Helicopter down outside Leicester City Football Club
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: LHR
Posts: 556
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@gullibell... Thank you for jumping in...... I was establishing the principle rather than trying to teach the technique!
@Jagwar... Good point about the Canada Geese. They are substantial birds and would one damage a TR? Who knows? They are however big birds that would probably show up on the video clip and they do tend to fly around in pretty formations, generally only flying by day. If there are significant bird remains on the ground, they will be found by the AAIB.
@Jagwar... Good point about the Canada Geese. They are substantial birds and would one damage a TR? Who knows? They are however big birds that would probably show up on the video clip and they do tend to fly around in pretty formations, generally only flying by day. If there are significant bird remains on the ground, they will be found by the AAIB.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: ireland
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
So I’m just reading the various actions to take to maximise the probability of the theoretical best possible outcome, and I can’t help wondering why not use some or all left cyclic in addition to the forward cyclic to get the desired helpful airflow against the vertical stabiliser?
Last edited by player104; 2nd Nov 2018 at 08:55.
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: somerset
Posts: 50
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
If you are in a hover high above the ground then your chances of a tidy touchdown diminish with height....The chances of a succcessful EOL from a free-air hover of between 50 and 1000 feet are negligible.... even before you consider the complication of the confined area beneath you..... that's the dead man's curve.
High does not imply unusual. 50ft, 100ft, 1000ft could all be described as high hovers. There could be any number of reasons why the pilot might extend the climb beyond a minimum required to safely commit to the take-off, or none. No implication can be drawn as to it being either unusual or unsafe in this context.
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: somerset
Posts: 50
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
OK, thanks. I understand. I guess I was just trying to see if any implication could be drawn from what some observers seemed to describe as an 'unusual' take-off. Evidently not.
The mention of 'dead man's curve' by the media is not so much rubbish as is being represented above.
<snip>
The chances of a successful EOL from a free-air hover of between 50 and 1000 feet are negligible.... even before you consider the complication of the confined area beneath you..... that's the dead man's curve.
<snip>
The chances of a successful EOL from a free-air hover of between 50 and 1000 feet are negligible.... even before you consider the complication of the confined area beneath you..... that's the dead man's curve.
I was only shown it because I asked to see it, but when I asked what its real-world applicability was, they said it would most likely be a skill for pilots doing line work and pylon work. They seemed to suggest that if you took out the pedal turn, you could achieve the same from significantly lower than that.
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Redhill, Surrey, or another planet
Posts: 28
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I have some experience of crash investigations, helicopter engineering and statistics.
Let me shed some light in response to previous comments on the TR:
@ The pdf file below has a blown-up section of an image at the crash site (I can't yet post images directly). It clearly shows that:
@The TR was complete and attached at impact.
@ One blade was burnt by the fire after impact and appears to be broken in 2, with the outer portion lying on the boom just below the remaining portion..
@ One blade had damage to its tip.
@ IMO the lack of damage to the blades suggests the TR was turning very slowly or not at all on impact.
@ IMO the damage to the blade at the right bottom corner of the image almost certainly occured on impact with the ground.
@ IMO the damage to the burnt blade is consistent with the rotor not turning on impact and the blade fracturing, possibly helped to fall off by the post-crash fire.
On a final note, that a TR failure is a rare occurrence is essentially irrelevant to assessing whether it occured here or not. Even if it is a 100 million to one chance of occurring, it will occur to someone; we are not looking at the other 99,999,999 flights where it didn't occur.
Let me shed some light in response to previous comments on the TR:
@ The pdf file below has a blown-up section of an image at the crash site (I can't yet post images directly). It clearly shows that:
@The TR was complete and attached at impact.
@ One blade was burnt by the fire after impact and appears to be broken in 2, with the outer portion lying on the boom just below the remaining portion..
@ One blade had damage to its tip.
@ IMO the lack of damage to the blades suggests the TR was turning very slowly or not at all on impact.
@ IMO the damage to the blade at the right bottom corner of the image almost certainly occured on impact with the ground.
@ IMO the damage to the burnt blade is consistent with the rotor not turning on impact and the blade fracturing, possibly helped to fall off by the post-crash fire.
On a final note, that a TR failure is a rare occurrence is essentially irrelevant to assessing whether it occured here or not. Even if it is a 100 million to one chance of occurring, it will occur to someone; we are not looking at the other 99,999,999 flights where it didn't occur.
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: UK
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@gullibell... Thank you for jumping in...... I was establishing the principle rather than trying to teach the technique!
