No, simply because we operated with a minimum of a 10% thrust margin whenever possible, especially for high power scenarios like confined areas, mountain flying and any OGE hovering.
You can calculate your thrust margin by looking at the max weight on your OGE graph - for them 2500lbs and reducing that by 10% - ie 250lbs which is 120 lbs lighter than he was at the time of the accident.
That's how YOU operated. Unfortunately, in the world of light helicopters, in order to get any real work done, only loading to 90% of max. gross is usually a dream.
His DA was around 1200' given the temp and elevation so he was further up the graph than you imply.
Not at all. If you enter the chart at the 2370lb line, move upwards to where it intersects the 23.6C line (interpolate as required, of course), then across to the left, you will see he can operate at up to a pressure altitude of over 5000ft
at 23.6C, i.e. a density altitude of over 7000ft. There is no problem here. Again, he had tons of margin. Not in your book, or the way you fly for the military, but tons in any light helicopter operator's book.
The example in the R44 POH of weight and balance shows full fuel isn't available with 3 POB and a small amount of kit - how much baggage would they have for a fishing trip? And the example uses 170 lbs per pax which is light by anyone's estimation, especially in outdoor gear.
Where are you getting your numbers? Basic empty weight of a Raven II is 1510lb. Full fuel is 287lb. Max. takeoff is 2500lb. That leaves 703lb for people and stuff. Few R44s are that light. Let's say he's got 20lbs of options on board (which is very conservative,
it didn't have a lot of options). Call it 683lbs. That's three 200lb guys and 80lbs of cargo. And that's about right, because the only place to put that much stuff is piled on one of the seats. You can't fit it in the stupid little cargo areas under each seat. Again, I'm not seeing any problems here. In fact, this all but proves he was not over gross at any time during the flight unless his cargo was gold bars or him and his passengers were huge, both an unlikely state of affairs.
Given the layout of the HLS and the wind direction he should actually have had a reasonably clean airflow, certainly above the treetops even though the report cites mechanical turbulence from the low buildings and the trees (with a max estimated of 20 kts, I feel this is unlikely
Agreed!
Not sure why you think the yaw induced panic could have happened anywhere on the trip - the proximity of the trees was what seemed to panic him.
I'm basing my assessment on the following passage from the report:
"When the helicopter cleared the tree tops, it began to slowly yaw to the right. The pilot applied left anti-torque pedal input; however, the helicopter continued to yaw and the yaw rate increased. The pilot then deflected the anti-torque pedals to the right and back to the left several times to check for pedal response while the helicopter continued the right yaw. The pedal inputs did not arrest the right yaw.As the pilot was trying to control the yaw rate, alternating nose-up and nose-down pitch excursions began with increasing amplitude. After at least 2 full rotations to the right the main rotor severed the tail boom as the pitch excursions increased beyond a controllable range."