Trumps Presidential Helicopter
 

Anyone notice the seemingly makeshift bent metal air intake guard - not a bread basket.
Why does a helicopter have to taxi using wheels for 500 yards before lifting as it did from Stansted ?

Because it's safer taxiing on wheels than hover taxiing. And if your job is to carry POTUS then the safest way is probably the way they will do it.

Between his girth and the additional drag from the combover, they probably need the rolling start to get airborne :}

Do not see the need to use the delicate wheels for 500 yards when they could lift much much quicker - I am sure all other stuff was kept at bay

It's quite often an ATC requirement for a wheeled heli to ground taxy. Drives me nuts at times. Causes undue delay and uneccessarily wears out the tyres and brakes!!

Absolutely normal for heavier wheeled helicopters to taxi to a suitable area for departure. Not at all sure about the assertion that it was 500 yards, but there would be a few reasons for any S61/Sea King (or similar) to do so.

Downwash of two Sea Kings lifting would be substantial, and disrupting to the VIP escorts on the ground.
Departure on a clear area (runway) allowing a safe rejected takeoff.
Line up for a departure into wind, vs a restricted choice should a departure in the area of the startup and loading.

Michael Gee, FWIW the wheels are not 'delicate'! Not at all sure what you mean about the intake guards, they are the normal FOD shields that have been around for some 45-50 years.

I am surprised that the VH-3s are in London, normally on overseas visits they use the VH-60.

In the build up to Air Force One's arrival did anyone else hear the male presenter on BBC Radio Five Live get Jeremy Hunt's surname slightly wrong (by one vital letter) and have to correct himself mid-sentence ? :mad:

ATC prefer wheeled helicopters to ground taxi rather than air taxi - it keeps them on the same routes as FW and removes potential problems with downwash and FOD from a hovering helicopter - especially a heavy one.

From an operators point of view, it saves fuel.

And ground taxi time on wheels doesn't get recorded in the aircraft technical log, whereas air taxi time does. Not that that would be a factor in this instance.

John Eacott
everything on a helicopter is delicate - taxi for runway 09 was a long taxi when a heli with skilled pilots taking into account all the dangers around are meant to fly - Air Traffic are not familiar with what helicopters can or can not do they are fixed in their minds like many fixed wing pilots.
The mod on No 1 heli looks makeshift - No 2 was without it. Have a look at catch up TV of Trumps arrival at Stansted UK this morning.
Your quote Intake Guards have been around 40 50 years so have I and still at it at 79 years of age

Royal protocol
 

There are a few pictures of Marine One at Buckingham Palace and Winfield House but the interesting picture is the first one, it actually looks like Mr Trump has gone against all Royal Protocol and decided to give the Queen a good old American fist bump rather than shake her hand!

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48491722

Seeing is believing as it is said.

Post the photo and show us what you are using as a basis for your post.

The Caption of the very first video clearly states....."Trump shakes Queen's Hand".

Did BBC get it all wrong?

Sasless,

My comment was said in jest, and the BBC have replaced the original picture with a video, but funny enough The Daily Mail managed to make a story of it around the same time.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...am-Palace.html

Perhaps I missed my real vocation in life as a jorno for a crappy tabloid...

Not when they make you join the queue of taxying fixed wing for a runway you don't actually need or want to use and are then obliged to allow for vortex wake separation. An extra fifteen or twenty minutes burning and turning prior to departure certainly doesn't save fuel. Sometimes a significant part our planned fuel reserve is used up before we even get to take off.

That picture of Prince Charles and Camilla meeting the Trumps.
"One puts one's left leg in, one's left leg out....."

PCD,

A bit of extra fuel isn't an option when your normal fuel load is "full tanks". Being obliged to ground taxy at MAUM for long distances to the end of a runway is frustrating when all you actually need is a 15 x 15 metre helipad.

Nice that you're still flogging around after some years, but believe me the SH3/Sea King undercarriage is not 'delicate'. Anything that stood up to many hundreds of my deck landings is quite capable of a little bit of taxiing!

I think your dig at ATC is more than a little unjustified, too.

Still no idea what you're referring to on the intake as they both look the same to me, standard barn doors. Here is Marine One yesterday with POTUS boarding:

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/8...Marine+One.jpg


This was an airfield taxi worth making, much the same distance as Marine One :ok:

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/8...nnon+S61+2.jpg