@Jagwar... Good point about the Canada Geese. They are substantial birds and would one damage a TR? Who knows? They are however big birds that would probably show up on the video clip and they do tend to fly around in pretty formations, generally only flying by day. If there are significant bird remains on the ground, they will be found by the AAIB.
@Jagwar... Good point about the Canada Geese. They are substantial birds and would one damage a TR? Who knows? They are however big birds that would probably show up on the video clip and they do tend to fly around in pretty formations, generally only flying by day. If there are significant bird remains on the ground, they will be found by the AAIB.
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Surrey
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
She would know what yaw is. Also know what the pedals do. And be an extra pair of eyes for the pilot.
Last edited by b1obthebuilder; 2nd Nov 2018 at 11:06.
For everyone's benefit, where can we find a comprehensive table of the weather factors, and precisely how they similarly cause - or 'contradict the formation of vortex ring', as you put it. I'm not convinced you know what vortex ring state is, given your phraseology.
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Manchester
Posts: 58
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Don't panic!
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/u...ccident-g-vskp
The digital flight recorder is in our laboratory. Although subject to intense heat in the post-accident fire, initial work on it has allowed us to successfully download the recordings. Our inspectors are verifying the extracted information and have started the detailed analysis of its contents.We would like to thank everyone who responded to our witness appeal. Our investigators are examining the videos and photographs we have received.
When I did my PPL(H) in 1998, an AFI demoed an auto from the hover at 1,000'. Rolled off the throttle, dumped collective, pedal turned through 180, controlled RRPM with lever, nosed down for forward airspeed, flared and cushioned landing with lever in the normal way. Type was R-22.
I was only shown it because I asked to see it, but when I asked what its real-world applicability was, they said it would most likely be a skill for pilots doing line work and pylon work. They seemed to suggest that if you took out the pedal turn, you could achieve the same from significantly lower than that.
I was only shown it because I asked to see it, but when I asked what its real-world applicability was, they said it would most likely be a skill for pilots doing line work and pylon work. They seemed to suggest that if you took out the pedal turn, you could achieve the same from significantly lower than that.
As an aside, the R22 will also indulge maneuvers that an AW169 almost certainly wouldn‘t. Zero speed auto? Expect an extremely dangerous rate of descent once the aircraft has finished accelerating (this in itself would require hundreds of feet) - lethal at low altitudes; 180 pedal turn during such an auto would also likely cause huge structural stress. Can’t imagine test pilots having that high on their list of things to try.
Last edited by Torquetalk; 2nd Nov 2018 at 10:42.
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: Somerset
Posts: 11
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
From the CV & FDR the experts can recreate the flight using the pilot’s inputs and the aircraft’s controls actual positions.
They should reasonably quickly know if there was a failure of the TRDS, TRGB or TR controls.
If there was a mechanical failure they should be able to check the HUMS data to see if it could have been spotted before it failed. If it could, they can check other AW169 aircraft HUMS data for similar trend(s) (this is much quicker and cheaper than grounding all similar aircraft).
It is vitally important that all parties are open and honest in the interests of Flight Safety. I fear that some may be less inclined to be so. Time will tell.
They should reasonably quickly know if there was a failure of the TRDS, TRGB or TR controls.
If there was a mechanical failure they should be able to check the HUMS data to see if it could have been spotted before it failed. If it could, they can check other AW169 aircraft HUMS data for similar trend(s) (this is much quicker and cheaper than grounding all similar aircraft).
It is vitally important that all parties are open and honest in the interests of Flight Safety. I fear that some may be less inclined to be so. Time will tell.
Flight controls: Considering the pilot's professional background, I would be surprised if the fixed wing pilot onboard didn't have the skill to fly that aircraft under normal circumstances.
My interest would be whether a pilot with an experience and skills profile similar to her would be able to take on an aircraft at that height (that has already entered an unusual attitude) and recover from that successfully.
For issuing an AD you need to have an idea what exactly to look for. Also this requires the identification what gave first and how. See above.
It could also simply be a maintenance issue (for the sake of the mechanics who last serviced it i surely do hope not) or indeed a Goose hitting the TR. Re the question if a Goose can damage a TR: You can bet so. Geese are veeery substantial animals (up to 15lbs !). When people are worried about a tiny DJI wiping out a TR, think about what an object 7 times as heavy will do.
That surely depends on what the last action/reaction before passing out was:
Could be stepping in one pedal.
Could be pulling/pushing/doing something else with the cyclic.
Could be pulling/pushing the collective.
Could be anything.
Could be nothing at all.
Understood. I was simply responding to the catch-all comment that no helicopter can survive an engine failure (he wasn't talking about TR failure) "from a free air hover between 50' and 1,000'".