Puma "blown over"

[Alfred Kamara]

a friend just told me that a puma that was supposed to come to salone was "blown over" by a strong breeze.

can that happen so easily ?

do anybody know about the incident ?

[Haggis Hunter]

Its happened before offshore on a supply boat helideck, don't know anything about this incident yet...

[5711N0205W]

I vaguely remember a 332 (not sure which variant) being blown over at Teesside quite a few years ago, may have been a Bristow one but not sure.

[ATN]

One Sealand 332 was blown over during a night STBY on a drilling rig off the Ghana coast in 1984.

In the early 70s the first 3 SA330 in the fench army capsized under strong gusts.

High C.G. + narrow track made it too unstable for the navy.

Cheers

[Fortyodd]

An RAF Puma fell over in strong winds at Marham in 1995. :{

[Shawn Coyle]

In the early 80's an RAF one got blown over while parked overnight at an island off Belize.

[JimL]

To see about the vulnerability of the Puma to lateral instability on the ground, go to this site and read more about it in the HOMP report:

http://www.caa.co.uk/publications/publicationdetails.asp?id=522

There are several references to this in the report but it is best described in section 6.1.10 with a graph of the limits contained in Figure 6.7. Although pilots are taught about this in training, HOMP shows that the limit is reached and exceeded in too many cases.

[Helitemp]

Yes there has been a few gone over in the North sea but the circumstances were all differant. Bond had one go over on ground handling at Aberdeen a few years back. The Scotia one was on a deck of a floating drill ship, main cause was ship drifting out of wind in a very heavy sea state . Bristows at Aberdeen on a ground taxi into dispersal at Dyce and went over in a tight turn.:rolleyes:

[teeteringhead]

Combination of high C of G and narrow track u/c must made it less statically stable. Can't ever recall it happening to any other (mil) helicopters.

[ShyTorque]

"In the early 80's an RAF one got blown over while parked overnight at an island off Belize."

Ah yes, remember it too, one of ours, Caye Chapel. Might actually have been late 70's though.

They certainly had "a bit of a reputation for top heaviness", as one student pilot ground taxying out for his first solo at RAF Odiham discovered. Never actually got it quite as far as lined up on the runway before she lifted a leg and fell over on him. I think he failed that trip...

We used to show OCU students all her nasty little tricks before they were allowed off by themselves, especially the inflight yaw/roll divergence and the wrong pedal takeoff. To say nothing of having to "ring the bell in the engine room" before pulling collective outside the governed band (NR).

Still a queen if the skies though (or was that what we called the unit boss? Memories not as good as it was, heh, heh... :E )

[Alfred Kamara]

thank you every one.

do anybody knows about this latest incident?
the last i know the helicopter was in liverpool or maybe leeds ?

thank you very much

Alf