Two helicopters land in the drink ... - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

cmac2012 · #1 02-20-2022, 02:29 PM

... on about the same day, 3000 miles apart.

I can imagine my sister is doing a slow freakout. Her youngest child, a son, is training to be a helicopter pilot with US Army Air. She went through a few years of watching him get his head banged up as a football and later rugby player. And now this.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/officer-killed-another-hurt-police-043434036.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/three-people-injured-helicopter-crashes-212036775.html

Video of the splash down on the second one.

Autoputzer · #2 02-20-2022, 07:45 PM

My dad was an airplane mechanic and a flight engineer on a piston-engine transport aircraft in the 1950's. He only gave me two pieces of advice about life:

1. As you go through life, whatever may be your goal, keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.

2. Stay the **** away from helicopters.

merc lover · #3 02-20-2022, 10:09 PM

At least the cops didn't crash into someone's house.....

cmac2012 · #4 02-20-2022, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merc lover

At least the cops didn't crash into someone's house.....

Come on man, you’re starting to remind me of the long lost BoneHeadDoctor. Back when Off-Topic was politics included you couldn’t have a thread about an old car you like without him popping in with some slam on Democrats or liberals or something.

We know you hate cops. You don’t have to bring it into every GDed thread.

cmac2012 · #5 02-20-2022, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autoputzer

My dad was an airplane mechanic and a flight engineer on a piston-engine transport aircraft in the 1950's. He only gave me two pieces of advice about life:

1. As you go through life, whatever may be your goal, keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.

2. Stay the **** away from helicopters.

I’m telling you, the damn things are a rock in the sky and they have a bomb attached. I’ve read that the Huey helicopters in Vietnam war were a serious handful to control.

I am praying to God above that my nephew gets through this. The kid is practically a Greek God. Absolutely the star on his high school football team, eventually went to rugby. He was like 2nd leading scorer on the Central Washington State rugby team that was ranked 6th in the nation. And he’s a babe magnet on top of that.

The dude is driven to be a pilot. He got a bachelors degree in Airport Management. I know, better than Art History I guess. My sister is not poor but learning to be a pilot is expensive. So, this looked like the best thing available in his view. Not sure what options he pursued in terms of flight training in the military.

He worked with me 3 years ago on a remodel job. He had done some carpentry with his brother-in-law, a great guy. I had hopes to break him in to luxury homes, but, no he doesn’t like the work.

I think helicopter is the course he’s on. He doesn’t tell me, he’s never asked me for a word of advice, he doesn’t even tell my sister that much. Strange. His father is a real knucklehead. Fortunately my sister left him.

merc lover · #6 02-20-2022, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Come on man, you’re starting to remind me of the long lost BoneHeadDoctor. Back when Off-Topic was politics included you couldn’t have a thread about an old car you like without him popping in with some slam on Democrats or liberals or something.

We know you hate cops. You don’t have to bring it into every GDed thread.

You have it wrong; I hate stupid moronic behavior kinda like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJfB8EKWoA

Angel · #7 02-21-2022, 08:19 AM

totally agree the helicopters don't fly so much as beat the air into submission.

I've never been in the Army, but in my short time overseas, I saw more Blackhawks, Chinooks and C-130's in the air than anything else.

Kinda jealous of the chopper pilots - Seemed like they were doing the 'grunt work - heavy lifting' of the US military effort. I'd die content if my creator took me back in while I was sitting in that chair. (...and...I know that my spouse+offpsring would be taken care of as well...)

If your nephew ends up in the pilot seat, know that he is doing his country...and fellow soldiers a great service.

Mike D · #8 02-21-2022, 09:41 AM

I have it on good authority from a couple of "fixed wing" pilots I know that helicopters don't "fly", they are so ugly that the Earth repels them!

cmac2012 · #9 02-21-2022, 10:47 AM

They are sort of ugly all right.

What freaks me out, it wouldn’t take much of a mechanical failure for those things to drop like a rock. I’m always a little amazed when I see video the top part of the rotor assembly as it speeds up. I was curious about the numbers, looked it up, the Russian Mi-26 weighs 62,000 pounds and can lift 40,000 pounds. So there is 100,000 pounds suspended from that rotor assembly.

But all of them support a lot of weight relative to the size of the hardware. Obviously it works, at least until it doesn’t.

TimFreeh · #10 02-21-2022, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

They are sort of ugly all right.

