G-WIZZ down 15/10/21
Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 44
Likes: 21
From: I'm still standing
Fond memories of G-WIZZ after being taken for a jolly around Oxfordshire by the great F1 driver Mike Wilds. Less delighted when my youngest threw up in the back but thankfully
on the plastic floor protector! Lovely aircraft.
on the plastic floor protector! Lovely aircraft.
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 927
Likes: 12
From: Germany
Sand has the habit of stopping skids quite abruptly ...
If you are used to do autos with a bit of forward motion (on gras/asphalt) you might not aim for 0/0 in the real case
Photos show some longer skid marks - so my guess would be - witch decaying rotor rpm the helicopter stopping hard and some input in the cyclic brought that outcome.
Still, every landing you can walk away from is considered a good landing - the ones, where you can use the aircraft again, are very good landings ;-)
If you are used to do autos with a bit of forward motion (on gras/asphalt) you might not aim for 0/0 in the real case
Photos show some longer skid marks - so my guess would be - witch decaying rotor rpm the helicopter stopping hard and some input in the cyclic brought that outcome.
Still, every landing you can walk away from is considered a good landing - the ones, where you can use the aircraft again, are very good landings ;-)
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,951
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From: After all, what’s more important than proving to someone on the internet that they’re wrong? - Manson
Sorry, this will need some explaining. It's not a condition I would usually associate with blade stall.
There are several reasons why a tail and blade may meet during a forced landing, never heard it attributed to retreating blade stall before.
Retreating blade stall during an auto is definitely a new one for me, so will go fetch the notebook so long.
There are several reasons why a tail and blade may meet during a forced landing, never heard it attributed to retreating blade stall before.
Retreating blade stall during an auto is definitely a new one for me, so will go fetch the notebook so long.
Joined: Jun 2016
Aviation Qualifications: CPL
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From: Brantisvogan
I doubt it would have chopped it off in flight. After touchdown and still with a large amount of pitch in the wind? Ever watched a Bell 2 bladed medium run down in a breeze on the nose? They will try and batter themselves to death and that is with flat pitch. After a while you learn not to do it that way!
Joined: Oct 2006
Aviation Qualifications: A&P
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From: USA
Originally Posted by [email protected]
But it's not retreating blade stall - just a function of no or ineffective flapping restrainers and droop stops and poor cyclic control
Joined: Feb 2015
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 1,760
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From: Cincinnati, Ohio
This buttresses Flying Bull's remarks concerning skid/sand interaction:
Previously posted on this forum in February of 2019, I repost since I relive this moment infrequently as I sit bolt upright in the obtunding silence in the middle of starless nights. This was the first and only actual autorotation in which I participated and I hope and pray the last!
- Ed
I was a relatively low-time PPL-SEL (maybe 200 hours) in 1979 when a friend who was flying Evergreen 206 LR's to a test oil rig off the coast of Georgia said he would teach me to fly "frantic palm trees". I had accumulated four hours and could hover clumsily but handle other flight regimes satisfactorily when he called one Sunday morning to ask if I'd like to bring my wife and 9-year-old son on a sight-seeing tour. Hell yes, I would!
We flew for an hour doing some low-level (10') high-speed passes over the marshes, rivers, and ocean, and some fairly high G aerobatic work. We were on long final, three minutes from KSSI (McKinnon St. Simons). We had received permission to land and were descending through 2,000'. My "friend", a 6,000-hour 'Nam pilot who was flying right seat, came over the intercom and said "Watch this!" He reached for and cycled the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch. The annunciator panel went from green to orange to red! He had starved the engine of fuel and we were too low to get a restart! This was going to be a genuine autorotation. I turned to my family in the rear seat and yelled "Brace! Brace! Brace!"
We hit the beach, the skids dug in, the helicopter tipped forward, the main rotor clipped the tail boom off in a neat decapitation which spun us a full 360 degrees. My wife grabbed our son in her arms and exited to the left; the end of still-spinning main rotor puffed up her hair as it cleared her by an inch! I fumbled with my 5-point restraint for what seemed like hours, then ran like the devil.
The starboard fuel bladder had ruptured and was spilling jet-A near the exhaust. The T.O.T. was ~ 700 degrees, the VSI pegged at 2,500' down, and the ASI at 40 knots. We were lucky to be alive...
