How difficult is it to hover and then go straight up .... blind?
 

Hey guys.... quick question.

I was on another forum and somebody posted a video from Egypt of a helicopter flying around the riots and there were a ton of people in the crowd with green lasers "painting" the helicopter.

Heres the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljJF_Yit5Jw

The posters suggested he could have been blinded by the lasers.

I got into an argument with some of the posters because I suggested he just go straight up and turn a little and go away from the source even though the source may have been all around him, he was still a couple hundred feet up at the time.

The people I was talking to suggested if he was blinded by the lasers that he would have been screwed and crashed the helicopter.

Thoughts?

How difficult is it to hover and then go straight up .... blind?
 

Depending on distance from the source and the strength, you are talking about at best being dazzled and distracted to being permanently blinded.
The cockpit of an AH-64 is designed to give the crew excellent views outside, which by extension means excellent vision in.
For a helicopter to fly forward it must lower its nose at least slightly, thus increasing exposure in the forward sector.

So no, you don't have the right of it. There was a very real risk to that helicopter.

Just have a look into the "Lasers" Thread here in the rotary forum....

Lasers are a BIG hazard to pilots....it´s NOT fun....
:ugh:

For the lazy people:
http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/320...enders-13.html