Check out this skillfull recovery
 

Good day everyone.

Since I did not find an entry regarding this incident in the forum, I had do post it.

And since I am too low on posts I can’t publish links.

So if you please google

Phare de la Vieille helicopter

you will find the video documenting an amazingly skillfull manoeuver.

(I have an image but the system doesn’t allow that either)

Here is the subject video:
A number of the comments appear to offer explanations for what happened, which seems to have involved a sling load.

Mods may consider moving this to Rotorheads (I checked there earlier to see if there was any discussion of this video, but I did not see any).

What is the smoke by the skids after the recovery? Did they activate some pyro to deploy floats?

Looks to me as if that smoke is coming out of the engine exhaust - possibly because the pilot has pulled the hell out of it trying to recover.

The floats are activated by a small pyrotechnic squib but it would not produce smoke like that. Sometimes the floats are packed with chalk powder to protect against chafing and that can make a cloud of dust when you pop the floats but it does not look like that either.

I think that the engine has been massively over-torqued / over-temped and the smoke is the result of that.

Lucky / skilful recovery.

Looks as though perhaps the underslung load or the longline became snagged?

Smoke
 

My non-expert guess is that engine and/or transmission experience sudden – uhm – stress surge, maybe oil is burning up?

1. Must have taken a crowbar to get the seat cushion out of the ass of that pilot.

2. At least one, if not two changes of underwear. required.

3. Nice save.

AS350 close call - France
 

A very close call for this pilot: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ighthouse.html

Apologies for the source and VERY over-the-top journalism; smoke from the engine, but hardly bursts into flames. However looks a very close call none the less, and would certainly have got the pilots attention!

h14

That “wine shear” can be very tricky, as can having your “rear capable” break.

Awesome save! I would not be surprised if there was a main rotor blade(s) strike on the tailboom during that pull up!

Saw the video on reddit. There's a pop, the nose dives, he pops the floats, then recovers.

Definitely a trouser soiling moment!

Don't know the layout of the cyclic on the Ecureil, but I suspect the load-pickle and float-deploy switches are pretty close together. Unexpected pitch-down? Push every button within reach, pronto...

Floats are packed with powder lubricant. Could be the puff of 'smoke'.

There is a noticeable emission of somethibng (dark smoke/dust?) from the skid area immediately as the excursion occurs.
The helo then enters a violent pitch-down spiral from which it (just) recovers until the floats inflate and a large amout of white vapour comes from the engine exhaust.

I can't see that white vapour as anything but engine related, it seems clear where it's coming from.

To my view the float inflation is not connected with the white vapour, I think they are two seperate issues.

The white smoke? How about a flameout (the dark puff - FOD?) initiating a desperate pilot induced pitchdown for survival, blowing the floats commendably fast, and the relight system relighting an engine full of fuel and vapour with governor wide open as a result of a panicked "up to the armpit" pull on the lever?

Skilful recovery, or sphincter-based? I'd call it a reflex action supported by an astonishingly forgiving airframe.

There. That's my speculation for the week.

In treadigraph's post #4 above, it appears something falls of the top of the light house just before the rapid drop??? At about the 4 second mark of the video
And as noted, it might have been during a sling operation?

It is a person standing in an elevated position. After the initial mishap the person jumps in two steps down to the platform. This was already described in the original French article, before the close-up video appeared online. In the close-up there is also some activity at the lower left corner of the outer structure of the lighthouse platform, faintly visible, but if one looks closely it appears to be the line, or part of it.

You can see a loop of something flop around the pillar thing on the top corner of the lighthouse - and later see a cable of some sort from the loop? Maybe it tripped the helo around the skids to cause the nose down?

The source is the exhaust, so a 'lever round your ears' manoeuvre together with a 'half-crown/sixpence' moment, a rugged powerplant and an airframe/rotor system of 'brick-built outhouse' standard. "Have the new moleskin trews ready for arrival, Jeeves !"

half-crown/sixpence
 

Never heard that phrase. I guess I get the meaning in this context, but where does it come from? You care to elaborate?

UK (and others?) military slang, originally rendered as "half crown, thruppenny-bit, dustbin-lid" as I heard it.

Generally signifying a messed-up situation, I assume.
Thanks for replying.

Heinrich - it refers to the size of your sphincter changing during a high- situation (half-crown is bigger than threepeny bit and dustbin lid speaks for itself) ie normal, pucker, full dilation!:)

As for the incident, the way the fuselage rotates is exactly what you would expect from a sling load still attached when you thought it was released and started to move away.

The cloud of dust is certainly the floats being fired and you can see the starboard skids ones inflated - the bright orange.

Lucky guys.

Got it. It’s an eqivalent to the US military „pucker factor“, but with reference to the actual (size difference) factor.

Thanks

I respectfully disagree about the “ dust cloud “ being from float deployment. It would take a heck off a lot of baby powder to create that effect. Far, far more than the amount I have seen used to repack floats. Also it does appear to emanate from the engine exhaust area.
A truly close call. Glad he made it. A little lower and he would have face-planted onto the rocks or into the water or combination of the two. Time to purchase a lotto ticket..his lucky day.

And they do generally pack them with a lot of baby powder.

Have you ever seen an exhaust spit out a plume like that without being on fire?

Look at the Stbd skid towards the end - it is bright orange indicating that the flotation bag has started to inflate - not fully in this case so perhaps the nitrogen escaped enhancing the 'dust cloud'.

