Helicopter crashes into the Hudson River NYC

[nomorehelosforme]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7033617/Helicopter-goes-Hudson-River-no-word-injuries.html

Includes film of the accident, according to an eyewitness floats deployed just prior to hitting the water.

[GoodGrief]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj1W_q5m3m8

[MightyGem]

LTE, perhaps?

[Ascend Charlie]

MightyGem, I hope your tongue is firmly in your cheek there?

[industry insider]

I don’t know what TR issue caused the spinning but looks like he did quite a good job getting it down, certainly used all the RRPM.

[SASless]

Pretty strong wind blowing looking at the US Flag.....groundspeed was zeroed out and a turn to the right to a more or less down wind heading....at which point the rotation begins. The aircraft gained height during the spin and the tail rotor appeared to continue rotating at a steady RPM.

Being a Bell Jet Ranger that was involved....the notorious LTE must be considered the suspect!

[krypton_john]

What if there was some mechanical failure and loss of TR pitch which caused a power boost to the MR, hence the initial climb?

[gulliBell]

That has too slow. Too low. Too much tail wind. A tight orbit and he's worn a chunk of MR down-wash in his TR. Written all over it. I'd be surprised if there was anything mechanically wrong with the aircraft until after it hit the water.

[FH1100 Pilot]

As someone who has had a complete loss-of-thrust tail rotor failure at a hover in a 206, I can tell you that they spin a *LOT* faster than that. You have to experience it to believe it.

This one was LTE. Pilot-induced LTE.

[NRDK]

Has - Run out of Ability, judgement and excuses written all over it... :ok:

Tired of the aircraft getting the blame for all these spills filmed in questionable phases of flight...

[gulliBell]

Pencil in one of those coffee dates with the CP; you know, the coffee dates without any coffee. "Oops, sorry boss for wrecking your helicopter...I won't be doing that again". Lucky he was over water, had the floats popped, and no serious physical harm to anybody. The insurance will pay for another one. Well, after deducting the deductibles, almost.

[Ascend Charlie]

Slow orbit, tries to come to hover downwind (big nose-up attitude to stop groundspeed, so probably going backwards in the airflow). Gets to limit of pedal travel, starts to turn. Pulls power to get away, doesn't work. Lowers lever to reduce torque, heads for water. Looks inside to find float switches (and loses control of attitude) pops floats, looks up, says "Oh poop..." and splash.

No LTE. Unless you mean Lack of Training and Experience. Bell hasn't had anything they could pin LTE on since the bigger tail rotor came out.

[gulliBell]

Yep....the crash comic for that one will pretty much read like a .... well, like a crash comic. Shouldn't take long to write, just do a cut and paste from a previous one. Me suspects.

[zzodr]

As someone who has had a complete loss-of-thrust tail rotor failure at a hover in a 206, I can tell you that they spin a *LOT* faster than that. You have to experience it to believe it.

This one was LTE. Pilot-induced LTE.

Yep, in excess of 180deg per sec. Make one quite dizzy. This was a leisurely yaw rate in comparison.

[claudia]

Yep, Pilot induced LTE. Expected in a Jetranger yes,but a little surprising as this
was a Longranger,

[nigelh]

May be trick of the eye but doesn’t it look like a lot of spray coming from the bottom of the Heli just before it disappears? I guess it could be recirc of spray from the water ......
why would you do something like a quick stop downwind and then hover out of ground effect ? Same manoeuvre could have been done safely at 180 deg !!

[gulliBell]

I think that question would be at the top of the list when he has his coffee appointment with the CP.

[Ascend Charlie]

look like a lot of spray coming from the bottom of the Heli just before it disappears?

The powder that is packed around the floats to ensure the rubber bits don't stick together. Poooofff!

[Paul Cantrell]

Yep, Pilot induced LTE. Expected in a Jetranger yes,but a little surprising as this
was a Longranger,

I fly a SPIFR L3 and at max gross (which it seems I'm always at - it's a heavy machine) there isn't a large margin of left pedal and torque available... Not as bad as an early Jetranger, but still... Turning into a tailwind and then decelerating to a hover seems to be asking for it. There were two places I thought maybe he was going to get out of it... he starts a brief climb... I was hoping he was going to try to get a little altitude so he could then lower the collective and have a little altitude to trade for airspeed... and then again when he goes down out of sight it's pretty clear to me that he must have pretty much stopped the descent because there's a pretty long delay before you see the spray from hitting the water... I'm guessing he got some help from ground effect, but probably the turning disoriented him enough that he eventually rolled it over.

