Stick skills v airmanship
 

If ever there was an example of the difference

https://citizen.co.za/news/news-eish...-in-a-chopper/

That reminds me a lot of the guys who tried to fly the 269/300C he had just bought and rolled it up in a little ball without his instructor on board....

Remember the new phrase from Dennis Mains... "well, this is stupid!!"... let it be your inner voice... :ok:

Personally, I think that the most heinous crime here is the use of vertical video.

Very skilled, but a show off!

Sorry I failed to see the skill part,
All I see is a red bull supercharged average pilot.
What a waste of air time to impress those bozos.

The words "instability" and "erratically" are clearly used improperly in that article, since neither condition ever applied.

If that had occurred at an air show everyone would be applauding. Not that it would have been any more or less risky. But context is everything, eh?

Morons like that are why we pay so much for insurance.

It's more likely the flurry of air tour accidents over the past couple of years. Two US underwriters ejected from the market after the NYC foot-selfie debacle. And the Hawaii incidents. And the Grand Canyon. Too many turbines crashing. A piston crashing doesn't cost them nearly as much. Soon there won't be anyone left to sell insurance at any price :{

No joke, I am seriously considering self-insuring the hull. Got to keep the liability, though. My insurance has gone up 30% in two years. I'm getting a very good rate, relatively speaking, but even so it's starting to be untenable.

Hmmmm? Using a helicopter to find the "shallow end of the gene pool". Original.

Tim Tucker, Pat Cox and Co would be pretty unimpressed with the operator.

There were a bunch of violations in that skit. As far as instability goes, not so much, for the control of the helicopter, but it was way outside of the H-V curve for a lot of the operation. The pick up into low-level yawed flight is stupid and reckless, and contact of the skid with rotation or translation would have caused a dynamic rollover. the low fly over the head of the witnesses/prospective victims was dangerous. The touchdown in the pond was reckless, risking a dynamic rollover. The torque turn was insipid, the pedal turn was modest. The first sideways flight other than being stupid was not risking LTE, but the next one was. Pirouettes in translating flight are fun to do, but doing them incurs a risk if the noise stops, and doing it over the head of potential victims is reckless.

That video will almost certainly end up at Torrance on the safety course, and I would hope that the pilot is grounded, and the insurer voids insurance of the hull and CSL/3rd party until the operator lifts his selection criteria to remove reckless pilots.

The loads on the helicopter are actually quite low, nothing that was done there imposed high torque link, bending or torsional loads, but the pedal turn at high speed can start to reduce teeter clearances on the TR.

Forrest Gump: "Stupid is as stupid does"


Re insurer: RHC offered their own insurance,?PATHFINDER? It is a long time since I looked at that. They would be less than pleased with reckless operations.

Come to Oz and you'll see similar gyrations, but at a lower level, during cattle mustering. As aa says,

the loads analysis was done due to concerns on the mustering issues and that was comforting, but cattle don't sue as much as the widow and orphans of people. being outside of H-V for a known risk is one thing, and as you say, context is everything.

The comment was "over a small damn"

It looked like the pilot didn't give a damn.

Wonder how many times he exceeded his MAP limit during that? Some of those manoeuvres need a lot of power. Wouldn't want to fly the aircraft after he has finished with it!

Or be a pax on that thing.

time and place seems to come to mind

So you rent something that got mistreated and stressed like that by some cowboy before?

My first thought, as it lifted off, was “Did his instructor know he was out by himself?”

It really doesn't look any different than any Dennis Kenyon air show routine. Less dangerous even. Indeed, Dennis's fascination with dragging and spinning his skids around on the ground always scared me to death. As an R44 pilot I doubt he was anywhere near busting MP or sideways speed limits. Inside the HV avoid area, though, certainly.

Disclaimer: yes, yes, air shows are best performed over less forbidding terrain and not over people. And no, I don't fly like that myself, although I do enjoy a good pirouette at IGE heights from time to time.

Let's not insult Dennis like that by comparing him to this gent.
A farmer flying his own Robinson to impress some of his boozed friends is a long way from a planned and rehearsed display.
Another sterling advertisement for Robinson owners.

The pilot clearly didn't attend this webinar!!!Risk Management for Personal and Private Operations

• Reducing negative outcomes is equally important for you.
o Understand the hazards and their risks
o Helping to make better decisions

• It all starts with a personal commitment to prioritizing safety
o You must be honest with yourself
o Hold yourself accountable

• Next, implement some process to keep safety at the forefront of each flight

o Here, we will focus on two simple and important strategies

• Mitigating Risk
  
• Personal Minimums
  

https://ushst.org/Repository/Personal_Mins_PAVE.pdf

https://ushst.org/private-flying/

http://ihsf.aero/Fact_Sheets/Fatalities.pdf

You don't really want me to post citations of sterling examples of airmanship among pretty much every other helicopter made, do you?

When not if.

Now that is a game of top trumps I would play.
Your deck just wouldn’t have the same depth and quality as mine. The Russian and South American editions are quite comprehensive on their own.

meh,......

Hate to say it, but I'm with AA777 here. Nothing the R-44 guy did looked *that* dangerous. Aside from the drunken goobers hanging around the SUV's, there weren't any other people in the area. Oh, and since somebody brought up Dennis K., that pivot-around-the-skid-toe thing he used to do surely made me cringe too. Yikes! Oh, and didn't DK actually crash someone else's helicopter during one of his, um, demonstrations? Should we mention that or do we just ignore it?

The drunken goobers were more entertaining than the pilots flying skills.

Tell you what: stop blaming United States Robinson owners for your anti-Robinson attitude or, better yet, stop blaming the machine, and I'll be right there with you. And don't forget NZ on your list of serial Robinson crashers. It's not Robinson's fault if people do stupid sh*t, other than the helicopter is economical enough to allow those with minimal oversight to purchase one. Little different than all the rich idiots crashing supercars for our Youtube viewing pleasure.

