Helicopter clouts tree with its fenestron
 

Helicopter hits a tree with its fenestron, not sure if he/she was landing or taking off, seems they got away with it.

see video link below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters...its_palm_tree/

Not sure the guy walking past at the end of the video realizes how serious it could have been!

‘Clouts’? More of a tickle or a nudge… :}

Bet the pilot is pretty glad that he/she wasn’t in a Squirrel. :eek:

Fenestron 1 - Tail rotor 0.

Pretty crap bit of flying saved from disaster by sheer luck. Think how close the tips must have been.

(I am not a heli pilot); Just for my interest; how does one navigate in such confined spaces, near trees etc?

It is obviously vital not to stray towards the obstacles, so how do you ensure that? Do you fix on a feature on the ground underneath the heli and keep it directly below you, (but obviously where you can see it)? Tricky to do on grass, I would think.

Secondly, this heli is operating in what looks like a car park with members of joe public walking past very close by, and with no marshalling; is that sensible? And was it sensible to use that particular car park - surrounded by tall trees - in the first place?

Squirrel Pilot would have more brains than trying to land there

The event is "Cars n Copters in Huntington Beach"
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ea09ba2da1.jpg
Nasty place to land (light poles !!!). my preference would be to land somewhere else and "wheel it" into the site

Might indeed be a gentle nudge, but bearing in mind the lever arm, could be a good idea to look closely at the boom attachment bolts.

@Agile. Did you do a lot of logging in your time? Asking for a friend.

I can't be the only one wondering why such a confined site for an event with helicopters? With the light poles it wouldn't even be the tail rotor that concerns me, it'd be easy enough to strike the main rotor.

A few things I have done:1. Visit LZ prior to landing.

2. Use a ground guide.

3. Get out and walk the LZ for obstructions.

4. No hovering turns or movement inside a confined area.

5. Ground-handle the aircraft to final position.


And I truly hope appropriate maintenance personnel inspected the aircraft prior to the next flight.

6. Don’t randomly waft off your spot when lifting in a semi-confined area.

Lousy technique in every respect.

I am not a heli pilot); Just for my interest; how does one navigate in such confined spaces, near trees etc?...

What 'JimEli' said, above, additionally-
I would land as far forward as mandatory rotor clearance (10-15') would allow, and laterally centered. Often (but not always, and never without pilot checking) there is room to maneuver, reposition, turn, etc. I require a specific, visually obvious and fixed ground reference to base those maneuvers on.
I believe in a pilot ground recon whenever practical and possible, preferably engine off and rotors stopped. This isn't always a good choice, such as when one has landed on a main artery or single access, in which case one lands as far to the side as necessary to allow traffic movement.
As posted earlier, use a ground guide but with discretion- I've had occasions when the ground guide stopped guidance because of the belief that the pilot was better aware of hazards.

I have seen many “pilots” who are incapable of lifting off vertically, and hovering there, nor of doing a 360 turn around the tail, nose or mast when required.
Remember hover patterns? We did a lot of those in training.

Agreed - I used to teach pilots to take off as slowly as they could for exercise so they understand and anticipate the change from skids and nose level on the ground to one skid low and (usually) nose up in the hover.

A technique taught on Wessex and Sea King - primarily to avoid the risks of dynamic rollover - is to help what will be the 'uphill' skid/wheel off the ground (or at least to light contact) with lateral cyclic as the collective is raised. This gets you closer to the hover attitude before you leave the ground and that cyclic input is reduced as the skid/wheel comes light - normally results in a vertical take off without wobbling.

As ever, looking ahead and not close in to the aircraft helps prevent overcontrolling and crap take offs.

The pilot acted like a hit & run car driver…what was that, let’s get out of here!

yeah and it looks like that small sea plane came in and landed on that trailer, now that’s tight

I bet many of the cars were trailered in. Just saying.

Clearly some of the pilots should have been trailered out...
That's just utterly gash flying.

The guy with his back to camera appears to be operating a portable transceiver.....