I think secondary to the crew getting out safely is the issue of the chap at 1min 26secs being crated!

Per Ardua

We get everywhere!

Agreed, try it in Norway- single wire, middle of nowhere and at God knows what height!

CG

I vaguely recall something along these lines being featured on Tomorrow's World back in the day. Was there a civil test too?

From the looks of the damage on the pic, the wires have a good account of themselves, the wokka straining against their restraint then finally being let forth with an almighty twang.

A frightening, nee shocking, experience for the crew no doubt. Isn't it standard procedure to refer the pilot as Sparky from now on?

This was one of ours in the mid 80's, hit wires under NVG's. Was cut by the blades, they were also lucky like this crew.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7254c1c415.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b8530e1827.jpg

The most frightening case I read about was a Lynx flying over a Norwegian fjord. It caught a cable at about 450 ft above the water level, between the fuselage and the skids. The aircraft nosed over and swung inverted on the cable. It remained swinging there for some time, before falling off. They survived intact!

Having said that, an RAF colleague of mine died during an Australian exchange tour when his Chinook hit high HT cables and went down.

I have no information on that. We weren’t told anything much, tbh and being military we didn’t ask.

So what happened to the principle I was taught at Tern Hill (Sioux and Whirlwind 10) about 50 years ago, when near cables ALWAYS fly over the pylon .
Neither had wire cutters.

You have to see the wires or the poles first. In my case the erectors had thoughtfully thought about the landscape and positioned the poles amid trees and the wires strung across open country.

You were lucky in a Sioux. Sycamores didn't have enough power to get over a pole.

From the eye witness account it seems that the chinook was already making an emergency landing before hitting the wires so it is seems to me understandable that such an unplanned event would increase the likelihood of hitting wires.

I need to do this civpop PFL recognition course. Is it on Modnet and can I claim actuals?

Investigation report to be published in next week or 100 :E

I chatted to those doing the install and testing, they if memory serves me correctly we’re having problems setting it up due to the frequencies the helicopter naturally put out, I think rotors were mentioned. The other thing was they only detected live cables so could lull you into a false sense of security.

It would appear LIDAR is the way ahead.

https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/re...g-11-01798.pdf

Nut, that seems more like a mapping/survey tool for keeping tabs on your power lines - the method described relies on height separation between the wires and the background veg/ground. Might be useful for mapping large wires in an operational environment though.

(have read all thread posts, but not links)
Power outage. But did the 3 wires break?

PBA this shows it in a helicopter environment

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ht_and_Landing

The advantage I see would be it would not rely on the cables being powered, simply present, and it would also detect masts etc.

Absolutely, and detecting unpowered wires is definitely where it's at for a variety of reasons. However, even that link only describes spotting domestics 1000' away. Better than nothing for sure, certainly at slow speed on the approach or nap of earth, but if you're at 50'/120kts it's not going to save you from a set that are strung. 1000' equates to 330m approx - that's about 5s out from the wires if I've got my maths right?

There's a lot of room for technology in all of this, but two things are key - how do you present it to the crew and how do you prevent it from going off continuously with false alarms or otherwise.

Both of those are turbo challenging and I'd be the last to say I know what the answer is. Active detection has advantages over database systems for sure, especially in operational flying, but false alarm rate will get you killed through alert fatigue just as well as not having the system. I do know that we've been preaching "look out the window, clear your flight path and fly defensively" since Pontius was a pilot, and people still clatter into wires though!

Unfortunately it didn’t actually detect the very big HT cables running East-West in the local low flying area and I’m fairly sure they were live. It gave me no sense of security at all!

Shy, was that the little circular display by the pilot's right knee, with green lights indicating the quadrant the wires were in? Seem to recall that being trialled, and it not being very trust-inspiring at all.

CG