Bell 407 spinning on ground!

[206 jock]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1724449184691424
This popped up on my Facebook feed: not sure if it's done the rounds previously but it's new to me.

In Panama, apparently. If no-one or nothing was hurt or damaged, I'm amazed. I bet the pilot needed a change of underwear

[gipsymagpie]

Although the pilot wasn't in the seat on this occasion, this is strongly reminiscent of the Bell 429 incident in the UK where the helicopter yawed quickly on the ground.

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aaib-investigation-to-bell-429-globalranger-g-wlts

I wonder if this particular Bell 407 was a later variant with the optional autopilot and a similar yaw channel runaway occurred (which Bell didn't actually "fix" in the 429). Anyone got more detail on the particular version of the 407 involved?

[tecpilot]

The ship was very likely not on idle and the pilot out of his seat standing on the other side of the ship helping passengers. In case of crashing every insurance company is happy about that. A short way into insolvency.

[megan]

The ship was very likely not on idleThe video says it was at 100% Nr, who in the world hops out and leaves it at 100%, idle if you have to hop out.

[RVDT]

I think in all Airbus models now the RFM prohibits you from "hopping out" - you can get an exemption in your Ops Manual though, but PVT operators do not have Ops Manuals. I'm sure your insurance company knows this as well?

[Ovc000]

must say he had a good awareness of the tailrotor in this increased stressful situation.
Instant Benny Hill theme in my head :-)

[Devil 49]

The video says it was at 100% Nr, who in the world hops out and leaves it at 100%, idle if you have to hop out.

I can't imagine it was at idle. My experience is that there's not enough thrust at idle to spin it unless the collective lifted, especially turning nose left.

Shut it down before you exit the seat, unless you're on a critical traffic artery.

[DuncanDoenitz]

This popped up on my Facebook feed: not sure if it's done the rounds previously .....

Doesn't ring a Bell.

[Salusa]

The video says it was at 100% Nr, who in the world hops out and leaves it at 100%, idle if you have to hop out.

Kiwis usually in my experience

[EMS R22]

Kiwis usually in my experience

No Kiwi I know would ever get out at 100%!!

At ground idle, yes.

[Nubian]

You can hear that its not idling.
Passenger in the left seat?

[Hughes500]

I have had a near one in a Hughes 500. End of a fuel cycle while lifting so ac very very light with a 35 knot wind. landed on a plastic trackway that was being used by vehicles to get to the lift site. Refueller starts refuelling, muggins here stretches legs out ( already done 4 hours ) . Not really concentrating as pouring a coffee out of a flask. Looked up to see ac starting to rotate to left, as one knows take feet of a 500 pedals and it will pull full left pedal ( machine was at idle ). Interesting conversation with re fueler who was trying to stop the ac rotating by using his shoulder !

[RVDT]

I have had a near one in a Hughes 500. End of a fuel cycle while lifting so ac very very light with a 35 knot wind. landed on a plastic trackway that was being used by vehicles to get to the lift site. Refueller starts refuelling, muggins here stretches legs out ( already done 4 hours ) . Not really concentrating as pouring a coffee out of a flask. Looked up to see ac starting to rotate to left, as one knows take feet of a 500 pedals and it will pull full left pedal ( machine was at idle ). Interesting conversation with re fueler who was trying to stop the ac rotating by using his shoulder !

You can get away with taking your feet off the pedals at idle most of the time but the margins are slim and finding out the hard way is not advisable. Take the left pedal off and turn it around so it interlocks the right one to hold it in neutral against the spring and it will stop that happening. Pretty hard to take off with it configured like that. Yes they will turn around at idle on a slick surface - in particular ice, or with a crosswind from the left or even another aircraft landing to your left.

[helispotter]

Did the pilot finally manage to get into the cockpit and shut down the helicopter? The clip ends a little early to be sure. It doesn't obviously turn up on ASN WikiBase which suggests it all ended OK. But there was at least one point at which the pilot could have been struck by the tail rotor, so they were lucky.

[ShyTorque]

You can get away with taking your feet off the pedals at idle most of the time but the margins are slim and finding out the hard way is not advisable. Take the left pedal off and turn it around so it interlocks the right one to hold it in neutral against the spring and it will stop that happening. Pretty hard to take off with it configured like that. Yes they will turn around at idle on a slick surface - in particular ice, or with a crosswind from the left or even another aircraft landing to your left.

If the manufacturers had expected pilots to leave the running aircraft they would have designed in fail safe control locks. Although many have cyclic and collective frictions, I haven’t flown any with yaw pedal friction or locks.

In all of my career (which was quite a long time) I never got out and left an aircraft running unattended, not even a light fixed wing. However, I do somewhere still have a video recording of a pilot who left his Squirrel running and completely unattended adjacent to an unlocked gate leading into a public car park whilst he departed the scene completely, carrying passenger baggage into a terminal building. I was a bit taken aback that he even entered the car park and I moved my car and family therein well clear because it was quite a gusty day. Twenty minutes later (!) the pilot reappeared, chucked the throttle forward and launched, carrying out an immediate spot turn and transition which almost took him directly into a mid air collision with another helicopter hover taxying past behind him. Thankfully he narrowly avoided hitting the tail rotor on the ground during the rapid quick stop needed to avoid hitting the other aircraft.

[FH1100 Pilot]

Okay, I'm only going to say this for the perspective it gives. I'm not bragging, but I have 11,000 hours of helicopter time over 35 years of flying. The point of saying that is to note that that amount of flight time comes with a ton of time sitting on the ground at idle. Over the years and hours, I have NEVER had an idling helicopter do something weird or funky where I had to grab the controls and do something. Not that moving the controls would do anything. The way the control system is designed, if a blade flaps but the swashplate does not move, that blade comes back pretty quickly to its original plane - it doesn't stay deflected. There have been times when I grabbed the controls in fear, like when a larger helicopter landed beside me. But in every instance, there was really nothing I could do - maybe slam the throttle up to full, but that likely would have been a futile case of "too little, too late." Nor has any idling helicopter spontaneously caught fire or exploded on me. The only advantage of being inside a running, idling helicopter is that the parts and pieces will all probably be flinging away from you if it all comes apart. Your experience may be different, but I've never had a case where something happened and me being at the controls or not would've made a difference.

Have I ever gotten out of a running helicopter? Oh yeah! Sure, of course. Every helicopter pilot who doesn't exclusively fly out of nice, paved airports or heliports probably has had to get out. We cannot always shut down and stop the blades at every interim stop on every multi-leg flight. And, while I understand that opinions vary wildly on this, there's nothing inherently unsafe about "getting out while running." You just have to make sure you're on solid, level ground, make sure the engine is at IDLE, make sure the controls are frictioned/secured, and (if you're in a 407 with boosted pedals and you're stupid enough to leave it up at "fly") make sure not to leave an iPad on top of the dash that might fall off and hit the left pedal. If you do al of those things, you (and your helicopter) will be fine.