Is This True
 

Heard a rumour the a Hughes 500 lost its tail / boom during pratice auto's at Blackpool. G -NIPY i think?

Perfectly true. It was Sunday 23rd and G-NIPY with a chopped boom looks like this
http://www.btinternet.com/~poolfc/G-NIPYincident.jpg

VFRPILOT.

I was under the impression that a CAA TRE was at the controls.

Well that what my spys tell me!!!!

Having been on 118.4 the BPL frequency at the time this happened, I must say that the pilot handled the situation very calmly - so calmly that ATC needed to be asked for the AFS twice.

From witnessing the event first hand my observation is as follows:

The helicopter was in effect doing very tight 250-400ft "circuits" into an easterly wind onto the training area to the south of the Jaymax Hangar/25 threshold. From where I was standing the first approach I saw seemed very disturbing and with me not actually having the landing area in view , fully expected an orange ball and mushroom cloud to appear from behind Morrisons. I must just add that the whole thing did look very dramatic with high rates of descent and big bank angles ( I dont mean to comment on the actual event whether good or bad - this might be perfectly normal operations in autoration practice- Im just a fixed wing chap)

From watching R22/44's doing practice autorotations they normally start from a very high hover and land straight ahead, this is not what was happening with the 500. They were almost circling approaches to land.

Hope this helps, Im not judging anybody, there but for the grace of god go I and all that.

Hope the aircraft is recoverable.


PS. One of the things I wanted to ask is how did this happen, how is it possible to chop of your tail? can this not be designed out?

PS. One of the things I wanted to ask is how did this happen, how is it possible to chop of your tail? can this not be designed out?

This happens by allowing the rotor RPM to decay the blades then begin to flap and wallop off goes the tail. I think the idea is to keep the rotor RPM at the top of the green prior to cushioning the touchdown with the lever.

Did a double take when I read the original post about Nippy ... I was flying Bippy on the 29th (G-BPYL) and I'm pretty sure it had a tail. Nippy used to be hangared at Redhill before they got Bippy.

Pics/movies of G-BPYL are here:

http://homepage.mac.com/jeffrichmonduk/coolstuff

Cyclic,

I was almost right, the cowboy whom I thought was involved once employed the P1 who altered Nipy, he was removed from his position for allegedly herding a load of civvie visitors across the apron using a R22, must have thought he was in Oz:eek:

VFRpilot.

Thank you

You have confirmed my spies info. I am familiar with the muster pilot. That incident was several years back. My most memorable meeting with him was when i had just passed my afic in 1999. He congratulated me with "well done now get in the back of the queue with the rest of the afics" ****head