Guimbal Cabri G2 crash Lelystad Airport
 

This morning on EHLE a Guimbal Cabri G2 has crashed . 2 pob. no casualities.
First reports suggest mast bumping.
According reports it must be the PH-WTWGuimbal Cabri G2 serial 1003ex F-WWHG, F-GXRU

That is bad news, I have seen it flying several times. Mast bumping however does not sound really logical to me as the G2 has a 3 blade fully articulated head....

Rotordent, sounds like you are not a helicopter pilot. Where did you get your "first reports" from anyway ? Another non-pilot or journalist ?

Lesson 1 for you:
Mast bumping does not apply to fully-articulated main rotor systems.

Soft landing = Crash!?

Crash with Soft landing !?

or no crash at all...

I am confused :*

come on then what happened???????????

G2 Accident
 

From one of the Dutch News websites, it would appear that the accident, which occured on 31/7/2011, was a training flight. As a result of a heavy landing there was a tail strike.

Nieuws.nl - Helikopter zwaar beschadigd bij oefenvlucht

G2 Accident
 

Helicopter was on training flight and had heavy landing. Only details are 2 POB and tail strike. Too much aft cyclic maybe:uhoh:

Statement from Bruno Guimbal
 

The following is a statement from Bruno Guimbal who told me I can post this. He broke away from a holiday to participate in the complete investigation the day after the accident at Lelystad. I'm literally just cut/pasting the following from the email he sent me.
___________________________________________________________

I will not interfere with the official services report nor with our own manufacturer report, but this is a first set of facts :

- The two pilots (instructor + pilot starting his TR) were flying a full auto to the grass and they were satisfied until they decided to go around on short final to avoid a crossing taxiway in front of them,
- For some reasons, the power recovery did not occur. The engine was running after landing, and was run again and found in good condition, as the entire powerplant and main transmission, during investigation.
- The helicopter once bounced on the grass after the taxiway, then the pilot achieved a very smooth, level landing.
- At a very low RPM, the blades contacted the tail boom and one stroke it down to the internal shaft,
- The helicopter suffered no damage in its main, forward part, including landing gear and engine installation,
- One blade was found undamaged, another one with very minor repairable damage at its tip. The last one is damaged beyond repair but only on its trailing edge. The rotor was flying and controlled during final landing.
- The rotor head and transmission is undamaged since the tail transmission was unplugged through its splines.
- The helicopter was released to its owner the same day by the authorities. It is expected to be repaired soon at a (hopefully small) fraction of its cost.

We have two early comments :
- Because "mast bumping" was cited on the internet, we recall that this is meaningless with a semi-rigid rotor like the Cabri's one,
- During the Cabri certification testing with the authorities, extensive in-flight evaluation, with instrumentation, was conducted of rotor-to-tail boom clearance and were concluded as very satisfactory. Manoeuvres performed included hard landings at rotor speeds as low as 60% of nominal, and aerobatics well beyond the allowed flight envelope.

Helicopteres Guimbal will issue a set of recommendations in accordance with the airworthiness authorities.

I allow you to release the above with my name, but only in its entirety.

On the 17 may 2011 a Cabri in Germany got an full engine failure on comparable conditions during an exercise autorotation. The pilot was able to land without further damage.

According to the german accident board they tested while investigation 3 different carburetors and on each trial the engine failed during low g conditions.

Guimbal assured an isolated problem on the affected german helicopter s/n 1016. :confused: without further impact on the other ships.

Seems to me not a question of recommandations Mr. Guimbal!

Well done Mr Guimbal :ok:

How refreshing to see the boss of a helicopter company straight onto the project. I am sure that we would all like to see his counterparts do the same thing - doubtful though.

There are many of us looking to buy new machines that would love to know what happened to that R66 that crashed in South America...

Cheers
Arrrj

@HillerBee now...
we like to hear your statement (story).

(If possible - because of official procedure)

@Tecpilot:

That engine failure didnt occur during a practice autorotation but during a low g pushover! The pilot entered autorotation because of the engine failure and was able to restart during AR.

Well done by the pilot and Ive seen the videos! They replicated it several times over the airfield after having changed parts on the engine. The engine quit everytime they made a low G pushover!

In fact there was another incident with the G2 in Germany. This is first hand, because the instructor is a friend of mine.

They were on a training flight in the same region of the above engine failure a couple of days later, but different machine. During throttle chop to enter a practice autorotation, the engine quit. Just like in the other incident, they were able to restart during autorotation and got home safely.

It always surprised me that, for a new helicopter, with what appeared to be a forward thinking approach, it doesn't have fuel injection.

Haven't flown recips for a very long time, but could it have been carburettor icing? I hear it's been quite humid over there for a while, and it was certainly something that was drilled into me during my initial training.

Looking at the Armada OH6 which lost its tail as well, not a good week for autorotations..

The G2 is equipped with an "automatic carburetor heater" as standard.

Low g pushovers can produce rich cut
 

This is not a new phenomenum for carburettor equipped piston engines. I believe that early models of the Spitfire had a similar problem in dog fights with the Me109. German pilots were able to evade the Spitfire by pushing over into a steep dive; the Me109 had a fuel injection system not the float chamber equipped carburettor of the Spitfire.

Refreshing it certainly is, a man who is prepared to explain what happened when the brown was happening.

I only hope this good and honest situation is read and absorbed by Frank R, ...I cannot actually remember anything so straight from that side of the US, well there was one G Washington, but he was from the east side!!.

Perhaps the New World, will learn from the example of the Old, I'll start counting, slowly !

PeterR-B

The Spit pilots learned very quickly to go inverted when trying to dive onto the Hun 109s, and eventually a lady engineer worked out a type of washer with a special hole in it fitted into the floatchamber cured the neg g on the big carbs!
After that the Hun became very cautious for when in a dive the Spit could easily outdive the 109 which started to pull its wings off when trying to pull out from such high speed dives, the Spit however had no such trouble.

Peter R-B

Not so much delivered ships with not so much flighthours but several engine problems and some accidents are a really bad ratio.

Mrs Shilling's orifice was the cure referred to. Fascinating lady, given the attitudes of the day :cool: