The Utah accident
Hallo again prune posters, and first just to say another 'thank you' for the overall pp pilot support ... I can only repeat, that your words are a considerable comfort for me at a pretty miserable time ... and apart from the sore bum and two lost teeth!
I've been telling myself, I will listen to my colleagues views before making a positive decision on whether it would be proper for me to resume display flying. I have a fullish show booking for the rest of 2008, and I don't want to let the display organisers down. It is therefore, so encouraging to hear most of you say, "Get back in the saddle."
I've talked though the accident sequence with many pilot colleagues, and I now know fairly accurately where the wing-over the sequence went so badly wrong, and the poorish decisions that led to that. I've been flying the 300C today and back in the UK, all is back to normal. (No deserts, no 5,700 feet airfields and definitely no three-figure temperatures!)
For Brian: The wind was 10 -12 knots left to right cross wind on the run-in for the 270 degree right wing over. Another display pilot suggested that the wind was changing during the first few minutes of the display routine and may have put me in a downwind situation at the apex of the wing-over manoeuvre.
I know that would aggravate the usual acquisition of translational lift in the descent, but display pilots certainly shouldn't use any sequence of speeds and height that can be unreasonably affected by a variation of wind speed and/or direction on display day.
I'm afraid the sad truth is that I didn't make enough changes to my normal display routine to allow for the extreme density altitude and then, being happy with the helicopter's performance in the opening two manoeuvres, I promptly reverted to 'normal display mode' so in that case my longish display experience was probably working against me.
That, plus the other smaller errors and my flying 'out of my comfort' box, was in my view, the primary cause of the accident.
Nevertheless, I bless the Culver City designers of that little Hughes 300 for producing a very crash worthy ship. (some 6 to 9 inches of shock absorber travel, 12 inches of crumple zone under the pilot's seat, plus the two feet or so additional clearance beneath the cabin floor.)
I've little doubt that those factors saved me from serious injury or worse.
Finally thanks again for all those guys & the odd gal who have been so kind to post, PM and E-mail. I'm so appreciative and it has helped me make a sensible decision on my future flying.
Very sincerely,
Dennis Kenyon.