Stupidly lucky....or luckily stupid

[John Eacott]

This little gem of a video has appeared recently. I leave others to pass judgement :eek:

JetRanger (over) torque turn. (http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/photos/pprune/CrazyJetrangerPilot.wmv)

[loachboy]

I personally have sweaty palms after watching that little one.
Wow...he judged it well Huh ?

NOT !

PS - The passenger bit was a tad unthoughtful I thought.

:ouch: :uhoh:
:ouch: :ouch: :ouch:

[Tony Chambers]

In my time with the AAC i have done a few run on landings but that was, well, erm :mad: wow.

[Hughesy]

OH MY GOSH!!
Just lucky the pilot levelled the ship. Still, what a ASS***E anyway, especially with pax.

:hmm:

[belly tank]

Wow!!!!.........HMMMM

If you look closely at the point of touchdown, you can get a view of the tail boom flexing!..have a look also at the coning angle !!

Im glad the spectators thought it was funny! I hope he got his @SS kicked for that!....i bet thats the last helo ride for those pax!

Oh...if anything good advert for Bell of the ruggedness of their ship! but im sure they would have found a few things to look at anyway!

[oryxs]

Don't think the landing was intended. He just ran out of airspace due to him doing the wingover exit downwind. Watch the windsock in the last part of the clip. A big no-no if your are going to do this that low. I am sure someone in there needed a pants change after that:D

[BlenderPilot]

Does anyone know if he intended the landing?

Thomas Couplings doing what they were intended to do I guess.

[Av8r]

I agree with oryxs, he simply ran out of airspace to recover.
Fortunately he was 'skids level' when he hit.

I witnessed the exact same maneuver, but using a b47, in front of a small crowd like that, but unfortunately it didn't end so happily for the two onboard. :ugh:

This guy was lucky. VERY lucky.

[John Eacott]

And if he'd been on high skids.............:{ :{ :{




Ohlsdorf: little place near Hamburg?

[Av8r]

...err, no John I don’t think so.
I know a little German (he lives down the road) and apparently Ohlsdorf is German for Dic*head.

[NickLappos]

The touchdown was surely unintentional, the result of his lack of understanding of how to do that kind of maneuver. The impact was gentle, as measured by the skid deflection, which was small (a few inches) and not permanent. The tail cone oscillation is big, but actually at the high end of normal (try it on the ground, and see how it bounces when you shove on it.)

One lucky guy, who really did nothing to earn that luck, judging by his first pass, which was so low it was actionable all by itself.

In any descent maneuver like that "torque turn" the pilot should never still be in a true maneuver state as he approaches the ground. Display pilots know that you just exit the upper maneuver and stabilize the descent, then smoothly fly down to the desired pass altitude with virtually no G on the aircraft. This guy was still in his pullout trying to avoid the ground when he touched. Very bad technique, not likely to turn into a habit!

[Rotorbee]

I found Ohlsdorf - as far as I know it is not an other word for ****. It is in Austria.
Ohlsdorf "Airport" (http://mitglied.lycos.de/modellflugonline/modellflug/mfcohlsdorf/mfcohlsdorf.htm)

It is the "airport" of a modell airplane club. That guy did his stunt on a runway for radio controlled airplanes. That probably explains why the runway was smooth enough that nothing happend.

In the long run it will probably save lives if the FOCA of Austria revokes the license of that pilot.

[Vfrpilotpb]

It is totally , utterly unfair, that Pilot treats his 206 like a childs toboggan,

where I would pamper it , and wash and polish it at least once per week, and keep it pristine for the days when the sun was shinning, ready to get off some where exotic,

well I can dream, can't I

What a pratt of a pilot, some one , one day will buy that HELI,

Vfr:mad:

[Arkroyal]

Hmmmmm

several VERY lucky people in that machine.

Can anyone translate the commentary, which seems to miss the gravity of what is going on. A gnat's cock lower in that recovery and there would be a lot of high energy sharp bits of 206 amongst the onlookers.

What an utter dork

[alouette]

Oddly enough I flew this JetRanger in the early days of its history in Austria...seeing this...no comment...man this could have gone wrong badly. Thanks John for your input...:O

[Ascend Charlie]

There is an Oz media pilot who did a similar move when he was in the army - in front of the General - and rolled it up big time. He left the army soon afterwards.
:uhoh:

[Rotorbee]

The commentary tells more or less how good the pilot is:
"It shows how far the pilot can go, he touched the ground with the skids."

Na, that guy did not realise how close they where to an absolute tragedy.

I really wonder what happend to the pilot afterwards.

[HOSS 1]

Am I the only person that thinks this is an Radio Controlled (albeit rather large!) helicopter?

When I first looked at the clip, my first impression was that it was certainly a large RC ship. But after a few more viewings, I wasn't so sure.

But then someone says it takes place at an RC field. Too much coincidence for me.

The pitch rate of the fuselage when it touches the ground seems to high for a real JR. I believe the real thing would have more inertia, slower reaction rate, and probably sink further into the ground, etc. Also, the occupants just look too, well, fake.

I've seen a clip of a F-14D RC model that you'd swear was the real thing, and the clip started at TAXI !! It was flying from a scale airport, right down to the taxiway signs. But, after carefully watching the motion, you could tell it didn't weight 100klbs.

Reminds me of the old "Sea Hunt" scenes that were filmed in a pool with little models.

Of course, if it is, then the crazy person is anyone standing that close to a huge unmanned skilsaw !

HOSS

[NickLappos]

HOSS,

That film has the right scaling and the right sound effects, I'm gonna bet it is quite real.

