Indian N3 Dauphin down

[helihub]

From Friday - there are lots of helicopters assisting in the flood hit areas of Uttarakhand including this one which did not land so well on Friday

[DirtDiver]

Hard landing?

Or maybe de-lamination of metal layers?

[cpt]

Hi DirtDiver,

No metal layers here, just a "sandwich nida-nomex" covered by a light alloy metal for the tail boom and carbon-fiber for the shrouded fin. It seems that the break was just at the junction of the tail boom and the fin...
The condition of the tail skid could give good hints.

[Rabina]

N3

Hard to know what happened here. The gear don't visibly seem to have been pushed upwards, the nose gear position is about right for soft ground, the actuating strut would have presumably buckled if it were impacted at high in forward motion.

Looks like someone from the insurance company will take a look at this baby before writing out an €8M check for a new one from Marignane.

[DirtDiver]

@cpt, Oke clear thanks!
I saw something similar when working at CHC with one of the new AW139 with delamination of the tail but that was more forward.

Interested to see the maintenance history of this baby.

[ericferret]

Looking at the angle of the nosegear and the r/h mainwheel which looks bogged in I reckon far to much pedal on the ground.

[captchopper]

This happened at a place high in the Himalayas called Harsil (Helipad elevation 8200ft). How is the performance of N3 at those altitudes?

[cpt]

Hello "catchopper"

The OGE graph gives you something like 3950 kg at ISA and 3650 at ISA +20 (4300 Kg beeing the absolute MTOW)