Almost 30 years ago I flew with another instructor who had an LTE encounter on top of a small mountain (and he crashed). He showed me how to hover while yawing at a fairly high rate. The trick is to use the blur of the horizon/trees/whatever to keep the wings level and the nose from pitching down or up... it's not a comfortable thing to practice, but with some practice you can hover at pretty high yaw rates for long periods of time. If you haven't practiced it, it seems like most people lose control within 5 seconds... usually by dropping a wing.

I've been into W34th a number of times (but not recently) in the L3 and never had a problem, but then I'm always paranoid about power available so I'd never try a direct downwind approach like he did... let alone a downwind deceleration to a hover!

[[email protected]]

Yes, I think there is a lesson in there for a lot of pilots about wind, power and TR authority awareness.

Many of them forget that the loss of translational lift brings with it an increase in power required for both the main and tail rotors.

Used to see it a lot mountain flying where the extra pedal required came as a surprise!

[wrench1]

LTE per the pilot....
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20190515X51758&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=LA

[nigelh]

Sorry , just doesn’t ring true to me . The t/r effectiveness doesn’t explain the downwind quickstop manoeuvre at all .... I fact if I thought I felt the onset of so called LTE I would have immediately gone nose down and reduce power a little which he had plenty of height for . It looks to me like a ham fisted pilot im afraid but we will see . Even the eventual auto didn’t seem to go very well ( in the best auto machine in the business) so God help him if he had been in a 350 or 500 !!!!

[SASless]

Compare the Statement of the Pilot to what you see in the video....very carefully.

I find the commentary about the Wind Conditions to be interesting especially with the presence of a visual wind indicator (the US Flag flying on the nearby Flag Pole).

It seems interesting that after sensing the onset of LTE (using the pilot's own words), he then tries to land in the same direction a second time.

Mind you....he was in an empty helicopter that was full of fuel and him being the only occupant.

[lennystyles]

Hi,
I'm an airline pilot and came across this accident and was just curious what the pilot could have done, once he put himself into this position?
Bearing in mind I just know the aerodynamics of a plane;
Could he have powered himself out of this position or was the plane essentially stalling?

Thanks in advance.

[Two's in]

Hi,
I'm an airline pilot and came across this accident and was just curious what the pilot could have done, once he put himself into this position?
Bearing in mind I just know the aerodynamics of a plane;
Could he have powered himself out of this position or was the plane essentially stalling?

Thanks in advance.

The problem was when he lost forward airspeed, the torque reaction from the main rotor began to overcome the anti-torque moment provided by the tail rotor. This caused the aircraft to yaw to the right despite full left pedal. The combination of a tail wind component, high power and zero airspeed overcame the tail rotor authority. The application of more power simply made the situation worse and increased the torque driven yaw, so no, he couldn't (and didn't!) "power" his way out of it. He had a number of options, all of them poor. He could have lowered the nose and attempted to regain positive airspeed, this would have provided aerodynamic forces to counter the yaw, but in this case he would have been descending and accelerating towards the river bank and structures, so this may not have been appealing. He could have reduced the power until the anti-torque force countered the yaw, but again, this meant descending towards the river and the bank waiting for the rotation to stop, not an obvious choice. Or, if he could have maintained a more stable platform, the rotational speed might have decayed as the aircraft came back into the wind, allowing him to transition away into the wind and regain positive airspeed quicker, but again, it's a brave man who can hold it in a level flat spin waiting for the rotation to slow down.

As you see from the video, all this happened very quickly, and this guy was only thinking of repositioning to a spot following a refuel. He probably wasn't considering the finer points of countering an unstable rotational acceleration with a limited anti-torque force following the loss of translational lift in a down wind configuration. But he will next time.

[JimEli]

LTE per the pilot....
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20190515X51758&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=LA


Sad, that this day and age, a 2 year old, empty aircraft, at sea level, can't handle:

KTEB 151851Z 29010G16KT 10SM FEW070 21/05 A2979 RMK AO2 SLP087
KEWR 151851Z 27014G18KT 10SM SCT070 22/04 A2980 RMK AO2 SLP090
KLGA 151851Z 32008G22KT 10SM SCT060 19/04 A2980 RMK AO2 SLP090

[nomorehelosforme]

I think the aircraft could handle it maybe another factor involved couldn’t..... just saying

[lennystyles]

