interesting vid
 

im not a rotorhead but found this interesting , anyone know what this is all about
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e870090bba&p=1

Look carefully at the tail rotor.

FL

good point did it fail prior to hitting the deck or is that the cause ?

very lucky escape
 

This one came up a few months back.
The Enstrom was operating from a greenpeace ship - there was much debate about proper helideck procedures.

The consensus from the professional helicopter pilot fraternity was that no suitable safety procedures appear to have been followed here and that the guys on the ground were even more lucky to be alive (and not decapitated) than the ones in the chopper (and that is saying something) whose tail rotor probably struck the deck after one of the skids had become entangled in the netting.

SB

I find it difficult to see if it's cause or effect. There are lots of offshore professional pilots here whose opinions will be more valuable than my impressions.
I do wonder if the pilot actually intended to lift. :confused:

"tail rotor probably struck the deck after one of the skids had become entangled in the netting."
Could be, but I can't see any entangling. (Edit - not at that stage.)

Either way, the pilot either did a superb job or was extremely lucky (or probably both) in recovering to the pad in difficult conditions and in a confined area.

I know this has been discussed here before, but...

She seems to have a lot of forward cyclic in while just sitting there on the deck. The boat is pitching pretty good, and at the top of each pitch cycle, the helicopter is tending to nose over. Conversely, it does not tend to pitch backward at the bottom of the swells. The feeling of "falling over backward" is not comfortable for anyone, so she's probably compensating by holding in some forward cyclic. Suddenly it goes!

Undoubtedly she wasn't trying to lift off yet, as there were still men working around the ship, so it was unexpected/unintentional. She catches it, keeps it from hitting the structure of the boat, but in doing so whacks the tail rotor on the deck. Around it goes! But even as it comes to rest, you can see that she's *still* holding a substantial amount of forward cyclic!

In my career, I don't think I've ever seen a helicopter pilot who held the cyclic too far back on the ground. Most of us think "neutral" is some point forward of actual neutral. Weird.

No doubting the cause of the TR failure: it was the aft cyclic as he tried to avoid flying into the back of the superstructure! Upwards moving deck coupled with downwards moving TR = bad news!

As I have read in a swiss aviation forum, the accident occured, because the collective lever raised as the pilot tried to get the checklist with his left hand, so the H/C got light on the skids and got airborne, when the deck went down due to the seastate.
Sounds logic.

Seem to remember there saw a question about actual collective pitch angle asked a while back. Apparently most land based helos are rigged with 0' pitch at lowest collective, while ship based machines have -2' collective pitch. I imagine the downforce helps in rough conditions.

Mart

This is how it happened. The heli had landed - it was not the normal one Greenpeace used (Normally a 500D) so Things were 'experimental' from the start.
The ship was pitching heavily as you will notice the tail raising with each pitch until on one large pitch the heli gets light on the skids and slides forward towards the hangar. While doing pre wind down checks (from a checklist) pilot looks up to see this meeting about to take place with the hangar when reactions take over to pull the machine off the deck. Obviously collective is hauled up with a little too much aft cyclic and the tail is struck on the deck.The rest is downright lucky.
Cause of the heli sliding forward was the rope used for lashing at the back was burnt through by the exhaust. The guy on the left of the picture tried to jump overboard but his jacket got caught in the net which probably saved his life (freezing water) The rest is history except that the operators learnt one hell of lesson and have subsequently changed operating procedures since getting their usual 500 back.
Good old unfamiliarity rears its ugly head again, thankfully a lesson was learnt with no injuries.