SADfull:
I don't know about this shooting folks in the Head thing.....but I do on the rare occasion shift them to the Peanut Gallery. It is a rare thing at Rotor Heads but it does happen. Adidos Muchacho!
Awwwwwww, again? I'm inconsolable!
Actually, this is not the first time SAS has put me on "Ignore." But he absolutely cannot resist arguing with people. So he generously takes me back. And then puts me on "Ignore" again. It's a neurosis, I think.
So SAS won't be able to see any of my posts anymore (at least until he does). And *I'M* supposed to feel bad? Heh.
Any of you readers who think that the CHI 91 accident occurred because the pilot absolutely, positively did not: a) at least consider the possibility that they'd lost all their oil (even though that possibility was never verbalized) and that b) the PIC absolutely, positively did not consider the run-dry time of the S-91 transmission...either you are not helicopter pilots or you're not very good helicopter pilots. Of course he did. OF COURSE HE DID.
Put yourself in his shoes. He was not a complete moron. He was a pilot, probably a lot like me and you (if *you* are actually a pilot and not just playing one on silly internet forums). He saw that his MGB pressure had gone to zero (or nearly so). He isolated the oil cooler using the Emergency Bypass, but did *not* see the expected rise in MGB temperature. Yet he knew...KNEW from his training in the ship that a rise in MGB temperature was to be EXPECTED. Hmm.
Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of his mind he had to think, "Maybe there is no oil?" He might not have thought it consciously, but that possibility was there in his brain. It had to be...unless he was a complete noob with zero flight time. Because from our earliest days of flying we are taught that if you have zero gearbox pressure and the the temperature does not go up, THEN YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE ANY OIL. In a loss of MGB pressure, a lack of temperature increase IS the secondary indication! To say he was totally unaware of this phenomenon is just, as I say, stupid, because it is just *one* of the possibilities that would be running through ALL of our minds.
So although he did not actually say out loud into the intercom, "Gee, maybe we lost all our gearbox oil!" he had to be thinking it on some level. To assume otherwise is to give him a very serious insult and discredit. He made a decision based on what he knew...based on ALL of the things he knew, not just what was showing on his gauges.