I once saw a guy who flew a Schweizer like this. He crashed soon after and finally.
People flying like this shouldn't be permitted to fly at all from my point of view.

Intellectual capacity follows a standard distribution, somebody has to prop up the left hand side of the graph, so good for this guy.

It’s not a regional thing, some regions do have really poor oversight which stacks the deck.
The aircraft is cheap.
Like a low cost carrier has a more salt-of-the-earth clientele, Robinson’s will attract a less desirable sort of pilot.
You will see an Astar or 407 from time to time, but it will never occupy the same amount of youtube capacity.
Idiots do stupid things in all sorts of vehicles.
Just because I’ve been fortunate enough to drive a Lambo, doesn’t mean I’m going to make excuses for those that do.
No one with a concept of safety, airmanship or professionalism will consider these videos, and the given context, anything other than a future statistic in motion.

"I am seriously considering self-insuring the hull." I never had hull on either of my 44's. Over the 15 years of cumulative ownership I could have purchased a third 44 with the savings. A positive takeaway was the self questioning, do I really want to do that? It kept me at the low end for risk adversity.

To answer your question in one word: None.

The R44 Raven II has plenty of power-to-weight, and with 1-up these routines are well within MAP and other limits of the aircraft.

Pure ego: many dead pilots with theirs at this level

Not sure how you can state that without being in the aircraft - you are assuming he is actually flying the manoeuvres skillfully. Sliding in and out of ETL with complex yaw and translation uses up more power than simple, basic manoeuvres.

I think that's the key point here. Whether or not this was dangerous or exceeded aircraft limits, he clearly has a huge ego and that is likely to catch him out in the future. IIMC springs to mind.....

Why would a huge ego need to show off like that?

Seen 61s, Tigers and the odd 76 doing those kind of things 30-odd years ago. I thought it was bloody awesome. I imagine if any of it had been filmed and there had been internet and social media, then some of it may not have happened.

Less Hair it's the need to be seen doing these things that is a result of that huge ego

rotational or translational movement with the skids near any obstacle is a high-risk exercise, may look exciting but it is not far away from an RUD, and that puts spectators at risk. DK did that over surveyed areas, where he was aware of the surface, and away from giving the crowd a face full of blades 'n bits.

RHC doesn't provide a limitation on lateral or rearward flight, the theory of evolution covers that. The handling authorities are assessed hup to 17kts, all azimuths that is it. 27.1587(a)(2)(ii).

Section 5, Performance, page 5-6 gives the H-V curve. In doing that curve, the outcome is highly dependent on what your attitude and alignment is at touchdown. § 27.87 Height-speed envelope.(a) If there is any combination of height and forward speed (including hover) under which a safe landing cannot be made under the applicable power failure condition in paragraph (b) of this section, a limiting height-speed envelope must be established (including all pertinent information) for that condition....
Doing 45kts backwards, the rotor itself is in the H-V area (but not the wording of the Part), but your alignment compromises the outcome badly. Yawing around to align the skids for the touchdown adds drag and takes energy, and it will need.... whatever... I don't know, nor does the guy in the 44. It is not a test point in the certification, so the driver is now a test pilot, good luck. As he has no information that the goof-off (manoeuver is too formal) is able to accept a failure, then. he is taking the bet that the engine and TR etc don't have a failure that requires him to lower the collective and land. We are used to seeing roll-ups of helicopters in autos that didn't work as planned, tail chops, etc, most occasions, the occupants survive. There is no crashworthiness testing for stupidity, so how a structure is going to fare going sideways at 40kts, backward at 50 or whatever is an open question. My first thought is it ends up with pallbearers involved. I've flown an R22 in a test at 56kts to the right and 55kts to the left, and yes, the helicopter can do it. I had the fire-ies on standby, was in Nomex, and helmet, and also didn't expect that an engine failure would end well, but had a need to get the test point. I was measuring the flapping, tail cone, and control loads... and glad to finish that in one piece. It was done down a hard surface runway vector, clear of obstacles to minimize the consequences of a touchdown in motion. It was also not done with the off the shelf R22, which hit the limit in flight to the right much earlier.

Helicopters can do amazing stuff, lots more fun than jets, but, they come with risk and if there is a task that needs to assume that risk, it should be done carefully. If risks can be avoided, then still doing that is a risk-taking event, and doing so near other people exposes the pilot to 91.13 sort of violations. Every state has their own reg against reckless operation.


CRAB@ is absolutely correct on the power side. For a US copter, lateral flight to the left unloads the TR slightly until very high lateral speeds. flight to the right increases the TR demand and the limit left pedal can be reached quite easily which gives a limit to how fast the lateral flight can be flown, disregarding risk etc. The MR still operates as advertised, so ETL alters that power, but total power required going to the right is increased by the TR up to reaching full pedal.

With the dynamics of the MR, and TR, have a read of Prouty's (RIP) Performance, stability and Control, or for more maths, Wayne Johnson helicopter Theory, or Stepniewski, Padfield, Cooke and Fitzpatrick, Leishman, or any other of the myriad of SMEs on stability and control.... Flying laterally at high speed makes for interesting stuff as far as flapping, TPP/shaft clearances, and general bits of entertainment.

Shawn Coyle talks about H-V testing, in his podcasts and also in his books. All worth while reading before going out and flying doing weird stuff.

Final comment, note when you come out of the right-hand high-speed flight, that suddenly unloading the TR which swings the nose into the direction of flight will most times give a prompt overspeed of the engine (and MR) the governor is good, but not that good. Then have a look at the MM on overspeeds.... and then go check your bank account.