G-WIZZ down 15/10/21

[N707ZS]

Helicopter crash lands on Humberston Fitties beach - live updates - Grimsby Live (grimsbytelegraph.co.uk) (https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/helicopter-crashes-beach-near-cleethorpes-6067554)

[treadigraph]

Fairly neat self-amputation of the tail boom, imagine it's rebuildable. One of the very early out of sequence registrations as I recall, before they became endemic.

[pulse1]

I'm sure I flew in that when it was a Baron. Anyone know what happened to the original?

[treadigraph]

Pulse, the Baron is G-WWIZ, now G-GAMA. WIZZ was always a Jet Ranger first registered in December '77.

[DaveReidUK]

I'm sure I flew in that when it was a Baron.

I'm told that the Baron-to-JetRanger conversion mod is very tricky and not really cost-effective to do,

[pulse1]

My 82nd birthday is a bit late to discover that I am slightly dyslexic! Thanks for the correction.

[red9]

Strange - cos I was sure I had flown that Baron as well........... ( not dyslexic that I know off )

[Pilot DAR]

Okay total thread drift, but while we're transposing aircraft registrations anyway, old story...

Back in the later '80's, I arranged for my old friend Bill Loverseed to borrow a friend's Piper Aztec for his instrument renewal. Bill had left the employ of dehavilland, and thus had less access to airplanes for local rides. My friend Max owned Aztec C-GVVV. So I told Bill to jump in on the apron in the morning, and familiarize himself, as he was not experienced on Aztecs. Ride in the early afternoon. I met Bill for lunch. He expressed gratitude for my arranging the loan of the airplane, but then asked me, "do you not know the difference between an Aztec, and a Beechcraft Baron?". "Sure I do Bill, why are you asking?". "Because VVV is a Baron, not an Aztec!". "No, VVV is an Aztec, I've flown it lots!". So we quickly finished our FBO lunch, and Bill took me to show me that VVV was a Baron. Indeed, it was! C-FVVV was a Baron, parked two planes down from C-GVVV, the Aztec. He'd actually walked past Aztec C-GVVV to get to Baron C-FVVV. Both had unlocked cabin doors. Bill had now only a few minutes to get familiar with the Aztec, as the examiner was minutes away! He passed the ride.

Bill never again challenged my knowledge of types. Many years later, while driving through a distant town, a car license plate in a McDonalds parking lot caught my eye, "C-GVVV". I had to stop and see if Max was there. Sure enough, sitting having a burger, there was Max. He'd long since sold the Aztec, and given up flying, and we had a great chat anyway!

The last Bell 206 I flew was C-GGAZ, (though we still put jet fuel in it!). Back to chatting about an unfortunate helicopter event....

[treadigraph]

Poor old Bill, his was a sad ending... I recall that he ferried Len Morgan's Cessna 172 to the UK for its new owner - Len wrote a beautiful article in Flying about his time with the aircraft.

[cavuman1]

Excellent story, Pilot DAR! I used to take to the skies in a then-new 152, the registration of which was N757WW. She was known in KSSI, KJAX, and KSAV as "Double Shot". Would that I were left seat on a beautiful autumn day like this one!

Apologies for thread drift.

- Ed

[Pilot DAR]

Poor old Bill, his was a sad ending

Indeed (continued thread drift, apologies). I did visit Ashburton, walk into the field, and think of Bill and Mic (whom I also knew well). I flew over to Farnborough in the Buffalo as a passenger with Bill during my DHC days, and went for the show demo flight in it with him two days before that accident. Following his departure from DHC, Bill and I did a lot of sailing, and flying together, including a couple of Transatlantic ferries, and a Twin Otter delivery to Lesotho. We sailed a number of times from Bosham, near his home at Selsey, when he moved back to England. For one summer, I positioned airplanes to him in Bangor Maine, so he could ferry them onward to England. One a week, I'd meet him in Bangor most Saturdays, when he was taking the plane I'd dropped off the week earlier. When he crashed in Labrador, I flew there right away to get him sorted out as much as possible for his return to England, where he convalesced for some time. But Bill always had a smile, and a great story, RAF, Red Arrows, USAF, and demo trips with DHC. I could (and did) listen to his stories forever....

[John R81]

Reported on Aviation Safety Network (https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/268974), Forced landing after engine failure, tail boom severed on landing. 3POB, no injuries.

[[email protected]]

Is that the one that used to be Mark Thatcher's?

