police incident
 

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/K_1004_Y.txt

Should that not read POB ?

depends on whether or not you're paying for the machine.

SOB= Son ofa bitch????

just wondered how informal these reports are

The word right now is that they lost the engine at approximately 400 feet on takeoff. It had just had some maintenance, and completed a maintenance flight just prior to this.

The pilot involved is one of their most experianced and recieved some pretty good injuries. The observers injuries were not that bad. It appears that after they hit the ground, the helicopter slid on its left side.

The preliminary report merely opens the case file....and contains what information is generated by the initial report to the FAA/NTSB......thus usually has very little information beyond the "alert" notice. The "wordy" thing comes out later....after the investigation is done.

It's got to be said:

here goes:

wouldn't have happened over here...cos we're twins only, and for this very reason.

Lucky he didn't take out a high street???

Glad he's OK.

Sorry..it's late and it was a low shot.

its got to be said, we do not know if it was an engine failure and the last time i worked on a twin, the engines were running through a common gearbox, attached to one main rotor and one tailrotor, twin engines increase the level of safety but they paths of mechanical failure can take many different routes.

Yea, right TC!
 

How many police helicopters (single or twin) in the UK have been lost for reasons other than engine failure? We'd better not discuss the single engine performance of some of these wonderful "twins" either!

What a load of old cobblers!

Keep taking that JAR medication - it seems to be working pretty well!

With all due respect Thomas coupling, I know of one western United States police department operating about 9 single engines , highest time with over 10,000 hours , without incident.
I am a big proponent of twin engine aircraft, but see red when statements like these are made.
US police forces fly 24/7,365 days, in all weather...........of course the potential for incident /accident is much greater.

Lets go back and see how many twin engine UK police aircraft have crashed ....seems like a couple within the past year or am I mistaken? The Two engine smartass remarks we hear from the eastern end of the saltwater divide everytime a single engine helicopter winds up in the scrap yard following a forced landing does get old......at least we don't say things just as silly when the UK Po-leece stuff one into the ground for some other reason.

I swear by two engines but also understand that with most of these light twins....the good engine is only going to take us to the scene of the crash.....and before you start on the CAT A bovine feces.....no we don't operate at those weights. At some point.....reality has to take over and determine what we do in flying.....the point about a single tail rotor....heck...just lose one part of a tail rotor blade.....and you will find yourself in a much worse predicament than a mere engine failure (be it on a single or multiengine helicopter). It was not so long ago.....during the search for the two young girls that were murdered....that I observed live and on international television.....a UK police helicopter hovering along with a picture taker stood outside the cabin......an engine failure there would have been most exciting....definitely not Cat A profiles being used then.

The Police have a dangerous job to do....and my hat is off to them....especially the US Cops that fly around in the singles....I am much too old for that but that doesn't mean it cannot be done just as safely as with a twin. The majority of the engine failures on singles in the Gulf of Mexico have been due to contaminated fuel.....and that would kill two engines just as quickly as one.

Think back to the North Sea fatal crashes....just how many of those were due to an engine failure? We have seen tail rotor failures, main rotor failures, pilots stuffing the aircraft into the water....but I personally cannot recall a fatal accident stemming from an engine failure though there very well might have been one.

Single-engine aircraft aren't killing people offshore, anywhere. According to the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, for the period from 1994-1998, the number of fatalities worldwide due to engine failure in helicopters was exactly zero. For airplanes, the number is much higher, & engine failure is the biggest cause of fatalities. For helicopters, it's FITWO (Flight into Terrain, Water, or Obstacles, what the US calls CFIT), midair collisions, & other mechanical failures. I don't recall a single fatality in the Gulf of Mexico in the last 20 years due to engine failure, & there are far more single-engine aircraft flying than twins. Fatalities yes, but not from engine failure.

See for yourself: Safety performance of helicopter operations in the oil & gas industry

I like twins, but the economics don't show the necessity, & don't kid yourself, it's always economics. The only bearing safety has for corporations is economic - if they make more money (or lose less) by being safe, they will, but it's purely economic. Money talks, & everything else walks. It's wrong, but that's the way it is.

Re: police incident
 

Widgeon,

To answer your original query, S(ouls) O(n) B(oard) was (IIRC) the normal abbreviation in some parts of the world before POB became the 'standard'.

Police twins Vs singles..
 

