Originally Posted by
Lord Farringdon
That bucket seems pretty light and was ballooning soon after leaving the ground. I imagine if there was no one holding it until there was at least some distance between the bucket and the worst of the down wash, that it could potentially find itself recirculating through the rotors.😬Not a helo guy but I did not like the look of that.
This is not a problem. The empty weight of that bucket is 76 lbs. Depending on the fuel type, we will use the same bucket but attach it direct to the belly on a Huey, where it gets the maximum down wash and have never had a problem. On long lines, we almost have a competition when landing after a cycle of buckets to see if you can land the bucket and get it to stay upright---we then hover descend 150' coiling the line and land right next to it.