PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Helicopter down outside Leicester City Football Club
Old 29th Oct 2018, 15:54
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asdf1234
 
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Landing Pad Risk Analysis

Originally Posted by Reely340
Onyl partly understood. In both towering and Cat-A, you are at nil or negative horizontal speed and need to pick up forward speed to try and flare.
I merely suggested the towering (vertical) takeoff to reduce risk of drift at night, (which definitely is an issue with Cat-A backwards climb).
I must admit I don't know the crosssection of such a stadium:
when the inner roof tips are arched far inwards then climbing in any other location than smack dab in the middle of the stadium would be asking for building contact, I can see that.


My take is that climbing vertically or Cat-A style for whatever reason into a tailwind location nils TR failue recovery.
With the TR "gone", MR torque and tailwind will do to the airframe whatever they see fit, nullifying any Cat-A dep. "recovery options".
That is if there are any "recovery" options at all for "serious TR loss at the end of a Cat-A climb in confined locations", I doubt that, any takers?

So taking one step back, I'd say this accident is a case of "vanity killed the cat", considering that right outside his stadium there are plenty of better, not confined takeoff spots.
Given that fact that even the PPRuNe pros here have confirmed that in this kind of scenario a serious TR failure is next to impolssible to recover, and comparing alternatives right outside the stadium one can't help but wonder why this kind of showing-off departure got green lighted in the first place.
We have to assume the operator of the helicopter had previously undertaken a detailed risk assessment of the landing/take-off site and had concluded that a CAT A rearwards climb out was an appropriate manoeuvre for the helicopter, payload and weather conditions. Equally we must assume that the operator communicated all of this to the pilot on the day and that the pilot had current knowledge of the operator's SOPs for this site. I note the AAIB have dispatched 4 teams to the site, one of which is the Operations Team so this aspect will be thoroughly investigated. Until we know otherwise it seems reasonable to assume that the pilot was operating in accordance with the limitations set out in the operator's SOP's for this site and that those SOP's were put together after rigorous risk assessment and analysis.
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