Aircrane Malcom
 

A Erickson Aircrane hit trees today up in the Blue Mountains damaging the main rotor blades causing a million dollars worth of damage and leaving it useless for a week.
The company are sending a new set of blades over from the states

Think It Might Be For More Than A Week. Last Time They Did That In Malaysia 14 Or So Months Ago They Had To Replace Main G/b, Tgb, Igb, Inspect All Drive Train Etc. By Memory Its Classed As A Sudden Stoppage. Lots Of Work Ahead For That Crew. Expensive Exercise. Any Word On What Happened.

skycrane goes woodchipping.
 

haven't got a photo yet but a sky crane on the fires in nsw has totalled a set of blades in the forest outside sydney.

they were picking up water from a creek and struck the trees on the way out.

sounds expensive.:{ :{

sounds expensive alright
 

I was told today that it might need all of the blades and the transmission replaced :uhoh:

Rumour has it that the 64F was sucking water when the captain was distracted by cross cockpit communication, & drifted into the surrounding trees. Oz captain, Greek co-jo.

Not confirmed, and commiserations regardless to a fine driver with a great reputation, who will have to wear a high profile mistake :uhoh:

**** Happens!!

...and then you die.

The RUMOUR we heard was that the Captain was a woman and another crane pulled up behind them and 'blew' them into the side of the dam.
I have a buddy with them. Standby for the real story...

Burn baby burn...

Well if was the female captain I know of apparently she was an accident waiting to happen so some of my friends had informed me.:ugh: Let us know the full story when you find out please.

I have worked for Erickson and have nothing but respect for their captains. I also know alot of co-jo's who need to go back to flying instead of clipboarding for awhile and regain the skills that made them a pilot in the first place.
Until we receive more info from the boys in the field it's all speculation on a chat group and like mentioned previously, sh*t happens.
I'm waiting for an email with the details and will post facts when available.
Safe flying.
Jeff

SK64 Clips Tree
 

News video:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/...3138&ch=248154
:=

Steady Chaps,

Uphold the standards here and leave speculation and the like to the plank drivers on R & N... :E

Well .... according to the Video clip ..... the person with the 2 "X" chromosomes was NOT flying .... :confused:

Last Incident Oct 1, 2006
 

News Clip:

http://cbs2.com/video/[email protected]

Oooohhh Bugga ....

Gunna be a tough month for Erickson ???? :{

Any one got any further info. Is the machine up and running again or is it still in bits awaiting parts?

Still sitting on the ground.
I left there Wenesday night and they were putting the transmission back in Baleds should be up there now ready to reassemble

The Victorian Government must be happy. After spending over 3 million dollars to bring "Malcom" out it hasn't flown in Victoria. Lighting strikes started 50+ fires last night.

could be b uilding up to another ash wednesday. What sort of tools do you have to spot them, something like ours below or just Blinky Bill and with the mark one eyeball and binoculars.

http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi/app/init.jsp

In the north interested observers have been closely watching the fires in the NT, poised to the north west of the big cattle production hub the Barkly tableland, (sort of centre screen on the NT north map.

This is a magnificient tool and uses several satellites to update info quite regularly.

Novemebr has been hot - hot with mostly strong easterlies - yesterday from midday for four hours they were 15 knots gusting 25. OAT 39 degrees, uncomfortable for mustering let me tell you.

This web site comes from a combined research centre on tropical savannahs, located in Darwin.
The R & D dollar providing excellent outcomes!

Sats sensors trigger temp is variances over 55 degrees C and can now handle more than 500,000 hot spots simultaneously.

I only know that because it crashed one day two years ago when hot spots far exceeded that number. Then they tweaked the temp down , that was an absolute root we were finding fires amongst the smoke that we didn't see on the website days after they were started, they finally expanded the system.

You can measure the areas by the use of some of the tools, e.g. one fire started from Newcastle waters which went west now covers well in excess of now 11,000 sq K.

spot devices
 

http://sentinel.ga.gov.au/acres/sentinel/index.shtml

Much the same as yours. Probably runs the same software.

In 2003 we had fires in the north of Vic and it appeared to be rerun of the 1939 fires. Managed to stop them getting to Mansfield. Good news is that the fall back plans prepared during the 2003 fires are probably a good place to start for these fires. - the plans are fairly drastic so may be it is not good news.

These fires are taking off where the 2003 fires stopped and we are getting a rerun of 1939. No one still around from those days but the maps and doco still remain and the typography is still the same.