The problem was when he lost forward airspeed, the torque reaction from the main rotor began to overcome the anti-torque moment provided by the tail rotor. This caused the aircraft to yaw to the right despite full left pedal. The combination of a tail wind component, high power and zero airspeed overcame the tail rotor authority. The application of more power simply made the situation worse and increased the torque driven yaw, so no, he couldn't (and didn't!) "power" his way out of it. He had a number of options, all of them poor. He could have lowered the nose and attempted to regain positive airspeed, this would have provided aerodynamic forces to counter the yaw, but in this case he would have been descending and accelerating towards the river bank and structures, so this may not have been appealing. He could have reduced the power until the anti-torque force countered the yaw, but again, this meant descending towards the river and the bank waiting for the rotation to stop, not an obvious choice. Or, if he could have maintained a more stable platform, the rotational speed might have decayed as the aircraft came back into the wind, allowing him to transition away into the wind and regain positive airspeed quicker, but again, it's a brave man who can hold it in a level flat spin waiting for the rotation to slow down.

As you see from the video, all this happened very quickly, and this guy was only thinking of repositioning to a spot following a refuel. He probably wasn't considering the finer points of countering an unstable rotational acceleration with a limited anti-torque force following the loss of translational lift in a down wind configuration. But he will next time.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Really appreciated. I' ack some of the basics such as the interaction between main rotor and tail rotor etc so i'll be checking google/youtube. The rest I did understand.
I find it interesting to see, that for the eye, these are two similar jobs, but if you just take a bit of time to think about it, there are several more dimensions you guys have to think about.

[Spunk]

Lousy approach in the first place not to mention that he didn’t learn from his first attempt. A L4 with no pax can definitely handle more wind than that.

[FH1100 Pilot]

If we assume that the pilot is being truthful...that he used FULL left pedal and the rotation did not stop...then this one goes into the history books as "just another 206 LTE accident."

But many of us have time in the 206L. Some of us here have LOTS of time in the 206L. Some of us can say...well, let's say we "doubt the pilot's recollection." Let's not say that he's lying about his use of full left pedal. Let's cut him some slack and say he is, umm, "misremembering." And, come on, admit it, what he said is what we'd all say.

If you are in an OGE downwind hover in any helicopter (but especially a LongRanger with that long tail boom) then you MUST expect that the ship will want to swap ends. You MUST be ready to counter any unanticipated, uncommanded yaw with whatever combination of controls works to stop it. Might be full pedal does the trick. Maybe a reduction in torque will do it if you're already at full pedal. Maybe moving the cyclic to the right or forward can be the solution. Maybe it takes all of those things. Trouble is, you have to do them NOW. You can't sit there and think about it until it's too late. Because if you're so clueless that you put your ship into an downwind OGE hover and you get unanticipated, uncommanded yaw, it's already really damn close to being too late.

[Aser]

Not knowing what happened here, I just want to point that many times it has been reported in other accidents pilots never really pushed the pedal to the floor during the onset or recovery...

[Buitenzorg]

Aser, indeed...

From 11 years ago:
This is something I posted in a discussion on an R44 accident that was labelled LTE.There is one phenomenon I’ve never seen addressed in these “LTE / LTA” accident investigations that most of us, certainly those who have spent time giving primary instruction are familiar with. It has no “official” name but my vote would be FOC, for

Freezing on the Controls.

From my own primary flight training efforts I recall (with cheeks burning) those occasions where despite my pushing that left pedal for all my 200 lbs. was worth the nose merrily kept trundling to the right – until the instructor took over, I lifted my trembling right leg off the pedal, and miraculously another 2 or 3 inches of pedal travel materialized.

I experienced an even more extreme example of this while giving instruction a few years later. My student was a slightly-built PPL rated gentleman in his 60s; I was in my 30s and outweighed him by over 50 lbs. Nevertheless, on several occasions after I called “I have the controls” I could not budge any of them – not the pedals, not the collective, not the cyclic – because of how tensed up he was. I terminated the lesson early because I was afraid we’d crash while wrestling for the controls; next morning he flew with another instructor who outweighed me by about 40 lbs. thanks to his weight-lifting hobby, and despite my warnings about this student he thought the pedals had jammed the first time he tried to take over.

