VFTG
Im so sorry i didnt mean to miss out David,ive been involved with the sport for nearly 25 years as a competitor,technician and sponsor and im finding this a bit difficult.

Nitefiter

I had neglected him too in my earlier post. I really cannot believe what a tragic year we are having in this sport. I am sure however that it will come out the other side. It must be extremely hard for anyone who knows people from inside the sport.....Lets continue to enjoy the fine racing these guys provide, since I am sure that is what their departed colleagues would have wanted!

I understand that the reg of the helicopter involved was G-OUEL, which is indeed a Booker based machine

Having worked with Hizzy in the past, I met up with him a few weeks ago for a few beers.

He was really looking forward to getting to grips with his Commercial exams and hopefully a career in flying Helis.

I believe it was a R44, Rest in peace Steve I for one will miss you, so many people were really looking forward to see you kick arse at Oulton Park.

D.H.

Was it his own R44 or did it belong to one of the companies based at Booker?

Please if ayone has any further inf on this, post it.

I ask this as a 'Hissy' fan

If ppheli is right that it was G-OUEL, then according to the CAA database, the R44 was first registered in Jluly 2002 and is owned by Universal Energy Ltd of High Wycombe.

There won't be any more information until the AAIB report is published.

Sad loss of another great scot.


:{

Is it just me, or is there a spate of accidents / incidents involving Robinsons at the moment???

"Is it just me, or is there a spate of accidents / incidents involving Robinsons at the moment???"

Depends what your definition of "spate" is.......22 Sydney, 44 Scotland. 22 Sydney well-debated here - seems to be operator-induced. 44 Scotland - unknown at time of writing.

Are you ignoring the Hughes 500 at Biggin, the Jet Ranger at Hadrian's Wall, and various other turbine incidents around the globe ?

My English master always warned against generalising from the particular. He was right.

Latest from media in Isle of Man (dated 4.08):

"Investigations into the crash are continuing. Two officers from the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch arrived at the scene on Thursday and the wreckage of the helicopter, which was strewn across the hillside, is being removed to the AAIB base in Farnborough, Hampshire, for examination.
Investigators have refused to comment on the possible cause of the accident, although it has been reported weather conditions and visibility at the time of the crash were poor.
It has also been confirmed military low-flying exercises in the area will be examined.
The area is regularly used by the RAF for training pilots and investigators said all flying activity in the area on the day of the accident will be looked at. They will also probe flight plans and weather conditions.
The Ministry of Defence said there had been no reports from pilots of near-misses, which would normally be reported instantly, but added it would cooperate fully with the crash investigation."

Yeah, point taken, just felt like everytime I check the site there's a Robbie incident. I'll shut up. :sad:

Flytest, in the States, NTSB figures have 6 fatal Robinson accidents this year, all of which have occurred since the begining of May - 4x22, 2x44. There have been 23 fatal helicopter accidents so far this year. This year there have been 77 "incidents" involving helicopters, of which 19 were Robinsons.

Headsethair :

Flytest wasnt generalising, he was asking specifically about Robinsons.

You, on the other hand have lumped the all the turbine aircraft (H500, JetRanger and "other turbine incidents") together.

Now then, tell us again what your old English master said about generalising??

But if we do want to generalise - according to Newswatcher, one type of helicopter has been involved in over a quarter of all fatal accidents in the US so far this year. Generally, I'd say thats a pretty poor record.

Steve :

Any idea what proportion of the US fleet is Robbies, by aircraft or hours flown ? Are the accident proportions in step with the other fleets ? Are R22 and R44 flown by lower time pilots and if so would the same problem occur with other fleets if the R22 hadn't been designed ?

Three years ago an extrapolation from CAA maintenance returns showed that 48 per cent of single-engine helicopter hours in the UK were flown on Robinsons.
That's before you start taking into account the low experience level of their pilots and the uses to which they are put, as the Fairy points out.

SteveT: "But if we do want to generalise - according to Newswatcher, one type of helicopter has been involved in over a quarter of all fatal accidents in the US so far this year. Generally, I'd say thats a pretty poor record."

So - you're not generalising with your take on Newswatcher's stats ?

"Robinsons" are not one type of heli :-)

And if you follow his lead and look at the NTSB figures, you'll see that most of the accidents were non-mech failure, low-time pilots mainly flying R22 - but also R44.

The most popular helicopters in the world being flown by the most inexperienced pilots..........

This could run as long as The Mousetrap.

Now - where are the current UK stats?

t'aint natural / nr fairy

I agree that is the big problem with Robbies - a helicopter with not a lot of margin for error been flown by low time pilots / private owners. Dont know if anybody has ever bothered to do the stats on pilots / hours / type accidents, but I guess that by sheer number then, yes the Robbie would not fair too well.

headsethair. Yes I was generalising, but then again my old English teacher was a drunk, and very rarely turned up for class. Besides, we all know that the R44 is just a beefed-up R22, so I think it's fair to lump them all together as "Robinson", just in the same way as the LongRanger (different engine, transmission, body, tail boom, blades etc etc) is still a Bell 206.

Just a couple of points about Tim Tucker and his Robinson stats. Firstly, he works for Robinson, so he is going to be looking for the best way of "analysing" those stats from a Robinson-based viewpoint

Secondly, his view of the stats was critisised in the "professional" press as being much too simplistic - e.g. the R44 was the safest helicopter because it had been involved in the least reported incidents / accidents, not taking into account the number of aircraft in each fleet, hours flown by type etc etc.

I have no personal axe to grind about Robinsons or Tim Tucker's opinions. I have over 500 hours R22 time and enjoyed (nearly) all of it, and I did my FAA commercial GFT with Tim, who I found a very genial bloke.

However, what you do find is that Robbie pilots are fiercely loyal to their machines, sometimes beyond the point of reason. It's quite sweet, really! However, put them in a proper helicopter....

:ok:

Robbies
 

Sup ya'll. Aight lets nail the facts here, the only reason there are any Robinson accidents (IN GENERAL) is because they are such good value that many pilots who fly them aren't trained so well. This is not a fault of the machine. Pilot error causes almost all Robinson accidents, if you look at the statistics for the 44, it hasn't had a mechanical induced engine failure for years, any failures were due to carb icing, which is pilot error.

It is perfectly fair to generalise the rest of the helicopters into the 'turbine' bracket because when we talk about helicopter safety we are primarily talking about heli engine safety, it is a rare enough occurance for helicopters to just crumble in mid air for any other reason than a massive control input. The Robinson helis are safe when operated by well trained pilots, the same as most helicopters. When you put someone into the cockpit of any aircraft who is not well trained you are asking for trouble. I am not making any reference to Hizzy here, I don't know the extent of his training nor have I seen him fly. For all we know any number of things could have happened.

Remember, helis are only as safe as the humans who fly them- No matter which manufacturer or country they come from.

Well said Captain E

My thoughts exactly

This appears in the Glasgow Herald but apparently lifted from an interview given to Motorcycle News

Quote:

---

Hislop’s instructor warned him not to fly helicopter days before fatal crash

---

Any views on revealing 'warnings' of this sort to the Press in advance of the AAIB report?

Gents before we descend into another "I heard what happened was.." may I suggest that I apologise for my "always Robbies" post, bid our condolences to the family and leave it at that.

My angle is one of safety, my job is to help Helo's fly as smoothly and reliably as possible, and where possible, spot defects before they become failures, catastrophic or otherwise. My thread was perhaps ill timed and ill concieved in light of the popularity of Robs and the experience levels of the drivers, for that I apologise.

Never let it be said I do not recognise when I am wrong.:ok: