Bell test ship crash
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Thats a bit harsh, with the TR missing and possibly trgbx too I think they did a great job.
Seen plenty of worse outcomes in that situation.
Oh yeah and by the way Sasless, good luck with a fast run-on with little 214ST wheels in a farmers field. Or did you not notice that...
Seen plenty of worse outcomes in that situation.
Oh yeah and by the way Sasless, good luck with a fast run-on with little 214ST wheels in a farmers field. Or did you not notice that...
Perhaps some cannot grasp a bit of humor.
Did I not say something about running, walking, and crawling being the definition of "Satisfactory"?
But as to my thoughts re Tcabot....no...he earns such a response each time he puts his fingers to the keyboard.
I also recall I hold you about one notch above him as well.
Did I not say something about running, walking, and crawling being the definition of "Satisfactory"?
But as to my thoughts re Tcabot....no...he earns such a response each time he puts his fingers to the keyboard.
I also recall I hold you about one notch above him as well.
From flightglobal :
" Bell Helicopter lost the testbed aircraft for the transmission system of the company's new 525R Relentless in a crash on 7 August in Avalon, Texas.
The Bell 214ST (N409SB) had just completed a right turn when the flightcrew reported hearing a "bang", according to a preliminary report filed with the US National Transportation Safety Board. The chase aircraft informed the crew that "something had departed the tail of the helicopter", the NTSB says. The 214ST crew autorotated to land in a field nearby, but the helicopter "yawed and rolled right on landing". The flightcrew was not injured in the accident.
The Bell 214ST is used by the company for research and development flights. It was assigned to perform risk reduction tests for the transmission system on the Bell 525R, a super-medium twin."
.
" Bell Helicopter lost the testbed aircraft for the transmission system of the company's new 525R Relentless in a crash on 7 August in Avalon, Texas.
The Bell 214ST (N409SB) had just completed a right turn when the flightcrew reported hearing a "bang", according to a preliminary report filed with the US National Transportation Safety Board. The chase aircraft informed the crew that "something had departed the tail of the helicopter", the NTSB says. The 214ST crew autorotated to land in a field nearby, but the helicopter "yawed and rolled right on landing". The flightcrew was not injured in the accident.
The Bell 214ST is used by the company for research and development flights. It was assigned to perform risk reduction tests for the transmission system on the Bell 525R, a super-medium twin."
.
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Loud bang at the back - C of G still in limits or at least controllable - Perhaps though not yet stated is uncommanded yawing - Land quick is the message - Field within auto reach - Go man go - Looks like a soft field - Go for zero speed touchdown, Check agreed - Final briefs on the way down.
Auto with power on - at the bottom, pull pitch - A/C starts yawing - Second pilot already briefed and does - snaps power off - yaw stops - A/C settles - Everyone gets out take after photos and medications.
If Sasless hadn't done that at the very least in his sim instructing days I'll eat my hat.
Auto with power on - at the bottom, pull pitch - A/C starts yawing - Second pilot already briefed and does - snaps power off - yaw stops - A/C settles - Everyone gets out take after photos and medications.
If Sasless hadn't done that at the very least in his sim instructing days I'll eat my hat.
Top end .. in re your scenario ... I might have asked the C/P to pull the throttles as I enter the the flare, before that last pull, but that depends on if that chase aircraft was able to tell me "something fell off the back, Man!"
They walked away, which is good.
They walked away, which is good.
The Bell school ST had the normal setup. two stacked on the collective.
TET,
Your hat is very safe.
Done them...taught them....landed safe on some....crashed some....but only in the Sim.
Was present at a Tail Rotor failure approaching a hover in a UH-1H Huey one time. I rolled the throttles off for the guy flying....after he seemed unwilling to do so for some unknown reason. We got off with just a pair of bent skids as we were still spinning to the right when we hit a bit firmly as he was slow to get the Collective pulled. No big deal as he was reacting and not doing.
The amount of turning force generated by the rotor system under near full power is amazing....and the immediate relief felt in the rate of turn or yawing when you remove that Torque is also amazing. It conveys the message why removing engine power is usually a good thing if you can when these things happen to you.
There are no absolutes and I would suggest what you do is driven by the way the aircraft is reacting to the failure. For sure, being prepared, and thinking about what you are doing is the key to survival.
Some RFM's would suggest a run on landing at some nice flat paved surface in this situation....or for a Tail Rotor failure that results in a lot of "No Power Pedal" being needed. (Counter Clockwise turning rotors....Right Pedal).
That means you get to Terra Firma with lots of ground speed and Power applied to the Rotor System.....as compared to doing an Autorotation with the power to the Rotor system removed, and very near Zero GS and ROD at touchdown.
I lean towards the latter method....because if it goes egg shaped....the forces involved are minimized....and hopefully the outcome is much less dramatic.
I wonder if the Chase Aircraft was filming the flight of the Test Aircraft.....if so...that might make for a very interesting video.
Depending upon what departed the aircraft....and the reaction of the aircraft following the loss of components....would determine the Immediate Action required.