[Fun Police]

if that guy had crashed, which i think we can all say we are suprised he didn't, then that would have been one other example of how the public would see helicopters as a menace. hopefully, the owner of the machine or the appropriate authority would ban that sh*&head from ever flying again.
i get asked to do hammerheads from stupid customers all the time and i have always refused. i don't have the right to fool around like that with someone elses machine and certainly not with pax on board, even if they are morons.

[alouette]

If you read my previous post then you will find out that this ship is definitely not RC controlled. Maybe the monkey on the controls was RC controlled; that's debatable. But that blunder is very real. I couldn't believe it myself. It is amazing that the tailboom did not detach...enough said

to the previous post about the menace to society;

I guess most folks thought that this whoopdydoo was part of the program because I see one fella smiling on that video. Then when nothing happened people (students) want to try the same because they don\'t know... They would have known if this ship disintegrated to pieces. Sheer luck that nobody was hurt.:}

[ShyTorque]

I know of one case where a pilot did exactly this type of manoeuvre in a military Alouette. He wasn't so lucky. A Canadian ex student of mine, a passenger in the aircraft, being shown off to by an inexperienced pilot, was crippled in the crash.

I know of another case back in the 1980s where a US army Blackhawk pilot did an impromptu and unauthorised display in West Germany with pax on board. The aircraft, banked almost at 90 degrees, hit a hangar wall after carrying out a hard low level turn. Fortunately it WAS a Blackhawk and they survived.

As an ex mil heli display pilot myself, I know well the workup and consideration that OUGHT to go into any display flight, especially the use of a known safe base height for all manoeuvres. This half baked pilot needs a swift kick right where it hurts most. I hope he fronted up and got the aircraft checked out afterwards. If not, some other innocent pilot and his pax might one day pay the price that this idiot SHOULD have paid on the day.

:mad:

[Av8r]

...I wonder if he's reading these?

[Sikorsky]

Not much go in that link :{

[Spunk]

If this was my helicopter/my operation I would kick the pilots aas and fire him big time, report him to the aviation authority and personally take care that this guy never gets to see the inside of a helicopter again .:}

@ John Eacott you were right, there is also an "Ohlsdorf" in Hamburg. (part of the city of Hamburg):D

[BlenderPilot]

that from what I can see he kept pulling back on the ciclic as long as he could, BUT when he saw that he wasn't gonna make it he quickly leveled the helicopter to have it slide flat on the skids rather than hit tail first.

Most pilots would have kept pulling back the ciclic as pure instinct and hit the ground tail first.

If he really misjudged the manuver it took some extremely quick thinking and reactions which saved the day.

We all make mistakes, but it's always nice when we correct them.

[sprocket]

That guy needs a reality check. If the machine had high skids it would have been all over.

[Revolutionary]

Methinks he got his reality check that day:rolleyes:

[oldbeefer]

Had a strawpoll around the office today, and we came up with 6, yes six accidents that were the result of people doing wingovers/Tqturns or whatever. Most resulted in dented pride and a written off heli. Some (Snowdon in the '80's) killed people. It's an easy manoeuvre, but not at silly heights!

[jellycopter]

Oldbeefer,

What were you doin' at the office today? didn't think you Shawbury chaps worked weekends!!!

J

[Skeeter Pilot]

In my opinion the film speeds up just before he (or she) touches the ground and slows again after the bounce. The deflection of the skids and boom and lack of deflection of the rotor disk is not consistant with the speed of the aircraft portrayed by the film, bit like the car chases on 70's movies where the car travel around the bend at what looks like 150mph. but it does not lean or slide - if only!

They were cool enough when realising that they have made a major cockup, to resist pulling back on the cyclic, when an impact appeared iminent. The machine actually levels just before touching down, as you would, to prevent a tail strike when carrying out a running landing. Perhaps the pilot intended to carry out a running landing (touch & go style) or rediculously low pass but got it a bit wrong and hit the ground a little hard (may not have happened if he had not been downwind), possibly an undulation in the ground or just the recoil of the undercarrage popped him into the air and off he went gripping the seat with his backside.

At the portrayed approach speed you would assume you are never going to make it, so apart from pulling back, instinct would also make you pull all the collective you had which would result in a far greater change in engine/blade note.

The boom flex does look excessive in slow motion but then we don't see slow motion in everyday life. Perhaps this flex was within (just) limits. If you viewed a whole day of your life in slow motion you would probably be horrified at some of the things you observed. (stick a camera on the mast looking down a blade and view whilst in flight - you would never fly again!)

Also you would expect to hear a few "Oooos" from the crowd as it touched the ground, and where is the registration.

Although there was nothing safe or sensible about the whole incident, I think it looked worse than it really was. Would be interesting to see it in the correct speed.

In responce to HOSS' post: It may look like a scale model to you because of the fact that the film speed has been increased. A model would not have the inertia to compress the u/c like that.

Happy landings

[sprocket]

Agree with your observation Skeeter, something looked a bit artificial with the final part of the drop.

[Old Man Rotor]

Once saw an internal view of a Navajo Fuslage being dropped from a crane, and filmed for "Science".
The cameras showed the roof descending to around half, or maybe a little more of its normal height above the floor.

[Imagine that transient shape?]

The end result after everything stabilized was an internal shape nearly the same as the original.

The point I am trying to make is that as a result of any landing, heavy or not, then there will be some [significant] flexing of the airframe.

[Ever watched the wings of a 747 from inside Business Class when they hit??...quite scary really].

Come on you wizards, someone must be able to address the obvious tampering of the video, and show the complete clip at normal speed.;

Bet the entire flight was then a non event.