Sorry for yet another helicopter thread, but I’ve just come across this video and I wanted to share.
I actually flew that sad bit of wreckage before it became a sad bit of wreckage. I’ve checked my log book, and I last flew it on 23 April, a bit over four months before it crashed.
Three other helicopters I’ve flown have crashed. I showed up for a lesson one day and the instructor was late. Turns out he and a student were practicing ‘full-down’ autorotations and rolled it. One was sold to a buyer in Oregon, and the pilot had get-there-itis. He had to fly it to its new owner, in spite of the worst Winter storms L.A. had seen in a long while. He was forced down into trees somewhere. (I heard he crashed a different helicopter a week later, in similar conditions.) The other one crashed when the pilot made a poor approach to a ridge he wanted to land on, and he couldn’t fly out of the downdraft.
Anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen ol’ One-Sierra-Hotel after it crashed.
N701SH can be seen in the video. We know it crashed. N40009 was the one that hit the ridgeline. N504RS is the one my instructor crashed. But N940SM is apparently alive and well and flying in Alaska.
Looks like I was told some bad information on Sierra-Mike.
And the OP should say ‘a bit over three months before it crashed’; not four months.
There’s a good chance that I was a passenger in this airplane. In college, I got letter from out campus radio station to get credentials for press day at the Paine Field airshow. Just once around the pattern, but it’s the only time I’ve been in an open-cockpit biplane. I’m not absolutely sure it’s the same one, but I may have pictures back at my mom’s place to confirm the tail number. And I think the text on that page is a bit out of date, the plane was hanging at the Udvar-Hazy Center shortly after it opened.
At the Air Force museum in Dayton is a helicopter my dad flew in 'Nam, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some hours in their C-141 as well.
I’ve been to that museum. I struck up a conversation with a guy standing by their F-106. Turned out he was a former crew chief on that airplane, and it had a rather interesting history.
Nothing to add - fascinating topic. I often try to explain to folks that interests breakdown along a spectrum of “Low Shlep” to “High Shlep”- are you into stuff that requires little/no effort or gear, like reading or day hiking, or something that requires a lot of gear and effort, like windsurfing or high-end stereo set-ups?
Johnny, if I’d be an aircraft owner I’d be hesitant to let you get near it, you seem to have the kiss of death. :eek:
What happens is, if the helicopter descends straight down the rotor can get tangled, so to speak, in it’s own downwash, instead of pushing air down to keep the helicopter up, some of the downwash starts to circulate around the edge of the rotor disk, kind of like a donut shape. This causes a loss of lift that in a bad enough case it’s more than what you can compensate by using more power or increasing the collective. The end result is that the helicopter starts to lose altitude.
I flew the PA-28 in the background of this shot many times during my PPL training. Then a group of Army cadets took it out and crashed it, killing all 4 of them and destroying the aircraft.
I was a passenger in BA’s 777 G-YMMM a couple of years before it crashed on approach to Heathrow and was written off (thankfully no fatalities).
In an opposite manner, last year I was on the Qantas 747, VH-OJH, which overran the runway in Bangkok in 1999. There was substantial damage (the figure thrown around at the time was “up to $100 million”), but was repaired rather than being written off.
I have only been on a helicopter once but it was exciting. The operator went over a small mountain and then went straight down on the other side. I was screaming and it felt like a roller coaster ride. I love choppers in the movies too.
I’m sorry to see the chopper bit the big one. Kinda like going to the junk yard and looking at an old wreck you once drove.
I’m sure the last pilot of N701SH thought it was an exciting flight, too.
A helicopter went down in the water yesterday up here, and they’re showing the story on NWCN. They’re saying ‘The pilot hit the wrong lever and shut off the engine.’ Doncha just love it when reporters try to talk about aircraft?
N7069J is a 1970 Bell 47G. (Looks like the MASH* helicopters.) I’m not familiar with their controls. The R22 has the mixture control and the trim control near each other on the console. (The R22 trim is rudimentary; basically a bungee that applies stick pressure to the right. There’s a knob that you pull up or push down to turn right-trim on or off.) Unlike an airplane, helicopters don’t have a flywheel (the prop) to keep the engine turning, so if you over-lean the engine it will stop. The R22 has a short, clear plastic tube that lives on the mixture control so if you accidentally pull the mixture when you mean to pull the trim you end up holding this piece of plastic instead of killing the engine. Low-tech, but it works.
As I said, I’m not familiar with the 47’s controls; but I did find this image showing that the 47 has something that looks like the ‘throttle quadrant’ on some airplanes. (Obviously the throttle isn’t panel-mounted on a helicopter.) I assume the lever with the red knob is the mixture. I don’t know what the longer lever is. If I’m correct, I can see how the pilot may have pulled the mixture inadvertently.
The aircraft lost power at 300 feet and flipped over when it hit the water. The pilot and his wife escaped without serious injury (‘Bruises’, said the reporter). The float-equipped helicopter was shown being towed upside-down by a boat. I looked up the registration, and I see it’s in the Restricted category and had been used in forestry. I wonder why it’s Restricted? ISTM that a 47G should be in the Normal category.
Anyway, I’d like to read the NTSB report. By the time it comes out I’ll have forgotten though.
So I’m transcribing my logbooks into Excel. Before I started helicopters, I mostly flew Cessna Skyhawks. Just for the sake of accuracy, I decided to add the model designator where it was missing; e.g., C-172K instead of just C-172. I came across a registration number of a plane I flew once, and looked it up in the database. The number is not assigned, so I googled it.
N3443E was a Cessna 172N. It crashed into trees in Flagstaff, AZ one year and twelve days after I flew it. There were no or minor injuries to the sole occupant. From the report:
As long as you weren’t in them when they went down it sounds like you’re doing ok
I know this is a bit old – given the settling with power situation – what is the correct pilot action to correct the situation since applying more power/collective doesn’t do it. Pitch down and gain some airspeed to lose the trapped downwash (excuse the highly inaccurate terms).
Lower the collective and increase forward speed. Lowering the collective will reduce the power that is contributing to the vortex ring state, and increasing forward speed flies you out of it. Of course you need to have the altitude to recover, so don’t get into vortex ring state close to the ground.
Not a lot. I’m still transcribing, and I haven’t done the Remarks yet; so I don’t know when we did it. Just going from memory, I think it was demonstrated once and I had to demonstrate one recovery. I think we were at 2,000 or 3,000 feet (which is higher AGL than we usually flew).
Don’t got no problem landing a tricycle gear plane in 25 knot crosswinds.