These experiences have led me to believe that in a lot of cases where the accident report read “despite application of full left pedal” it should have read “despite the application of what the pilot believed to be full left pedal but was somewhat less than that”. Typical scenario: low-time and/or out-of-practice pilot, already somewhat tense, tail- or cross-wind hover, a little gust and the nose whips right, pilot really tenses up then pushes the left pedal, but against his tensed-up, immovable right leg, pilot now believes he has full pedal in and why doesn’t this spin stop? The remedy here would be enough clarity of mind to consciously lift the right foot off the pedal, but in a high-pressure and rapidly-changing situation, that’s an awful lot to expect from a relative neophyte. If the investigators asked “did you have your right foot on the floor?” and the pilot answered in the affirmative I’d have to believe he really had full left pedal in, but so far I’ve never seen this confirmed either way in accident reports.

As for my personal experience in type: in 250 hours in the R44 including hovering in and out of ground effect in any relative wind angle, I’ve never encountered the pedal stops. The tail rotor authority was always excellent. Please note that “twitchy in yaw” is not the same as “poor tail rotor authority”.

If the subjects of discussion are “Gazelle” and “fenestron stall” replace left with right and vice versa in the above.Then recently I saw an in-cockpit video of a B206 accident, which rolled over after spinning out of control during taxi. A fraction of a second before ground contact the camera happened on the pilot's feet and the pedals were neutral.

All this led me to conclude that the first step in an LTE/LTA scenario should be: take your right foot off the pedal.

My roughly 1300 hours of flying B206L models at high-ish DA (up to 10,000 ft) showed that what we were told during training was correct: "Lead power application with up to full left pedal".

[gulliBell]

The pilot didn't have much experience. 100 hours on type. 900 hours total. With that emerging level of experience he might have been feeling over confident leading up to the loss of control, but was overwhelmed by it all when his skill level was found to be less than that required to recover from the situation he got himself in. From the video I saw, the pilot was responsible for the demise of the helicopter.

[EESDL]

Oooh - must confess - as soon as I saw the ham-phished approach and wind direction I could see where the vid was going. Looks like an outstanding disregard for aerodynamics.

[the coyote]

Without casting any judgement on this incident, I think that the window when pilots are about 500-1500 hours is the most dangerous. Confidence is up, but you simply don't know what you don't know.

I'm grateful I survived this time, given some of the antics I got up to in this window, very much unaware of the true risks, and definitely without the presence or the skills to manage them.

[Robbiee]

Without casting any judgement on this incident, I think that the window when pilots are about 500-1500 hours is the most dangerous. Confidence is up, but you simply don't know what you don't know.

I'm grateful I survived this time, given some of the antics I got up to in this window, very much unaware of the true risks, and definitely without the presence or the skills to manage them.

If you don't know what is going to happen when you turn the tail into a downwind hover (or close to it) by 500 hours you need to hand in your licence and do something else for a living!

[gulliBell]

Well, sort of, but not quite. I can point the tail of a 206L into 15 knots of downwind hover no problem at all (as can everybody else). What I can't do without the risk of seriously messing up is a downwind quick stop so close to the ground, and terminating downwind. That is the real issue here: if you don't know that then yeah, serious lack of training or airmanship, time for a reassessment of your career options.

[[email protected]]

Agree with Spunk
The pilot said that he attempted one approach to pad #4 but felt the onset of LTE (loss of tail rotor effectiveness) and aborted the approach and went around. He climbed the helicopter over the water, turned the helicopter back toward an easterly heading to the helipad and again felt the onset of LTE. not learning from the first approach and doing exactly the same thing again is crass stupidity.

[FH1100 Pilot]

We can't be too hard on this guy. Those of us with umpteen-thousands of hours in 206's can smugly sit here saying, "Saw that one coming a mile off!" But everybody's got to learn at their own pace and peril. But let's be honest here: This was *not* a case of LTE. It was merely a case of a helicopter wanting to weathervane into the wind. As soon as it started to yaw, the pilot should have stomped on that left pedal and arrested the yaw. He did not. Perhaps he was thinking that his tail rotor had "stalled" and now he was "in LTE." Once it got going around, he still did not stop it although there were a couple of things he could have done.. And I assure you, a lightly-loaded 206L (one person on board, even topped-off) at sea level was absolutely capable of doing what he did, provided he'd been aggressive enough on the controls. It still might have swapped ends on him, but... show of hands...who hasn't had *that* happen once or twice in his career? This accident can and should be chalked up to "Uncommanded right yaw that was left uncorrected and the aircraft departed controlled flight." Blaming this one on LTE is not accurate nor fair to the 206.

