Hoverbover,
I had a recent experience in snow / icing conditions last weekend which nearly cost me an R22.
Following a training flight with a student i departed the airfield to return home. Due to poor visabilty (1km) / snow showers i decided to land the aircraft in a field and wait for the snow showers to clear.
The snow did not clear and i abandoned the helicopter. The ground was very soft and boggy.
I returned to the helicopter the following morning with a student, the conditions clear blue sky minus 5 degrees prefect flying conditions. Whilst walking to the aircraft i was explaining the dangers of dymanic rollover.
We arrived at the aircraft and as i suspected the aircraft skids were frozen to the ground. We stamped the ground down both sides of the skids to free the aircraft from the ground. We preceeded with the normal preflight check / start up. We are now at full power and ready to lift, the aircraft became light on its skids and i inputed left and right yaw pedals to slide the aircraft from side to side to free the landing gear from the ground. I made a special point of yawing the aircraft to free it from the ground having flown serveral weeks in the Swiss / French Alps and experinced this several times previously. We are now light on the skids and looking outside the student at the controls whist i followed through he continued raising the lever within a split second the aircraft lifted on the passenger side and possibly the front part of the landing gear to the pilots side. The aircraft almost went over i dumped the lever and shut down the aircraft. After exiting the aircraft it became apparent that whilst shuffling on the ground i had in fact shuffled the rear spade part of the landing gear under the very soft suface (Crisp and hard on the surface very soft below)preventing the aircraft from lifting.
Very close call. I will be extremely cautious in future
Any simular occurences?