The NSW Police have been operating singles since 1979, and have only lost one , coming from an N2 bleed air problem running the engine down to idle. They plopped into the sea and all OK. They have also operated several twins - a new BK117 A4, which was operating for only 6 months when an engine cowl went through the rotor resulting in a semi-controlled ditching. Machine written off, but crew OK.
Next twin was a used twin Squirrel. Lasted a bit longer, but also had a swim when the same pilot as in the BK was swamped by a wave while rescuing a fisherman off rocks.

So, 2 spectacular accidents for twins, which made zero difference by having 2 engines, just made the crashes more expensive. The single accident would not have happened if it was a twin, but our skinflint government wouldn't come up with the money for more twins, even if they could be justified.

The British Army have been operating single engine helicopters over Belfast since 1970. Could someone enlighten us as to the number of engine failures? (Zero me thinks).

Bogus arguments
 

The arguement for twins is (almost always bogus).

The increased risk of running (and carrying) two engines needs to be less than the probability of an event occuring where having two engines might help.

The small slivers of time when having two engines might help rarely justify the risks.

Just curious - but what does happen when all power fails in a twin ( fuel, drive system etc )?
How do people expect the driver to land this heavy brick - the pilots are not trained for it (no EOL in twins) and the machine does not do it very well !! In a single (generally more reliable) the pilot can land uneventfully in most cases.


1 minute per hour certainly would not justify having a twin!

....and many other points (European protectionism, jobs for the boyz etc)

The benefits or not of 2 donkeys is pretty pointless. Here in the UK, we are stuck with them and that is probably the way it is going to stay. I wouldn't get too wound up by TCs comments I assume they were designed to elicit exactly the response that followed (At least I hope so, I have met the bloke and in the flesh he doesn't seem as pompous and patronising as his comment can sometimes suggest;) ). There are times when I wish we could field a fleet of aircraft as you do across the pond (any pond, east or west) and the only way we could do that is if we were to operate singles. That said, after all this time with a pair of P&Ws finest above (behind!) my head I think I would find it quite nerveracking to go back to a single. Finally, remember we've got a smaller country than you americans (australians,canadians,..., zambians:cool: ) So.. we've had to make all our streets narrower to fit everybody in. Hence, less space to auto into should (a/the) donkey stop.
PS. Two engines...bigger aircraft...more donuts!:D

Being a police pilot, guess I'd like to comment on this a little.

First off, for most police departments on the other side of the pond, they do not "patrol" with their helicopters. They do not fly as often, or cover the area that some do over here. An example being, that my department covers 4,000+ sq. miles of area. The only way to provide service is to have as many ships out as possible. Economics dictate singles due to this. We poactively are out looking for "crime" and assisting the ground units. During a shift we average a total of 5 hours in the air.

Our fleet puts on about 10,000 hours a year, 99% of it in singles. The only engine failure in a turbine was about 12 years ago, and the pilot knew the engine had problems, but kept flying it (for several days prior, he admitted it was having compressor stalls) until it quit. We operate from sea level to 9,000 feet with temps from below zero to 40c+. Lots of IGE and OGE hovers also due to search and rescues. Pretty good record for a single.:)

I would love to have a twin, but statistics just do not prove it out in my job. And as far as smaller streets, in the city here, it will not be any better doing an auto onto the street.:(

And our training ship (MD500D) that we practice all of our full touch down auto's has 17,000 hours.:eek:

slightly off topic but...
 

....is it purely coincidence that the three NSW Police helicopters mentioned above ended up ditching?

And as regards hovering over Belfast in a single, after watching what happened to those two Signals corporals who blundered into an IRA funeral some ten years ago, I would want every safeguard I could get. Hats off to the army pilots.

Draco....

Think about our guys working over Mogadishu with Blackhawks....even sophisticated helicopters can have a very bad day every now and then. It wasn't engines that caused that bit of excitement either....just some minor FOD to a couple of tail rotors. RPG's really are small things right?

There are worse places to have forced landings than in major urban areas.....think of being anywhere in Saudi.....know how far it is to a decent pub from anywhere there?

Besides....did not Bill Clinton bring peace to Northern Ireland or did his spin doctors exaggarate his accomplishments a wee tad?

Whatever about that extra engine!!!!!!!
Now a Notar system..................there's a safety feature worth spending the money for.