 which is the machine in question, so less exposed to the problem. The middel picture seems to be from (close to) hover.....
As for gullibell's ''rule of thumb''. It is not restrictive enough as there is only half the distance of the overall length of the helicopter between the hook and t/r tips, so therefore the total length of the helicopter is irrelevant...