[treadigraph]

Found it and gotta share it...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p8iHz6cuJrAC&pg=PA16&dq=loverseed&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgzsv_ndfzAhXYh_0HHYR3CD8Q6AF6BAgCEAI

Bugger all to do with the G-WIZZ prang but...

(In my opinion Len Morgan was Flying's greatest ever asset...)

[Pilot DAR]

Great article! Thanks! That sure brings back memories. That was not one of the planes I positioned for him, as I remember the "hurricane". It made news here in Canada, and Bill phoned me a few days later anyway. I had spliced a rope bridal for his sailboat while moored in Bosham harbour. Bill's boat (being Canadian in origin) lacked the big bollard just forward of the mast. I remember the harbour master stopping along as I was splicing, and more or less saying that it would never hold. I explained the for the absence of the typical bollard, it was all I could do. The harbour master muttered, and continued along. Bill told me that his was one of very few boats which was not ripped from the mooring, and blown inland.

Bill had home "Super 8" movies of his ferrying the Hunters to India. Beautiful formation movie of his buddy flying a nice curved approach, flaps coming down, gear coming down, crossing the threshold, and nicely touching down to a gentle roll out and turn off. "Bill", I asked. "You took the movies?", "Yes", "well, who was flying?", "I was... I just stayed formed up on him, and did what he did.". He was an amazing pilot!

Sorry about the thread drift, but the Bell 206 seems handled, and I've been delighting in the memories!

[Nigel Osborn]

Must have been a pretty heavy landing to do that to the boom! The 206 must be the easiest helicopter to do an EOL!

[RVDT]

Until you still have an armful of pitch and get retreating blade stall as the rotor slows. Difference between practice and reality? I have seen some very experienced pilots and instructors chop tail booms off and wonder why.

[Bell_ringer]

Until you still have an armful of pitch and get retreating blade stall as the rotor slows.

Sorry, this will need some explaining. It's not a condition I would usually associate with blade stall.
There are several reasons why a tail and blade may meet during a forced landing, never heard it attributed to retreating blade stall before.
Retreating blade stall during an auto is definitely a new one for me, so will go fetch the notebook so long.

[[email protected]]

My guess would be a slight bounce on initial landing - there is a gap in the marks in the sand - which prompted a big handful of aft cyclic which took off the tail.

You would be aiming for almost zero speed on touchdown on sand - which it looks like he almost achieved.

Frankly, since they walked away - it's a job well done.

[[email protected]]

PS - and another situation where the engine in a single lost power leading to a forced landing:E

[BFM]

Fond memories of G-WIZZ after being taken for a jolly around Oxfordshire by the great F1 driver Mike Wilds. Less delighted when my youngest threw up in the back but thankfully
​​on the plastic floor protector! Lovely aircraft.

[treadigraph]

Great memories Mr Dar!

[pilotmike]

G-ZZIM was an Akro, and it had me slightly confused when I saw it wizz by - inverted - flown by Mark Jefferies back in the 1980s.

[Flying Bull]

Sand has the habit of stopping skids quite abruptly ...
If you are used to do autos with a bit of forward motion (on gras/asphalt) you might not aim for 0/0 in the real case
Photos show some longer skid marks - so my guess would be - witch decaying rotor rpm the helicopter stopping hard and some input in the cyclic brought that outcome.
Still, every landing you can walk away from is considered a good landing - the ones, where you can use the aircraft again, are very good landings ;-)

[RVDT]

Sorry, this will need some explaining. It's not a condition I would usually associate with blade stall.
There are several reasons why a tail and blade may meet during a forced landing, never heard it attributed to retreating blade stall before.
Retreating blade stall during an auto is definitely a new one for me, so will go fetch the notebook so long.

I doubt it would have chopped it off in flight. After touchdown and still with a large amount of pitch in the wind? Ever watched a Bell 2 bladed medium run down in a breeze on the nose? They will try and batter themselves to death and that is with flat pitch. After a while you learn not to do it that way!

[[email protected]]

But it's not retreating blade stall - just a function of no or ineffective flapping restrainers and droop stops and poor cyclic control

[Bell_ringer]

I doubt it would have chopped it off in flight. After touchdown and still with a large amount of pitch in the wind? Ever watched a Bell 2 bladed medium run down in a breeze on the nose? They will try and batter themselves to death and that is with flat pitch. After a while you learn not to do it that way!

That sounds more like blade sailing to me (and what Crab said).

