Very stupid thing to do!

[LatviaCalling]

Last week the pilot and the owner of the chopper sitting beside him actually landed at a Shell petrol (gas) station on the Riga limits to get fuel.

After getting tanked up, don't ask me how they got the rotors, so close to the hose, they decided to leave. The pilot, a veteran of HIND helicopters, took off and everything seemed to be all right until he hit the high-power lines. The helicopter sizzled and both occupants lost their lives. It was a Rotor Way Exec 162F.

My question is if there is any precedent at landing at a gas station for a helicopter to fill up?

Here in Latvia the police have not charged the dead pilot and the Civil Aviation Authority would rather the whole thing went away.

[Lu Zuckerman]

In 1952 on a flight from Miami, Florida to Brooklyn, New York we landed our Bell HTL-1 at a gas station not to get gas but to clean our spark plugs which had fowled out due to lead contamination.

[tigerpic]

sounds like a very foolish thing (landing by the pump) to do, since all the guy had to do was to land a little further away, bring a portable gas tank from the gas station. sad to hear about the strike.

[collective bias]

Charging a dead pilot is as good an idea as hovering into the pumps.
I wonder what the fuel station owner thought? Its not unheard of to pull up to the servo to collect gas or advise on where a particlular property or farm is but to collect fuel is a great example of poor fuel management and airmanship.

[huverluver]

If the pilot was carrying the ground handling wheels, then he may have landed clear and then pushed it beside the pumps. makes sense if you think about it.

[Vfrpilotpb]

Hi Rotoheads

Sad to hear about any pilots death.
May be I am wrong but I think the Rotorway Exec runs on Mogas , so stopping at a gas station possibly was just the pilots answer to wrong calculations on fuel consumed.

[chips_with_everything]

Yes Rotorway's run on mogas.

And they don't carry a lot of fuel.

Some owners have special bladder type plastic fuel bags to hand carry to and from a servo for fuel.

Don't think landing by a servo is necessarily unplanned.

[Chopperlite]

Don't know about landing at the gas station, but we used to land in McDonalds parking lot (B-206) and on the lawns of various motels when flying cross country. That was back a few years before the U.S. military got hard=core about doing things like that. I think most larger cities (in the U.S. anyway) probably have some kind of "helicopter landing ordinance" specifying approved areas, etc.... Smaller towns??? I doubt it. I worked for a small operator in the GOM for a short period. We used to park the helo on a home-made pad in the backyard of the house. The neighbors didn't seem to mind.

[B Sousa]

Landing near a Gas Station is not abnormal. Lots of us have in the days where Gas was used. Whats stupid is not checking your way in and out very well.
If you happen to be flying from Anchorage Alaska to Fairbanks you can stop at the Gas station in Igloo and they have Jet-A
The other problem is the Perception of what non pilots THINK is right or wrong. Landing in a parking lot of a remote Bar could be innocently misunderstood.

[B Sousa]

Almost forgot.........Chopperlite. The Army got hard because so many stupid things were going on. Such as Billy Bobs flying their relatives and killing them while out buzzing some local haunt.
I also remember those days and they were fun, too many people dont know how to maintain a good thing. (ORWAC 70-28)