First blush would suggest keep the ol' girl as level as possible, nose pointing as straight ahead as possible, probably by lowering collective and rolling off the throttles....then follow up with what seemed right at the time.
Given a huge Texas sized peanut patch in front of me....I would have gone to the dirt in autorotation....attmepted to do as they did....get the forward speed as slow as possible at touchdown.
As seen....when the ROD and GS are near Zero at touchdown....the results are pretty darn good.
The 214 has lots of rotor inertia so that is not a problem.
Also....these guys are probably pretty darn sharp too.
If it had been a Bell Flight School crew of Instructors....I wonder how it would have turned out as they do autorotations by the bag load each week.
The CG shift is one of the things we do not know from the reporting so far....or how the aircraft reacted when all this happened. One thing we do know they decided parking it as quickly as possible was the right idea. If this had happened at night offshore in really bad weather....I wonder if they would have tried to fly it back ashore rather than try to do an Emergency Ditching in the water.
Your hat is very safe.
Done them...taught them....landed safe on some....crashed some....but only in the Sim.
Was present at a Tail Rotor failure approaching a hover in a UH-1H Huey one time. I rolled the throttles off for the guy flying....after he seemed unwilling to do so for some unknown reason. We got off with just a pair of bent skids as we were still spinning to the right when we hit a bit firmly as he was slow to get the Collective pulled. No big deal as he was reacting and not doing.
The amount of turning force generated by the rotor system under near full power is amazing....and the immediate relief felt in the rate of turn or yawing when you remove that Torque is also amazing. It conveys the message why removing engine power is usually a good thing if you can when these things happen to you.
There are no absolutes and I would suggest what you do is driven by the way the aircraft is reacting to the failure. For sure, being prepared, and thinking about what you are doing is the key to survival.
Some RFM's would suggest a run on landing at some nice flat paved surface in this situation....or for a Tail Rotor failure that results in a lot of "No Power Pedal" being needed. (Counter Clockwise turning rotors....Right Pedal).
That means you get to Terra Firma with lots of ground speed and Power applied to the Rotor System.....as compared to doing an Autorotation with the power to the Rotor system removed, and very near Zero GS and ROD at touchdown.
I lean towards the latter method....because if it goes egg shaped....the forces involved are minimized....and hopefully the outcome is much less dramatic.
I wonder if the Chase Aircraft was filming the flight of the Test Aircraft.....if so...that might make for a very interesting video.
Depending upon what departed the aircraft....and the reaction of the aircraft following the loss of components....would determine the Immediate Action required.
First blush would suggest keep the ol' girl as level as possible, nose pointing as straight ahead as possible, probably by lowering collective and rolling off the throttles....then follow up with what seemed right at the time.
Given a huge Texas sized peanut patch in front of me....I would have gone to the dirt in autorotation....attmepted to do as they did....get the forward speed as slow as possible at touchdown.
As seen....when the ROD and GS are near Zero at touchdown....the results are pretty darn good.
The 214 has lots of rotor inertia so that is not a problem.
Also....these guys are probably pretty darn sharp too.
If it had been a Bell Flight School crew of Instructors....I wonder how it would have turned out as they do autorotations by the bag load each week.
The CG shift is one of the things we do not know from the reporting so far....or how the aircraft reacted when all this happened. One thing we do know they decided parking it as quickly as possible was the right idea. If this had happened at night offshore in really bad weather....I wonder if they would have tried to fly it back ashore rather than try to do an Emergency Ditching in the water.
Last edited by SASless; 10th Aug 2012 at 00:11.
There are tail-rotor failures,and techniques to possibly fly the aircraft to a safe landing..and then there is tail-rotor and probably gearbox loss...and that will make your eyeballs `pop`.Depending on the power and airspeed at the time you`ll probably yaw about 60-90 deg,and the nose will go down,and the stick will be on the back stop. If you take a basic UH-1,the moment arm is about 480ins to the T/R,and an approx weight of 50 lbs for t/r/part of gearbox,you`ve just lost about 24000 ins/lbs of Moment arm.I`m sure someone can work out the C OF G change.If ,type dependent,you can get pax/crew as far aft as possible,you may be able to recover better longitudinal control,and if you dump the lever,the a/c will pitch down more so.Also, the driveshaft may also start to `flail` and chew up the back-end as well.
Anyway,it may be something that can be `simulated`,but worth thinking about...glad the crew are safe...
Ah,how do I know all this,.? well the pictures of a Whirlwind that I prepared earlier(47 yrs ago) are on page 15 of `Rotorheads around the World`(not videos)....
Anyway,it may be something that can be `simulated`,but worth thinking about...glad the crew are safe...
Ah,how do I know all this,.? well the pictures of a Whirlwind that I prepared earlier(47 yrs ago) are on page 15 of `Rotorheads around the World`(not videos)....
I preferred flying the machines at an aft CG whenever possible....just for that reason. You might as well plan ahead if it costs nothing.
As you go thru life...you grab onto wee bits of wisdom as you go.