[wrench1]

But it's not retreating blade stall - just a function of no or ineffective flapping restrainers and droop stops and poor cyclic control
FYI: the flap restraints wouldn't have been engaged at that point and if the hub hit the static stops with a blade approaching the tail it would have flexed down right about that much and modified the tailboom. Actually its a pretty classic B model result with a fast auto and late flare. Have fixed enough of them over the years. L models you get a different result. Good job on the pilot keeping it vertical though.

[cavuman1]

This buttresses Flying Bull's remarks concerning skid/sand interaction:

Previously posted on this forum in February of 2019, I repost since I relive this moment infrequently as I sit bolt upright in the obtunding silence in the middle of starless nights. This was the first and only actual autorotation in which I participated and I hope and pray the last!

- Ed https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

I was a relatively low-time PPL-SEL (maybe 200 hours) in 1979 when a friend who was flying Evergreen 206 LR's to a test oil rig off the coast of Georgia said he would teach me to fly "frantic palm trees". I had accumulated four hours and could hover clumsily but handle other flight regimes satisfactorily when he called one Sunday morning to ask if I'd like to bring my wife and 9-year-old son on a sight-seeing tour. Hell yes, I would!

We flew for an hour doing some low-level (10') high-speed passes over the marshes, rivers, and ocean, and some fairly high G aerobatic work. We were on long final, three minutes from KSSI (McKinnon St. Simons). We had received permission to land and were descending through 2,000'. My "friend", a 6,000-hour 'Nam pilot who was flying right seat, came over the intercom and said "Watch this!" He reached for and cycled the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch. The annunciator panel went from green to orange to red! He had starved the engine of fuel and we were too low to get a restart! This was going to be a genuine autorotation. I turned to my family in the rear seat and yelled "Brace! Brace! Brace!" https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/eek.gif

We hit the beach, the skids dug in, the helicopter tipped forward, the main rotor clipped the tail boom off in a neat decapitation which spun us a full 360 degrees. My wife grabbed our son in her arms and exited to the left; the end of still-spinning main rotor puffed up her hair as it cleared her by an inch! I fumbled with my 5-point restraint for what seemed like hours, then ran like the devil. https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/wibble.gif

The starboard fuel bladder had ruptured and was spilling jet-A near the exhaust. The T.O.T. was ~ 700 degrees, the VSI pegged at 2,500' down, and the ASI at 40 knots. We were lucky to be alive...

Some serious adult beverage consumption coupled with general prayers of thanksgiving to anyone listening followed that afternoon, but bright and early the next morning I went alone for an hour's introspective solo in my 152. Had I not, I am not certain that I would have ever flown again. https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/puppy_dog_eyes.gif

I have abseiled and was an ardent skydiver until my then-wife put her foot down and forced me to choose between her and my T-28. I have hung by one foot and one hand 50' above the stage while changing gels and bulbs in theatrical lighting. But get me on a 6' step ladder and it's time for vertigo and acrophobia! Go figure... https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/confused.gif

- Ed

[[email protected]]

cavuman1 - did you punch the idiot in the RHS? I hope he lost his licence for that.

[cavuman1]

I share your sentiments, [email protected]! The so-called friend and gentleman got busted in Miami by the DEA several years after the aforementioned accident. Seems that the Piper Aztec he was co-piloting had a cargo of Jamaica's finest, Mon, as in 600 pounds of toe-tagging ganja - the weed of wisdom! I think he remains a guest of the Federal Prison System, but I am certain that he'll never get his ticket back. Instant Karma, right?

- Ed

[Bravo73]

"Watch this!”

The two most dangerous words in aviation.

[[email protected]]

cavuman1 - as they say, Karma's a bitch:)

[slacktide]

My "friend", a 6,000-hour 'Nam pilot who was flying right seat, came over the intercom and said "Watch this!" He reached for and cycled the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch.

Sounds like this one? https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/brief.aspx?ev_id=32899&key=0

[cavuman1]

Great detective work, slacktide! We were instructed by our "friend" to keep complete silence about our presence on the helicopter. I was proud of my young son who never divulged a word. Also aboard that day was a true friend who brought along his new Nikon camera with motorized film advance. He got excellent inside point-of-view photographs of the autorotation; after escaping, he inserted a new roll of film and got thirty-six frames of the wrecked chopper. I had copies but same were lost in a divorce.

Of further interest: when the engine was sent to the FAA's/NTSB's testbed in Maryland, it started immediately and ran without a hitch. The conclusion is pretty obvious!

- Ed