Was Lifting frames from lighthouse lantern
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/280069

White smoke from the engine without a doubt. looks like a longline caught on the lighthouse, only way i can think of such a rapid pitch down ! Good save though. I bet there is one scrap 350 now

Yes I have….oil blew out of the Turbine Labyrinth seal on a 250 C20B causing a massive smoke cloud out the exhaust that would have the turned the Snowbirds green with jealousy. It. was like landing in fog. Oil pressure was at the bottom of the green when I landed, I didn’t do the cool down before shutting down. When I looked out the back there was a smoke trail for a mile behind me. Luckily I was on approach to the pad when it happened. The engineer saw it all happen.

I love all the debate about the smoke cloud. Perhaps the smoke is coming out of the engine because the pilot is redlining that bitch in an attempt not to splat himself on the rocks below?
Reminds me of one North Weald fighter meet when a Harvard gave out a large gout of white smoke as it passed the crowd line the commentator quipped "There goes a cylinder and a couple of valves".

A turbine seal letting go would have caused the smoke to keep on going, even after he had avoided the ground.

I've seen engines overtorqued and overtemped but never seen a temporary smoke cloud like that from grabbing a handful of collective.

You know the flotation bags are packed in powder and inflated with nitrogen and you can clearly see the flotation bags have inflated during the dive towards the water.

Seems pretty clear cut to me - if its not the powder it is the excess nitrogen (cold gas under pressure) expanding and cooling the air.

It's a single-engined helicopter, if he has buggered the engine so badly it starts to smoke, how does he recover to the hover with no smoke evident?

Did see smoke come out the exhaust of the type when a chap gave a rather enthusiastic display at an airshow, occurred during the pitch over at the top of a very steep climb following a low level high speed flyby ie low "g".

Apologies, Heinrich - the explanations given above are correct ... wrinkly reversion to non-metric currency !!
Re. the smoke from the exhaust, early Lynx at Boscombe doing pitch over for speed runs used to exhibit mini versions, and one of our Whirlwinds, coming in from Valley to TH with an uncoupled (accidental) throttle linkage produced a similar, but more flame containing example ! :eek:

Well, I take it that they where lifting those frames down to the platform on the ''pilot'' side of the tower from the lantern. WHY would a pilot with any sense do this in tailwind?? and with the structure on the opposite side of the helicopter... Looks seriously poorly planned and worse executed. If you'd do this exercise in the opposite direction, I bet there would not be a thread.

As for the smoke. Full screen the video, playback and stop between 0:10-0:12 and you see the smoke is coming from the top halv of the helicopter. There is no parts of the floats up in that area, nitrogen lines or baby powder. So clean cut?! Nope. I bet that during this display, the aircraft had more than one over limit, and no, even a single engine that is being seriously over torqued and over sped, don't just quit and fall out of the sky.
I would put my money on that the white smoke is engine oil which due to the unnatural abrupt motion and attitude has been pushed into the exhaust via the vent-pipe from the oil reservoir, and that creates a lot of white smoke, and it would be temporary.
It looks like this was an uncontrolled cyclic input for some reason, or more likely a gust of wind from below and behind while attached to the load...

Very lucky recovery and escape by the pilot, very lucky...!

There is no room for the nitrogen bottles on the skids so they have to be somewhere in the fuselage with the lines running down the skids to the bags.

It is definitely not an uncontrolled cyclic input - it is a reaction to being pulled by a load which is still attached.

I've flown pushovers in the 350 and it definitely does not do that white smoke thing.

That's where my money is too and I'm not sure what people are suggesting will happen if you pull more than the rated power - i.e. what the smoke will actually be caused by? Engine certification is pretty stringent, and 3 seconds pulling a bit more than the RFM allows is not going to result in any external visual effects (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-1...pter-C/part-33).

White smoke from an exhaust is either oil or unburned fuel, and I very much doubt the latter.

This what the Aviation Safety Network says in its report

And I know where they are located….just as a hint.

I have done a bit of rollercoasting in the 350 as well without smoke, so don’t feel bad….

The abruptness of of the manoeuvre I think is they key. I said it could look like an uncontrolled input, not necessarily that it is so. Having had the pleasure of having my electric longline release failed on me after setting down load number ### being in a good flow on short rotations with ca 1 ton of bags of gravel, and pulling collective on instinct as I could “see” the straps fall of the remote hook, I can tell you how a snagged longline feels. I did not produce any smoke, nor was the machine reaching any over limit parameters, I didn’t pop the floats, didn’t end up almost hitting the ground, but we confirmed that the shoulder harness worked as advertised, so did the belly release and we had a brake to chat with the technicians on how to proceed.

Edit
Missed your reference to the Wikipedia of accident reporting. I read a lot of those listings, but as whoever can contribute their more or less accurate information, I take the info with a slight pinch of salt. In this case, a rather large one…..reading the rest on ASN. This info might come from this very thread in the first place, like the media has been collecting “facts” before…

So explain exactly how so much oil - that is a lot of smoke - gets from the reservoir to the exhaust, it is only a breather pipe after all.

Crab, I can assure you on this occasion it did, a Squirrel some decades ago, not great plumes as in the video though, having viewed the event I made a point of examining the exhaust and noticed the breather and assumed that may have been the source, pilot was reputed to have trashed an airframe of another type from his vigorous displays.