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Old 11th Apr 2013, 19:05
  #1937 (permalink)  
ericferret
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: England
Posts: 1,459
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The mid-air Dennis mentions was quite spectacular. The 47 one of Bristow's chopped about 9 inches off one of the 500's blades. On the way down the vibration was so bad that all the windows shattered and the radios shook out of their racks and went out of the broken windows. The instrument panel sheared off at floor level. The field which the unfortunate pilot chose turned out to be a hop field with the associated cables and poles.
If you took hold of the tailskid you could move the tailboom and aft fuselage structure up and down about 18 inches.

Not many aircraft would have survived this incident so badly damaged. Another tribute to the strength of the 500 series.
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