Remember the Bell Huey series history of shedding tail feathers...starting with entire tail booms and working its way finally to the 90 degree gear box and Tail Rotor and you will see where it was easy to come to that view of things.
The early model Cobra's were notorious for that. They killed more pilots than did the Vietnamese.
Fort Rucker lost two Huey"s in one day to lost tail booms. They then did a Mod that beefed up the mounting bolts and structure where it all comes together.
One of the disadvantages to a very large fleet of relatively same aged aircraft is when problems are discovered it can affect a fair number of aircraft at about the same time.
There was a GOM operator of 206's who lost two aircraft the same day due to transmission mount failures....so it happens in the civilian world too.
http://www.vhpa.org/stories/million.pdf
Remember the Bell Huey series history of shedding tail feathers...starting with entire tail booms and working its way finally to the 90 degree gear box and Tail Rotor and you will see where it was easy to come to that view of things.
The early model Cobra's were notorious for that. They killed more pilots than did the Vietnamese.
Fort Rucker lost two Huey"s in one day to lost tail booms. They then did a Mod that beefed up the mounting bolts and structure where it all comes together.
One of the disadvantages to a very large fleet of relatively same aged aircraft is when problems are discovered it can affect a fair number of aircraft at about the same time.
There was a GOM operator of 206's who lost two aircraft the same day due to transmission mount failures....so it happens in the civilian world too.
http://www.vhpa.org/stories/million.pdf
Last edited by SASless; 10th Aug 2012 at 18:54.
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Thanks Icedriver, already passed the crash test. Flew it home the next day after they put a new short shaft innit. For a newbie on these columns just returned from the ice?, it'd probably be Jolly Exciting on the ice, if you couldn't gauge your height though??
Sasless has described most of the stuff we do to a tee;- an exercise of arriving at nothing with nothing. We all got over the run on caper for both the T/R drive failure problem and the simple jammed pedals or similar - oh, about thirty years ago. He's right though some AFM's still have it sitting right there to look at.
Both the flight instructing standards and aircraft manufacturers should have moved with the times and onto safer methods.
Zero zero is best. I mentioned the use of the throttle at low level as I was thinking of a smart pointy end crew, high wheel loading in a soft field and trying to limit any yaw upon arrival. For sure any of the hundreds of times that I have done them in practice with the throttle locked off past detent you still get that - follow the rotor system yaw - for a bit. That's where I was coming from.
I would really like to have the privilege of trying more ideas out in a sim, but don't ideas have to be put into a sim with real data first.
Another thing most of you guys are talking about is the nose dropping in auto, sure we can all prove that but why not just go out and practice a few times, hold the cyclic still;- throttle off throttle on quickly, see what happens. A simple matter of drag, thrust relationships.
I too like to have my A/C set up with very aft C of G, not only a figment of the imagination when operating close to trees, but with big tourists in the front of a KH4 for example and getting low on fuel, - ho ho. -- HO.
Knew my hat was safe and just as well, coming off the back of the first mustering round, full of bull dust, blood and guts and mountain oysters throwback.
Oh and BTW jonny baby, you can back it in, one blade strike and it's totaled. That there wreck would be like a parachutist that forgot the brolly, every bone innit broken. There's a good couple of photos around of what a decent blade strike (just one) can do to a big helicopter, taken in Western Australia. Massive photo the strike photo, taken right at the instant the blade end exploded on a steel light pole.
cheers Tet
Sasless has described most of the stuff we do to a tee;- an exercise of arriving at nothing with nothing. We all got over the run on caper for both the T/R drive failure problem and the simple jammed pedals or similar - oh, about thirty years ago. He's right though some AFM's still have it sitting right there to look at.
Both the flight instructing standards and aircraft manufacturers should have moved with the times and onto safer methods.
Zero zero is best. I mentioned the use of the throttle at low level as I was thinking of a smart pointy end crew, high wheel loading in a soft field and trying to limit any yaw upon arrival. For sure any of the hundreds of times that I have done them in practice with the throttle locked off past detent you still get that - follow the rotor system yaw - for a bit. That's where I was coming from.
I would really like to have the privilege of trying more ideas out in a sim, but don't ideas have to be put into a sim with real data first.
Another thing most of you guys are talking about is the nose dropping in auto, sure we can all prove that but why not just go out and practice a few times, hold the cyclic still;- throttle off throttle on quickly, see what happens. A simple matter of drag, thrust relationships.
I too like to have my A/C set up with very aft C of G, not only a figment of the imagination when operating close to trees, but with big tourists in the front of a KH4 for example and getting low on fuel, - ho ho. -- HO.
Knew my hat was safe and just as well, coming off the back of the first mustering round, full of bull dust, blood and guts and mountain oysters throwback.
Oh and BTW jonny baby, you can back it in, one blade strike and it's totaled. That there wreck would be like a parachutist that forgot the brolly, every bone innit broken. There's a good couple of photos around of what a decent blade strike (just one) can do to a big helicopter, taken in Western Australia. Massive photo the strike photo, taken right at the instant the blade end exploded on a steel light pole.
cheers Tet
