PPRuNe Forums - CHL S92 lawsuit

PPRuNe Forums (https://www.pprune.org/)

- Rotorheads (https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads-23/)

- - CHL S92 lawsuit (https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/641914-chl-s92-lawsuit.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by torqueshow (Post 11090089)

Which bit? The report does not mention the blade contacting the water at any point, not does it mention any further damage to the aircraft.

The second part of the sentence, there’s plenty of footage online of blades hitting water and it not ending well at all. Considering they were banked over, a blade tip entering the water would be a catastrophic event.

The only mention of the blade contacting the water is from a passenger witness statement and there’s no other corroborating evidence to support that. Witness statements historically are pretty inaccurate as people tend to have poor detail memory from a stressful event.

I would imagine there would be plenty of spray and it would be very hard to see whether a blade touched the surface or not. Witness statements of what they saw during stressful incidents are notoriously unreliable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by industry insider (Post 11089934)

I just can't see what's wrong with a rotor blade touching the sea? In the 80s, we used to regularly give all the blades a quick dip during a shuttle flights to give them a wash. It improved performance taking off from undersized bow mounted low helidecks at night meaning we could ask for additional doughnuts and ice cream. If the "too heavy" light illuminated on the dashboard, we used to stick some blue tack over it to stop it becoming annoying.

What's wrong with today's passengers? They are going soft. I thought Canadians wore big boy pants.

I have been called as an expert witness.

Absolutely right. As technicians we always appreciated so washed rotors. The pilots told us the best way of washing is to fly a roll or looping, to touch the sea with the blades only, keeping the airframe dry. Of course you need an excellent eye and a steady hand for that. Needless to say that these are qualities which the vast majority of all pilots have

Not criticizing the passengers but the wording of the document by the brilliant legal minds who represent them.

“The class members remained in a heightened state of arousal the entire flight back given the manner in which the helicopter was flying, noisily and jarringly, at a low altitude, with systems down and on autopilot."”

Systems down and on Outopilot???

My lord- flying on Outopilot! The horror, the horror!

“Flying in a heightened state of arousal” Obviously misidentified the Viagra as the Gravol.

torqueshow

Quote:

a blade tip entering the water would be a catastrophic event.

Thanks for helping my understanding.