Why on earth would you want to fly a helicopter? :ugh:;)

I agree
 

Après Ski seems much less agro!

Oh err mother. :eek: Flown a few jumpers, but never had anything like that.

Once had a Jumper's Reserve release just as he was climbing out on to the Wheel and Strut of the Cessna 182.....he had a horrible body position but crikey he left quick! No harm done to anyone.....but it was for sure a "Now you see him.....now you don't ...kind of thing!"!

Happily nothing got hung up or anything fouled by the Chute....probably missed the Elevator by at least six inches.....otherwise it could have very interesting indeed.

I was wearing a back pack emergency rig so I would have had a way out.....except the thought of jumping a single chute doesn't warm my Heart at all.

?
 

Ok when in doubt take a back up parachute? What on all flights?

The closing pin was dislodged when the jumper attempted to do up his seatbelt behind his back shortly before exiting the aircraft. The deployment bag fell out first, folloed shortly after by the pilot chute.

I had a guy do that once when I was dropping him out of my powered parachute. She all came untucked, so he grabbed it in his arms and jumped out. He made it safely to earth luckily. Was only 3,000 ft which was a small concern - not much time for a reserve.

So the choices were;

a) another jumper, wearing a parachute which is potentially mis packed like the first one, pops out onto the skid and successfully clears entangled chute.
b) said jumper accidentally releases entangled chute into the tail rotor
c) jumper entagles self in entangled chute.
d) leave well enough alone and land.


Mickjoebill

I'm with Aesir TC,

the damsel is clearly in a high state of excitement, an' she hasn't even yumped out yet.

cheers tet.

Aesir: My apologies I didn't make it clear. I was talking about SkyMong's post not the OP's. :ouch:

Thomas : In reply to your original post, quite probably, but as I am not familiar with helicopter operations perhaps you could humor my mong question. I have been told everything from the canopy getting shredded, to it taking off the whole empennage.

Skymong
 

Can you please translate your reply into layman terms?

No one knows what would have happened until the canopy released but my guess is that it would certainly have removed the tail rotor and possibly the entire tail section. The C of G imbalance alone would then have ensured loss of control.

Inflated canopies have removed entire empennages from fixed wing AC in the past.

nomorehelosforme
 

The closing pin holds the parachute closed; inside is the deployment bag which holds the folded parachute canopy. In a normal opening sequence the pilot chute, a small drogue, is released first which removes closing pin and then pulls out the deployment bag, the canopy the inflates after coming out of the deployment bag, or d-bag.

In this instance the closing pin was knocked out shortly before the jumper exited; this allowed the deployment bag to drop out of the container, you can see it trailing behind the jumper around the 0:08 sec point, the pilot chute was then pulled out by the d-bag and you see this also catch on the skid, after that the canopy started to come out of the d-bag and start to inflate.

Sky"mong" they would all have died if that had gone thru the tail rotor! Simples.

The easiest way around this would have been to have two way comms between back and front seat and them asking the pilot to come to the hover while they reeled the canopy in.

Absolute mongs the lot of them.....................:ugh:

TC that's very offensive to those concerned, and to me as a experienced parachutist.

Do you know they weren't talking to the pilot? Do you know exactly what was going on?

If the pilot had of brought the AC into the hover, then lost the tail rotor, what chance recovery? At least with a bit of forward speed there was some chance.

The young lad who had the problem was not very experienced, and he f*cked up, no doubt. But what happened next is a credit to the guy on the step and the actions he took.

Other than the canopy not falling out of the container in the first place, this couldn't have ended better, so keep your uninformed opinions to yourself.:mad:

TC and Skymong!
 

Chill out guys!

TC,

Do explain why coming to a "Hover" at such altitude would be the exact right answer? Do you think LTE might have been an issue if that had been tried? Would the aircraft have run into a risk of Vortex Ring State if that had been tried?

I assume you worked out the Performance Data for the Flight, had balanced the Aircraft Course and Heading against the Winds Aloft for that Height and all that before making your comment....right?

Would the induced flow of air moving vertically through the Rotor System work to lessen the air flow over the Extractor Chute or would it have created a different set of problems?

Do tell us how you would have taken charge of the situation?

I've got to go with RotaryWingB2 on this much of it.

As an experienced skydiver I can honestly say, for better or worse, that I would have taken the same actions if I was in charge of the load. It is in the nature of those who skydive, particularly those who would take a leadership role in a skydiving context, to want to solve any given problem and emerge victorious. And it is drilled into us during skydiving instruction that an uncontrolled canopy deployment inside or immediately outside the aircraft could result in the loss of the aircraft and all in it. So I know exactly how "the guy on the step" felt and what his motivations were, having nearly experienced the same thing he did as I noted in my previous post in this thread. To that end, if I was in that helicopter I would have done whatever I could have to control that loose canopy.

With the benefit of perfect hindsight and the ability to study the video multiple times in detail, if I was "that guy" I would a) definitely had jumper #1 cut away in exactly the same fashion, b) gather in what I could, c) wish I had the presence of mind to get one of the other jumpers on the load to ask the pilot to slow down to the extent practical and d) perhaps settle for merely controlling the mess as opposed to completely pulling it into the cabin (I can tell you my heart was in my throat the couple of times that pilot chute inflated as he disentangled it).

As a budding helicopter pilot I can say that I'd make the trade-off of coming to a hover (if possible) in order to facilitate retrieving the canopy vs. maintaining sufficient forward speed to deal with a possible catastrophic LTE, particularly because the risk of such a catastrophe would be greatly lessened by coming into a hover and allowing the skydivers in the ship to more easily solve the problem. Perhaps that is more reflective of my static line jumpmaster experience (argh, I just carbon dated myself :}) as I'm used to working on a step and hauling static line deployment bags back into aircraft than it is of my nascent helicopter experience, but nevertheless I stand by it.

I showed my wife, also a skydiver, the video and, after she exclaimed :mad: her immediate response was to cheer on the guy on the step and make the appropriate scary noises every time the pilot chute almost got loose. If the ship didn't have so much forward speed that pilot chute would not been nearly as exciting.