LTE...or, "Tail rotor VRS" if you will is not a stable condition which persists as the aircraft goes around. The tail rotor never stops working. However, once the yawing momentum starts to build, then we run into LTA, or "loss of tail rotor authority" in which the tail rotor just might not be strong enough at that point. A fixed-wing airplane can get into a similar situation if it gets too slow when at too low of an altitude - even if it is above its stall speed.. At some point you cannot "power-out" of your situation and you MUST lower the nose and regain some airpspeed. But if the plane impacted the ground first, we would not blame the aircraft.

It is possible that had this guy been over flat, level ground, he might not have even spread the skids (if his cushion timing had been exquisite) and we just would've had an exciting near-miss video to watch.

Buitenzorg has it exactly right. The pilot will swear that he was pushing full left pedal. But most likely he was just pushing against his stiff right leg

[Robbiee]

But let's be honest here: This was *not* a case of LTE. It was merely a case of a helicopter wanting to weathervane into the wind. As soon as it started to yaw, the pilot should have stomped on that left pedal and arrested the yaw. He did not.

From the Helicopter Flying Handbook, on LTE
Weathercock Stability (120–240°) In this region, the helicopter attempts to weathervane, or weathercock, its nose into the relative wind. [Figure 11-12] Unless a resisting pedal input is made, the helicopter starts a slow, uncommanded turn either to the right or left, depending upon the wind direction. If the pilot allows a right yaw rate to develop and the tail of the helicopter moves into this region, the yaw rate can accelerate rapidly. In order to avoid the onset of LTE in this downwind condition, it is imperative to maintain positive control of the yaw rate and devote full attention to flying the helicopter.

You say its *not* LTE, then you practically give the textbook definition of LTE? Well,...ok dude:D:ugh::{

[[email protected]]

FH1100 - I would agree with you and be kinder to him if he hadn't had one bite of the cherry and not learned anything from it - yes, people get caught out but don't usually go back and do it again hoping for a different outcome.

[SASless]

Robbie skipped right over this part.....it is imperative to maintain positive control of the yaw rate and devote full attention to flying the helicopter.

If One applies FULL Pedal and the aircraft continues to yaw....One has lost control of the helicopter.

To come back around and try the same thing a second time and expecting better results begs incredulity.

Perhaps that small blurb...."Devote full attention to flying the Helicopter" is a bit difficult for some folks to grasp.

[Robbiee]

Robbie skipped right over this part.....it is imperative to maintain positive control of the yaw rate and devote full attention to flying the helicopter.

If One applies FULL Pedal and the aircraft continues to yaw....One has lost control of the helicopter.

To come back around and try the same thing a second time and expecting better results begs incredulity.

Perhaps that small blurb...."Devote full attention to flying the Helicopter" is a bit difficult for some folks to grasp.

Hard to imagine this guy having full left pedal applied (on that part I do agree with Bob). Looks more like his feet were asleep as he swung it around.

[RINKER]

I still remember when learning to fly. Out with instructor on the hovering square on a windy day.
I was having some difficulty with yaw control out of wind and I was using so
much pressure on the pedals my feet were sliding up the pedals and they still wouldn’t move
I’m thinking why is my instructor stopping me move them with his size 10’s
A quick glance to his side, to my surprise his feet weren’t even on the pedals.
I realised I was fighting against myself. DOH !!
I Learned a bit more about flying from that.
R

[the coyote]

A quick training technique is to get the student to do complete pedal turns with only one foot on the pedals.

[[email protected]]

A quick training technique is to get the student to do complete pedal turns with only one foot on the pedals. That would be considered negative training in many circles - like teaching them to hover without one hand on the collective.

Better to practice slow speed manoeuvering flying figure of 8s over an airfield/field with 10 to 15 kts of wind to deal with. Do it at a sensible height - ie not at 5 ft - and they will soon learn how to deal with weathercocking.

[Thomas coupling]

Ideal aircraft to discuss this as the Jetbox was notorious for tail rotor "issues" to be polite.
Grateful for corrections as I am getting long in the tooth now and much has happened since I flew Jetboxes many years ago, so:

The jetbox had a (unfair?) reputation for becoming unstable in the TR vicinity due to LTA (Loss of tail rotor authority), due to design limits surrounding the OEM TR. I believe this was later redesigned out and the later models have not experienced the same number of issues.
So LTA is where a TR isn't 'man enough' to accomodate a broad spectrum of directional airflow inputs compared to other similar competitive helos. The TR blades simply weren't beefy or big enough to cope with some extreme demnds with pitch and ergo wind direction.

LTE on the other hand is a phenomenon where many helos 'may' suffer, simply because the aircraft ends up in a situation where even the beefy/big TR blades simply can't compensate for the massive increase in the 'big green arrow' and the TR "breaks away" from controlled flight. Obviously this is an aerodynamic phenomenon as opposed to LTA which is a design problem.

In the interim US safety report, notice how the pilot actually states both phenomenon in one paragraph, as he doesn't fully understand the difference between them...something few pilots fully understand, I suspect.

Comments appreciated.

[JimEli]

...
LTE on the other hand is a phenomenon where many helos 'may' suffer, simply because the aircraft ends up in a situation where even the beefy/big TR blades simply can't compensate for the massive increase in the 'big green arrow' and the TR "breaks away" from controlled flight. Obviously this is an aerodynamic phenomenon as opposed to LTA which is a design problem.
...


Its simple. Design choice/compromise causes insufficient TR authority (LTA) which leads to higher susceptibility to LTE. A quick search of the NTSB database reveals that only 2 production helicopters are truly affected.

[SASless]

One Stat I have read is 95% of all LTE accidents world-wide occur in helicopters built by a single Helicopter Manufacturer.

[Bell_ringer]

Of all the subjects, the most varied responses seem to be attracted by LTE.
All these aircraft have sufficient TR authority, some, particularly the earlier models, seem to have insufficient headroom to compensate for lazy or poor technique.
This Bell had 1 crew at sea-level, blaming the end result in this case on the design department is a stretch.

[gulliBell]

Yep, I reckon. I've never hit the pedal stops in a 206B2/3 or 206L1/3. Even when operating hot and heavy above 10,000'.

[Vertical Freedom]

Yep, I reckon. I've never hit the pedal stops in a 206B2/3 or 206L1/3. Even when operating hot and heavy above 10,000'.

G'day GB...I have in the JetBanger @ 16,000' ISA +25 & the B3 easy hit the power pedal stop above 20,K' when it's ISA +30 with oodles of Ng left to to pull, bit like the old LongBox 1's :ouch:

[gulliBell]

VF...I'm more normal than you and wouldn't dream about taking a 2-bladed Bell that high, no matter how many engines it had!

[nomorehelosforme]

G'day GB...I have in the JetBanger @ 16,000' ISA +25 & the B3 easy hit the power pedal stop above 20,K' when it's ISA +30 with oodles of Ng left to to pull, bit like the old LongBox 1's https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/shiner.gif
Quote (https://www.pprune.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=10484186)

Seems like the new guy on here with post #51(above) might know a thing or two about flying a helicopter ......

Glad to see you are still around VF

[Old Dogs]

G'day GB...I have in the JetBanger @ 16,000' ISA +25 & the B3 easy hit the power pedal stop above 20,K' when it's ISA +30 with oodles of Ng left to to pull, bit like the old LongBox 1's :ouch:

Welcome back, Steve. 👏

[Vertical Freedom]

Hoy GB, come-on Mate; She's got a service ceiling of 20,000' just like the Queen of the Sky the 47 has :}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G'day NMHFM, Yaaar seems I'm a clean skin here, so insufficient experience to make such claims! I have no control of the numbers against my name, but I think I have posted a couple more than that me thinks :eek: Actually LTA can be a reality like the ole 206L1 had, even the 206A with the shorty tail-blades on a cold day! But LTE is a Pilot induced F.Up being that the driver is waaaaaay behind the aircraft &/or a lack of knowledge, or maybe a lack of sufficient dancing lessons :D
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi OD, thank You Brother & let's see? I am not the PIC here, just a newbie :O

[gulliBell]

Hoy GB, come-on Mate; She's got a service ceiling of 20,000' just like the Queen of the Sky the 47 has :}


True. But put a bit of weight in it and the max operating altitude comes down to 13,500' DA. Which at ISA +20, your bus is probably parked overnight higher than that!

[Vertical Freedom]

MayT....no ones gonna throw weight at those heights; no doors, no seats, no fuel (almost), no undies, full body shave....anything to shed grams :rolleyes:

Oye GB.....Grass is Greener on my side of the fence, come on over for a Cleanser, there's a Mountin Lassie here awaiting to meet Ya!

[FairWeatherFlyer]

I'm wondering if being light was a contributing factor here? I'm sure many of us would think downwind departures and arrivals are going to be fine if there's oodles of surplus power but if heavier we would keep things into wind and keep the IAS up?

I don't know the exact geography here, what's the explanation for all that manoeuvring?