Plane lands safely and then wrecks

[FJRocket]

Ok, first of all the guy runs out of gas 3 miles short of his destination. Lands beautifully on a public road. It happens more than you might know (sometimes on purpose). Poor piloting prep and bad decision making in the process, but a happy ending.

Next day, gets permission to take off from the public road. Officials block the street. Then they try to stop the guy in order to have time to move two obstructing vehicles (not with proper "aviation" signals, though). He ignores or doesn't see the officials and attempt a take off, then hits two vehicals and crashes in the woods.

Too bad he didn't have any other pilots there to "spot" for him in the first place. He would have been fine after the first impact, that was just fiberglass. The second impact looked like it not only deformed the wing, but the roof spars in the fuselage. Probably totalled. Glad the guy walked away, though. And glad he didn't have his wife with him on the attempted departure.

There is a long video and a short video if you would care to see the botched take off.

Cessna incident

There is a box that you click two boxes to see both videos. Windows media player should pop up, with a second trouble shooting page as well.

 

[sparky3008]

My step dad has been a pilot for years as an aerial photographer. He has had many stories of the engine going out on the rental planes he uses and had to make emergency landings. In a plane it is not so bad if you are prepared for it as in training but Hellicopters aren't so lucky. They need a minimum altitude and speed to do a safe landing, lower than that and they fall like a brick.

Sure you know this already.

Glad the guys alright. I work with a guy who just sold his personal plane not long ago as he didn't fly much anymore. I have gone out for a few lessons and love doing it but haven't bit the bullet yet and got serious about it. Expensive hobby...

 

[ionbeam]

They need a minimum altitude and speed to do a safe landing  <_<

A 6' pilot with a 32 inch inseam takes off in a helicopter then experiences engine troubles and performs an autorotation landing. The pilot leaves the helicopter with a 32 inch inseam but he is now 5'2" tall.

Alan

 

[sparky3008]

Pilots have a name for it and I can't recall it.

Helicopters need like 300 feet and be traveling at say 15 mph so that if their engine dies then the helicopter can then do like the helicopters you see fall off the trees, they will have enough distance to create some lift. Below this height and speed they will just fall straight down.

 

[sparky3008]

DEAD MAN's CURVE...

What if you do take all the right actions? Suppose that you're up at 4000' and the engine quits. You lower the collective pitch (lever on your left) immediately to flatten the blades and allow them to be driven by the wind through which the helicopter is now falling at 2000 feet-per-minute. You adjust the cyclic (stick in front of you) for about 65 knots of forward speed. You aim for a landing zone. The good news is that you don't need a very large one but the bad news is that the glide ratio is 2:1 instead of an airplane's 10:1 and therefore you don't have as large an area from which to choose. As you get within about 50' from the ground you pull back the cyclic to flare the helicopter and shed most of the forward speed. Just as in an airplane this flare also arrests most of the vertical speed. At the second to last moment you stop flaring and return the helicopter to being parallel to the ground. Ideally at this point you are hovering 5' or so above a soccer field and the blades are still spinning. Finally you raise the collective as the helicopter falls, using the stored energy in the blades against the force of gravity. You land gently on the skids. (In practice the cyclic flare is more important than the "hovering autorotation" at the end; a lot of people walk away from helicopter engine failures if they get the cyclic flare right but can't manage to pull the collective smoothly at the last moment.)

This all sounds good until you look at the "deadman's curve". The marketing literature for helicopters says "if the engine fails, you can autorotate down to a smooth landing." The owner's manual, however, contains a little chart of flight conditions from which it is impossible to landing without at least bending the helicopter. Unfortunately these conditions are the very ones in which nearly all helicopters seem to operate. If you're above 500', for example, you're pretty safe. But TV station helicopters are often lower than that when filming. Flying along at 65 knots is also good but if the camera needs the pilot to hover the helicopter slows to a crawl.

 

[FJRocket]

Quit stealing my thread... :assasin:

If you want to talk about autorotation, go sit on a spike. And twist. :bleh:

JK. Who knows what path these things take. You know, it's a lot like having a real conversation. With ME!

 

[sparky3008]

Sorry, Didn't realize we could only speak about the exact things you stated.

So you wanted replies like, what an ***** or man that sucks.

Ok there you go, feel better. :lol:

 

[FJRottie]

I'll help.

Ha Ha, wot a dum pilot.

I have limited flying experience, but sure would look ahead at my take-off lane.

Maybe he though, "I'll try and clear them cars"

 

[sparky3008]

Looks like he had more room to his left and if he was smart would have ask them to move with only 4 feet of runway to his left and being too tight.

Bad planning...

 

[FJRocket]

Sorry, Didn't realize we could only speak about the exact things you stated.So you wanted replies like, what an ***** or man that sucks.

Ok there you go, feel better. :lol:

Yeah, you're real sorry. I can tell.

The guy had one wheel pretty close to the curbing in the median of the road, so he may have been limited on how far left he could go. Still, a major brain fart.

I have a friend that has clipped hangars 3 times with his plane, and knocked 3 beacons off the top of his tail (going in and out of his own hangar). I don't fly or ride in a car with that guy anymore. He's a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't even want to talk about collapsing spines on helicopter descents. Heard similar stories about jet jocks getting shorter when they eject. I think the military only lets you do it twice, then you don't fly any more. What are the chances of that these days?

 

[BlueWing]

I always hate to see good equipment damaged! He might want to have his vision checked. :angry: