Originally Posted by
photonclock
Here's a Blackhawk pilot saying, and I quote, "they could have totally pulled that thing into a hover and stopped". Can't post a link. Tack on to youtube dot com.
He is not a Blackhawk pilot, and has given quite inaccurate advice
Senior Pilot
Fair enough. I inferred his experience in military helos from his many discussions of his experience training flight crews. I'm not sure what other of his statements you consider "inaccurate" though, and you don't bother to back that statement up with any specifics. Would you care to expand on what inaccurate advice he gave?
What I can say about Mike is: he puts his name and his face and his reputation out there in public to have open discussions about flight safety, and in the context of this totally preventable collision, it would be beneficial to all if every expert here and elsewhere on the interwebs participated in a similarly open and public debate in relation to this incident. If you disagree with him, message him and invite a public debate.
I've lurked and read this forum for a long time. Decades? I can't even remember how long. Much as I enjoy reading it when a major incident occurs, it frustrates me to no end how it is filled with so many examples of institutional inertia, acquiescence to mind-numbingly antiquated regulations, ridiculous politics, and endless excuses, all of which inhibit the progress of technology and safety...not to segue into a rant but the most obvious example being, and which 99% of the non-flying public would agree with, that there is almost zero reason at this point to not have cameras in the cockpit and perhaps even live transmission of video and/or audio feeds on every commercial aircraft at this point – the power and data/bandwidth requirements being
miniscule relative to the benefits, at this point it is simply absurd that such features do not exist; the Jeju incident's loss of CVR data being the best recent example of what a hindrance to technological progress aviation regulations have become, when for a few dollars a consumer can own a tiny little dashcam that records stunning 4K video and broadcast quality audio in near total darkness with 100mph wind noise running on a small and safe lithium batteries trickle charged from a 5 watt power supply for days on end, which can be broadcast via wifi link to Starlink-satellite based internet across the entire planet. We live in the Space Age, but the data storage and recovery procedures for commercial aircraft still hearkens back to WW2...
That rant aside, as the videos posted above by others demonstrate:
- A Blackhawk
can in fact stop on a dime (so whatever you're suggesting Mike Blackstone was wrong about, it certainly wasn't that).
- Obviously that shouldn't be
the plan, but it still a legitimate question to ask, in the context of an emergency, and when every other safety precaution has already failed, why couldn't it be done? Other poster's rationalize: at the low altitude, there's nowhere to go. The videos demonstrate otherwise. You can stop a Blackhawk 50 feet above the ground in seconds. If deviating in any direction is a risk, why didn't ATC just say "
PAT25 slow to stop and hover!" – as a Very. Last. Resort?
- I don't understand how we can have a system of "Air Traffic Control" that defers its
control to aircraft at
night around a busy airport with intersecting approaches. It's nonsensical. I honestly didn't know it was a thing. I thought all major airports had flight paths that kept inbound and outbound aircraft in separate non-conflicting lanes at all times. Obviously, I'm extremely naive. From my perspective, it seems as though the professionals involved are allowed no intuition to deviate when the procedures clearly compromise safety? Apparently they're all reduced to being bots who can only read checklists? If that's the case, then why not run the whole system on "AI"? I know I'm being spicy by saying that, given all the pilots on this forum who harp on about how stupid AI is (true for the moment, but not for much longer, rest assured), yet many consider it perfectly reasonable for ATC procedures being to read out the type of aircraft to a pilot who is flying in total darkness in order to fulfill
delegation of its responsibility to
control air traffic, as if that procedure actually helps? Are we through the looking glass? It doesn't take a three year NTSB investigation to infer how stupid that is. Yet some defend it. Why?