Speeeed tape

At the angle those wires hit there would have to have been a rotor strike ?

I guess it depends on where you’re starting from?

Autoglass enroute - have your policy details ready!

On my Puma OCU in 1989, my flight commander was carrying out a concealed approach (nb 10’agl) and took out the electricity supply to St Davids in Wales. The RAF Valley press officer handled the story saying he didn’t understand why the aircraft was below 250 feet outside a Tactical Training Area and that a full investigation would take place 😳

Nutty, that wire detector was also fitted to a couple of Sqn aircraft, too and I flew them as part of the trial. Practical opinion? They didn’t work; many false negatives and false positives.

...around 50 per second.

Wasn't it something about a frequency the blades gave off?

Doh! One would have thought the boffins would have thought of this: "It would have worked fine if it hadn't been for those darned rotors!"

Only if you were flying circuits...... ;)

Call "Windscreen O'Brian" and some duct tape and voila, back in service...

I remember a night extraction from a field between XMG and Cullaville pre NVG. We had carried out a recce during day and flew to the torch T that the Troops had. Yes you guessed, Wrong Field! As we lifted and transited away, bright flash and all lights went out in Cullaville. On arrival back at BBK we still had 40 foot of cable wrapped around the port wheel. Neatly cut of at the tail rotor! As they used to say NI was a Bog held together by WIRES!

ISTR that a Chinook can lift another Chinook...

If the 'tablet based system' referred to is the same one as introduced to the SAR Force, it was a moving map but it couldn't be installed on the aircraft due to the need for lengthy and expensive trials and modifications.

So it was a 'carry on device' that was worn on a kneepad - because it was 'carry on' it couldn't be integrated with the aircraft intercom to provide audio warning of wires, just visual - so much for reduced 'heads-in' what a fecking waste of time and money.

The database was good showing many domestic wires of the sort they hit but a proper, aircraft integrated moving map with audio warnings is what is required.

I cannot believe they have managed to wriggle out of producing a WSPS wire strike prevention system (cutters) for the Chinook, how long has it been in service??????

The trial was 1979; tablets came in small brown bottles back then!

The one Nutty and I refer to was a panel installed instrument with a display that looked rather like the petals of a daisy, to show the relative direction.

ShyTorque

Very interesting. That wouldn't be the RSRE LIDAR kit - I know that was offered in 1986, and trialled in (I think) an Andover in about 1991. Perhaps an earlier iteration? Unfortunately, MoD stopped funding such R&D, and QinetiQ had their LIDAR funding slashed about 12 years ago. Most of the world's leading experts were made redundant, to the benefit of France and Germany. But MoD should still own the IPR.

Totally off thread but the picture reminds me of when I was sitting on a bench in Orchard Road having been thrown out of a bar with an R&R US Army Chinook pilot. The subject was the nostril intakes on the front pylon.

He told me, remember this is the 1970s so it was a Mk 1, that it was a pressure sensitive system to keep the aft rotor behind the front one. " The s##t hits the fan if you have a bird jam up one of them."

Is that what they were for? possibly overtaken by electronics.

​​​​​​I'm not directly familiar with either of those systems but I'd be impressed if they detect wires that size without much in the way of false alarms.... Note that the fluff article linked is describing super-grid pylons which do quite a lot more "erg-ing" than a set of domestics, even triple domestics. I'd be impressed if LIDAR could pick them out in the clutter as well, though I'd imagine with some heavy processing horsepower it's theoretically possible.

Crab, there are structural and location issues for fitting Cutters to the Chinook. The roof would need a lot of mods to be up to the task, and the chin is already taken up with the EO/IR. When I was in the PT we had a whole stack of reports that suggested the Chinook’s mass would snap most of the wires it hit, if the rotor system didn’t do the job first - and given the number we’ve hit over the years, especially in FRY, this has proven to be the case. This one is towards the top of the scale, and given the type of wires they’ve hit, the SI will be interesting to read. Re tablets, we are agreed - short term and cheap way of not doing something properly, and even the best mapping system can’t keep pace with wires/whip antennae going up at short notice.

PBA, there are LIDAR based obstacle detection systems out there available OTS, as well as radar ones. They all will create some false alerts, and cost money to buy and integrate, and can add weight to the nose. JHC prefers not to spend its money on them, instead emphasising crew planning and buying PEDs to ameliorate the risk ito ALARP - which I think is optimistic at best. We’ve also conducted a substantial number of TDPs and R&D in this area to overcome DVE issues - as usual, no money to properly exploit the knowledge gained.....

Evalu8ter - I take your point but even if the mass of the Chinook or the rotors snap the wires, what about the damage done to the airframe, rotors or crew? Seems a very optimistic attitude to say 'let them break wires'.