Some serious adult beverage consumption coupled with general prayers of thanksgiving to anyone listening followed that afternoon, but bright and early the next morning I went alone for an hour's introspective solo in my 152. Had I not, I am not certain that I would have ever flown again.
I have abseiled and was an ardent skydiver until my then-wife put her foot down and forced me to choose between her and my T-28. I have hung by one foot and one hand 50' above the stage while changing gels and bulbs in theatrical lighting. But get me on a 6' step ladder and it's time for vertigo and acrophobia! Go figure...
- Ed
Previously posted on this forum in February of 2019, I repost since I relive this moment infrequently as I sit bolt upright in the obtunding silence in the middle of starless nights. This was the first and only actual autorotation in which I participated and I hope and pray the last!
- Ed
I was a relatively low-time PPL-SEL (maybe 200 hours) in 1979 when a friend who was flying Evergreen 206 LR's to a test oil rig off the coast of Georgia said he would teach me to fly "frantic palm trees". I had accumulated four hours and could hover clumsily but handle other flight regimes satisfactorily when he called one Sunday morning to ask if I'd like to bring my wife and 9-year-old son on a sight-seeing tour. Hell yes, I would!
We flew for an hour doing some low-level (10') high-speed passes over the marshes, rivers, and ocean, and some fairly high G aerobatic work. We were on long final, three minutes from KSSI (McKinnon St. Simons). We had received permission to land and were descending through 2,000'. My "friend", a 6,000-hour 'Nam pilot who was flying right seat, came over the intercom and said "Watch this!" He reached for and cycled the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch. The annunciator panel went from green to orange to red! He had starved the engine of fuel and we were too low to get a restart! This was going to be a genuine autorotation. I turned to my family in the rear seat and yelled "Brace! Brace! Brace!"
We hit the beach, the skids dug in, the helicopter tipped forward, the main rotor clipped the tail boom off in a neat decapitation which spun us a full 360 degrees. My wife grabbed our son in her arms and exited to the left; the end of still-spinning main rotor puffed up her hair as it cleared her by an inch! I fumbled with my 5-point restraint for what seemed like hours, then ran like the devil.
The starboard fuel bladder had ruptured and was spilling jet-A near the exhaust. The T.O.T. was ~ 700 degrees, the VSI pegged at 2,500' down, and the ASI at 40 knots. We were lucky to be alive...
Some serious adult beverage consumption coupled with general prayers of thanksgiving to anyone listening followed that afternoon, but bright and early the next morning I went alone for an hour's introspective solo in my 152. Had I not, I am not certain that I would have ever flown again.
I have abseiled and was an ardent skydiver until my then-wife put her foot down and forced me to choose between her and my T-28. I have hung by one foot and one hand 50' above the stage while changing gels and bulbs in theatrical lighting. But get me on a 6' step ladder and it's time for vertigo and acrophobia! Go figure...
- Ed
Joined: Feb 2015
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 1,760
Likes: 358
From: Cincinnati, Ohio
I share your sentiments, [email protected]! The so-called friend and gentleman got busted in Miami by the DEA several years after the aforementioned accident. Seems that the Piper Aztec he was co-piloting had a cargo of Jamaica's finest, Mon, as in 600 pounds of toe-tagging ganja - the weed of wisdom! I think he remains a guest of the Federal Prison System, but I am certain that he'll never get his ticket back. Instant Karma, right?
- Ed
- Ed
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 134
Likes: 103
From: Apple Maggot Quarantine Area
Joined: Feb 2015
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 1,760
Likes: 358
From: Cincinnati, Ohio
Great detective work, slacktide! We were instructed by our "friend" to keep complete silence about our presence on the helicopter. I was proud of my young son who never divulged a word. Also aboard that day was a true friend who brought along his new Nikon camera with motorized film advance. He got excellent inside point-of-view photographs of the autorotation; after escaping, he inserted a new roll of film and got thirty-six frames of the wrecked chopper. I had copies but same were lost in a divorce.
Of further interest: when the engine was sent to the FAA's/NTSB's testbed in Maryland, it started immediately and ran without a hitch. The conclusion is pretty obvious!
- Ed
Of further interest: when the engine was sent to the FAA's/NTSB's testbed in Maryland, it started immediately and ran without a hitch. The conclusion is pretty obvious!
- Ed
Last edited by cavuman1; 22nd October 2021 at 23:22.
