AS 350: "Hold my beer son and watch this!"
 

"So Dave, can you show me how one would ever get into this servo transparency thing?"
"Sure, hold my beer son and watch this!"
:sad:

Hmkaaay... I'm pretty sure that it wasn't Chuck Aaron behind the stick...

Nice One!!!!!!

Does that fall into the "acrobat manoeuvres" category? I'd like to see VF pass judgement on that one.

'Aerobatic', please.

Well, yeah, but it is a Frenchy flying thing, and they have flying acrobats in France.

Standard wingover arrival for a pickup:ok:

well you have to have some fun now and then !

No, probably Tom Cruise

Not him for sure! :=

I am expecting a qualified pilot to be slightly better than that ito his IQ.... Did he not even think about things going viral faster than the speed of light? You can argue as much as you wish about the physics around the manoeuvre but Airbus helicopters, even from the olden days was very specific about aerobatic manoeuvres and please don't argue that in the light of "no definition in the RFM of what they consider to be aerobatic" that that is not an aerobatic manoeuvre.

If you are taught to fly such manoeuvres properly and with some mechanical sympathy there is less stress on the aircraft than flying in turbulence or mishandling a steep turn.

In my experience, many pilots feel they have to fly like a jet pilot (big, harsh control inputs) rather than concentrating on being smooth and progressive - especially with aft cyclic at speed.

Without looking for a keypad quarrel, honestly? I believe it was fully intentional. You have to really start worrying if "a pilot" ended in this manoeuvre unintentionally. I believe it was skilfully executed but that is the only positive comment I have on the air show. Yes a barrel roll is gentle on the "G" at the top, but then there is the exit at the bottom. I ask if this guy has any respect for the regulations/RFM? How many times has he done similar things? If we have to have two schools in this regard (for and against), then I am in the nay group. If he was flying my helicopter, it would have been his last time. If I was issuing his license, he would have lost it.

I hope I am going to be allowed to "have my own opinion" in this matter?

Seems he's just flying a recce and having a good look around before landing - safety first.

BTW, did anyone notice the next squirrel video on that same site? (furry kind; not AS350 Ecureuil kind): Squirrel Flying

Nigel - it is quite acceptable to go past 90 degree AoB on a well flown wingover - air combat manoeuvring is where you would learn this sort of stuff - or just a normal SH Squadron back in the 80s.

The wingover in the video is well controlled and looks smooth throughout which wouldn't be the case if he had reached jackstall/servo transparency.

"Big, harsh control inputs" - Crikey Crab, I think we only flew once and you've pretty well summed up my flying career!

I agree nigel. any pilot i employed doing that would be gone, and sued for replacement aircraft. hope the pilot has good personnel insurance!

Nige - if he retains positive G throughout, the helicopter doesn't know whether it is inverted or not and there is no difference in the stress on the aircraft at that point than there is in a 'normal' wingover.

As someone pointed out earlier, the recovery with high speed, if you let the nose drop on exit too much, is probably the most stressful - but no more than flying at VNE when heavy and encountering some chop or turbulence. Would you sack a pilot for having that experience and 'overstressing' your aircraft?

Wasn't aerobatics, just a steep pull-up and wingover. A reverse-half-cuban would be the closest description, but carefully flown to not overstress or to get too close to zero or negative g. Smoothly done, with slight positive g throughout. Helicopter doesn't know it is inverted, all it knows is what g forces it is experiencing. Not just the realm of the military, though at least that would have some sanction and probably better organized training.

Typing too slow, looks like Crab beat me to it.

This guy rolled inverted, yes well executed, but that does not change the facts. (If you kill someone but do it skilfully, does that make it OK?). The rules are there to protect. What if he made a mistake ito his energy management or evaluation of the conditions? At relatively low level? What if he was not on top of his game at that particular day and misjudged the speed and g-load? You condone this kind of behaviour, it says something about you.

Rules are not written in terms of what the aircraft knows. Mostly they are written in blood.

Like it or not the aircraft isn't certified for that and any regulator wouldn't take a good view of it, no matter how well it was executed.
It would be considered unnecessary for civilian flying and which operator would have that as SOP?
Is it good airmanship or is it just someone showing off their superior skills? the latter being a shorter route to statisticsville.
Great to watch and if this was a military display then there would be a big thumbs up, for everyone it appears like overcompensating for other inadequacies :}

Banks over 60°? Check
Pitch attitude over 30°? Check
"Aerobatic flight means an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight."? Check
Pretty much aerobatic. I wonder, if Airbus found out whose ship that was.
You may do that in a controlled environment like the military ... as a test pilot, but in the civil world, there is just no need for it. If you want to do it, look first at the Flying Bulls BO 105 and the additional maintenance aerobatics require.
It is always the same: "carfully flown" justifies everything? From my point of view, the video quality is much too low to see if it was "carfully flown". I am not sure, if there was always positive g in the right direction. Actually I doubt it. "Carfully flown" you might be able to roll an R22, but the margin is so small, I would not try it, even if I had rolled the BO 105 a thousand times. The margin of a squirrel is much bigger, but still, it isn't made for it.
I have seen operators where the chief pilot and owner does stuff like that. Unfortunately his company has a high accident rate and I lost a friend who worked for him, due to maintenance issues with one ship. This attitude creeps into everything in a company and makes everything unsafe.