What freaks me out, it wouldn’t take much of a mechanical failure for those things to drop like a rock. I’m always a little amazed when I see video the top part of the rotor assembly as it speeds up. I was curious about the numbers, looked it up, the Russian Mi-26 weighs 62,000 pounds and can lift 40,000 pounds. So there is 100,000 pounds suspended from that rotor assembly.

But all of them support a lot of weight relative to the size of the hardware. Obviously it works, at least until it doesn’t.

The physics of what's actually going on inside a helicopter rotor head in flight is nothing short of astonishing. Do a google search on 'dissymmetry of lift' if your interested in the relevant details. When you think about the complexities it's kind of amazing these things don't crash 10-15 times a day.

Another interested problem for rotorcraft pilots of two-bladed setups is 'mast bumping'

Helicopters are very unforgiving of pilot error and the list of mechanical bits that have to be operating correctly to keep them in the air is quite long. It's definitely not the kind of thing you'd want to take into a combat situation.

But their utility keeps them around, you can do things and go place in a rotorcraft that can't be reached by any other machine.

cmac2012 · #11 02-21-2022, 01:29 PM

Well said. I know what you mean about the complexity of the rotor mechanism, but I’m not really well-versed in the details.

In my early teens I put together one of those plastic models of a twin rotor helicopter. Not one of the big Chinooks but the eggbeater type that had intermeshing rotors close to each other. It made good sense because the opposite direction spin counterbalanced so that you didn’t need a rear horizontal rotor.

It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t see much of those later. I did a search and found this. Interesting reading:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellett_XR-8

Quote:

The Kellett XR-8 (later redesignated XH-8) was a helicopter built in the United States during World War II. It was a two-seat machine intended to demonstrate the feasibility of a twin-rotor system, and while it accomplished this, it also demonstrated a number of problems that prevented further development of this particular design.

cmac2012 · #12 02-21-2022, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angel

totally agree the helicopters don't fly so much as beat the air into submission.

I've never been in the Army, but in my short time overseas, I saw more Blackhawks, Chinooks and C-130's in the air than anything else.

Kinda jealous of the chopper pilots - Seemed like they were doing the 'grunt work - heavy lifting' of the US military effort. I'd die content if my creator took me back in while I was sitting in that chair. (...and...I know that my spouse+offpsring would be taken care of as well...)

If your nephew ends up in the pilot seat, know that he is doing his country...and fellow soldiers a great service.

Thank you on his behalf. While I was opposed to the war in Vietnam, I definitely get that military defense is a reality in the world, that conquerors would be all over us if we didn’t have it.

It’s only barely my business, directly anyway, no way was I going to try to talk him out of it, don’t think it would’ve worked anyway. Indirectly, it is definitely my business, I would hate to see anything happen to the young man. Not to sound too proud or hoity-toity, but he is definitely the most impressive of the grandchildren of my father, physically anyway. My dad was one big tough sum bitch. I was not exactly a shrinking violet, but my nephew comes closer to my dad.

And it would of course break my sister’s heart. I was pleased to learn that statistically helicopter pilots don’t fare that much worse than airplane pilots. A little bit, but it’s not like 10 times as dangerous or even close to that.

TimFreeh · #13 02-21-2022, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

I was pleased to learn that statistically helicopter pilots don’t fare that much worse than airplane pilots. A little bit, but it’s not like 10 times as dangerous or even close to that.

Keep in mind that helicopters by their very nature tend to spend a lot of time in high-risk environments. Fixed-wing operations are mostly land and take off on nice runway surfaces and stay well above all the things helicopter pilots have to deal with all the time.

Wires, light poles, cables, power lines trees are all around and typically located right where the helicopter does its business.

So in addition to the mechanical complexities there are operational environment issues as well. I'm surprised its only a little bit more dangerous.

cmac2012 · #14 02-21-2022, 05:12 PM

Good point. What you describe is a lot of why I don’t think an automobile airplane combo will ever take off, no pun intended, in a big way. The chaos of about 100 times or 1000 times as many aircraft in the air as at present would be bizarre. Would not be long before we started having routine in air collisions and on the ground casualties.

I dunno, maybe I’m being a Luddite and there are ways around that, but I have my doubts. No white lines in the sky, no left turn prohibited action.

Autoputzer · #15 02-22-2022, 01:38 AM

Those similar crash rates are between helicopters and general aviation fixed wing aircraft. The data is also skewed by a lot of general aviation pilots being amateurs with limited experience.

One of my guilty pleasures lately is the TV show "Air Disasters" on The Smithsonian Channel. Watching those shows makes me want to drive instead of fly.