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Old 29th Jan 2020, 15:55
  #256 (permalink)  
Helisweet
 
Join Date: May 2006
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Originally Posted by FH1100 Pilot
Oh, geez. Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Whenever I read crap like the above, the question I always have is, "Do you know any helicopter pilots? Have you ever actually *met* any real helicopter pilots?" Because if SASless had met, say, two of them, he would understand that every darn helicopter pilot privately (and often publicly) considers himself to be the best in the business. In 40 years in this business, I have NEVER met a commercial pilot who honestly thought that his skills were even slightly not up to par. The thought is preposterous. It's quite the opposite, in fact. Every helicopter believes down deep in his soul that he can handle anything...ANYTHING...that gets thrown at him with the coolness of Chuck Yeager. "Rotor falls off? Heck, I'll just call a Mayday, pop the floats and set the beotch down! What, you mean you couldn't??" Read some of the pompous, self-righteous, over-the-top comments over on the JH "bad" board and you'll get the idea.

SAS often has some good things to say - and he does say a LOT of things - but he's off the mark here. No commercial pilot worth his salt is gonna engage in a little navel-gazing and then say to himself, "Ya know, I'm really not as good as I think I am."

Tough as it is to admit, Kobe's pilot screwed-up, plain and simple. I'd bet that he had his head down, fiddling with either his iPad or something on the centre console (GPS? VHF?). And when he looked back up it was, "Oh, $&*#, we're in it!" Then he began his left-turn course-reversal, which might have worked at 70 knots, but not 130 because the turn radius was too large and it put him in the hills on the opposite of the valley. Wouldn't be the first pilot to make such a dumb mistake; won't be the last, sadly.
Good theory, scud running must be done around 30/40 kts to avoid cloud
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