I've sat and watched the video a number of times and I'm not sure he ever is inverted. I think the camera angle may make it appear that way but I'm not convinced. Pretty crazy thing to do nonetheless in the world of youtube and narcissism social media and everyone on earth carrying a video camera in their pocket. I expect his boss won't be best pleased.

<br /> ET, so we debated "aerobatic", now are going about "Inverted"? I don't want to engage in this but I don't think this is going to turn out better than before. It will continue to put the "It's OK" group in a poor light. As a professional pilot, one should be able to show that ability to distinguish.. ?

I'm with Evil Twin - nowhere near inverted and if you download the video and look at it frame by frame possibly nothing above 90 degrees anywhere.

Camera angles can lie.

As for "jack stall" - miles away from it. People banging on about "stress this and stress that" how much G do you think you can actually pull in a helicopter?

Looks like a B3 to me - it can probably lift its own weight on the hook - and then you make a 60 degree turn - 2G but not sustainable - 4 times it's empty weight - that would make a load of about 3.5 times what you see here.

The movie looks "interesting" in that it is unusual but not as extreme as made out to be.

There have been a couple of posts including yours that mention this manoeuvre being inverted. 'I' don't think it was looking in detail at the video. The airmanship etc. I never mentioned in anyway apart from stating that this guys boss probably won't be pleased. I have no interest in getting into a debate about whether it's ok or not as the implied overtone in one direction or the other will tend to tar one with the same brush. I never said it was ok, just that it didn't look inverted.

I'll watch from the sidelines from here on.

> how much G do you think you can actually pull in a helicopter?

I've often wondered that. One thing that struck me about the R44 (maybe others too) is that it has no published G limit (not in the PoH anyway). Is this because you will run out of lift long before you break anything? Or what? Some helicopters CAN be looped - leaving aside the question of whether it's a good idea or not (yes, I do know it isn't) - meaning they can pull at least 3G. I asked my instructor at the time why there were no limits and he didn't really know. Yet every fixed wing aircraft, even if all it has is a 65HP engine, has published G limits.

I have flown a helicopter with a Gmeter fitted - some of the Mk 7 Lynx at Middle Wallop that were used for the Blue Eagles displays - and I have flown all the display manoeuvres many times including loops, barrel rolls and back flips.

The prime area of concern regarding component life was in fact the TR - the TRGB is on a long lever away from the MRH.

A loop was generally 2 to 2.5 G depending on how smoothly you pulled up and pulled out and a barrel roll about the same; even a back flip to flyaway was under 2.5 G. The only manoeuvre that exceeded that was the back flip from hover to hover - 1000' to 700' followed by a second back flip - it was difficult to get it back to the hover at the required height in much less than 3G.

Air combat manoeuvring involved 180, 270 and 360 wingovers, almost all around the 2G mark - exactly the same as a 60 degree AoB sustained turn.

I am not giving carte-blanche to cowboy flying but a well-trained pilot can conduct some of these 'acrobatic' manoeuvres quite safely and with less stress on the aircraft than a heavy USL or flying at VNE for hours at high AUM.

Helicopters tend to look inverted even at substantially lower AoB so don't be misled by a poor quality video.

All helos are designed to cope with a 60 degree bank turn, which is 2g, plus a gust factor and a bit for mum and the kids - usually set at 2.7 g, so their accepted teetering head limits are +1 to +2g, allowing the fudge factor to be set at 2.7. But that is when you can expect the head to pop off. The lower limit, as shown, is +1, meaning it ain't designed for nose-overs that get less than 1g, and certainly not negative g.

Stronger machines with a rigid head like the BK117 have a published limit of -1 to +3.5, so there is still a fudge factor above that one.

to see how "inverted" or not he got, the easiest way to see is to get a model helicopter and hold it at the same angle as can be seen in the vid.

The point where it gets really difficult for the pilot is when the skids cross over each other while the head is pointed at the ground, try doing that with the model and get the same sight picture, he is well past 90*.

If you really want to see how smooth you are doing turns etc, simply stick a load on your hook, with a weigh gauge. Done badly you could almost double the weight of the load, done well the load on the gauge shouldn't change much at all. I agree that smoothly done turns could have less strain than flying in rough weather, as i have seen hook loads vary by quite a bit while flying through turbulance, however it also comes down to is it necessary, and how much of a cowboy do you need to be.

If that flight is alright, whats everyones opinion of the video of the guy flying his 22 into the landing spot in his hangar? Just because you can, should you? and where is Airmanship in both cases? is one ok because its a 350, the other one not because its a 22? or one is fine because its Europe the other must be insane because its outside of Europe??