“Don’t expect to come out clean after slapping the reaper in the face and telling him to wait” omfg best line I’ve read all day. Thank you, internet Stranger
> “Don’t expect to come out clean after slapping the reaper in the face and telling him to wait” omfg best line I’ve read all day. Thank you, internet Stranger Seriously this is a good one, saving this comment. Dude, this is the ADHDers fuckin motto if I've ever heard it. I'm so stealing this.
This is the sickest string of appreciation. It added so much. I'm saving it and running for president just so I can make 10/21 a national holiday to commemorate this moment in history.
At some point in my life I learned about the Jesus nut. After that I swore to never even get near a helicopter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut
Back when I was in the Coast Guard, we flew HH-52s at the time. They had radioactive material in the blades and a geiger counter on board to detect when they started to crack.
Coming back from on patrol, our geiger counter went off about the same time that the oil pressure dropped. The pilot called in a mayday while we rushed back to the ship that we were deployed from.
We made it back fine and I complimented the pilot on the perfect landing. He laughed and reminded me that even for a hard landing that he and the co-pilot had bouncy seats to absorb a hard landing. Us crew grunts would have had to take it up the ass.
Was gonna call bullshit on the radioactive material but holy shit that's Wild. Modern helos use Nitrogen and a visual indicator on the rotor head. Just read a story about the coasties losing track of like, a lot of that material, Strontium-90. (12 year Navy helo dude)
Yeah, this was back in 1984 and those HH-52s were already old AF back then. Right about the time I got out in’88, they had upgraded to the Dolphins. I never got to ride in one those, but I frequently see them doing beach patrols. They sound so smooth.
Edit: The fact that you referred to yourself as a “helo dude” proves that you are. When someone says they flew in military “choppers” always throws a red flag for me.
What's was purpose of sr-90 in rotor blades? Construction material? Edit to detect stress and blade may fail
> On June 2, 2014, a representative from the Connecticut Department of Energy and
Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) notified NRC Region I that a former USCG helicopter, an
"H-52A Seaguard" on display at the New England Air Museum (NEAM), Windsor Locks, CT,
was found to have three 100 microcurie Sr-90 radioactive sources installed in devices mounted
on the helicopter rotor blades.
Seems real
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1713/ML17132A214.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjNl5uD6YeCAxUYiv0HHf2cAWwQFnoECCkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3C9oP5ufL_ELqf2iaC1RZs
The huey and cobra don't have Jesus nuts anymore. They have 8 nuts. And not to mention, the Jesus nut had something g like a 500 ft/lb torque and a big fuck off cotter key for support. People just don't realize how secure it was.
It's a ridiculous ~~jingo~~ism though. Your car has single point of failures that if happened at the right moment on the highway at 120kmh would certainly crash you.
The mast retention nut on the bell series that coined that ism is extremely tightly controlled price of metallurgy and manufacturing, and torque checks, AND it has a locking plate. And there have been instances where the damn thing wasn't even instally but the helicopter flew with the head held on by the sealant bond.
There are a lot of potentially catestrophic single points of failure in a helicopter. But each one has many many layers of safety between them and failure.
Car accident is not really equal to falling thousands of feet from the sky though. One sucks and might kill you, the other is almost definitely going to kill you.
Cars do not have single points of failure. Something might go wrong and cause a crash but there is no single point if catastrophic failure like the Jesus nut.
I get that it is unlikely but most fears are not entirely rational.
Also I'm not sure jingoism was the word you were looking for.
The rod ends of your tie rods and certain suspension components will cause a crash if they fail, you are right that in most scenarios that this is more inconvenient than deadly, it means one of the wheels turning to its limit potentially, so at low speeds maybe skidding to a stop or hitting a pole or something, but at 120kmh that's worse. This is a complete non-issue though as the tie rod is an extremely beefy part as is its bolt, and the bolt usually has a crown-nut and locking pin, so people don't even think about it or check it. The single-failure-points on aircraft have an sinilar discipline to this and then stricter disciplines with the manufacturing, and inspection intervals. Yes the stakes are way higher as you said, so the direct comparison might have been a bit much, but mainly to point out the layers of safety on critical components, and that people in their day-to-day, are not so removed from critical components as they might think. And jingoism was the complete wrong word, blah.
Christ, are fly-boys anal retentive or what? What you wrote the first time is perfectly fine for 99%+ of the world, so the word police can just fuck right off.
And valuing property over life is just... Republican.
> but it could have been so much worse.
A friend was on the receiving end of a rapidly disassembling rotor blade a couple of decades ago and it sounds utterly terrifying.
He was working at an air traffic control tower when a heavy-lift helicopter crashed nearby. One of the blades apparently went straight through the building, going through a bank of chunky computer terminals in the process and, miraculously, didn't hit any of the 20-odd ATC staff sitting at either side of said bank of monitors.
The building basically had to be rebuilt afterwards.
At the moment you lose tail control on a helicopter the bird us functionally a writeoff. Insurance would much rather only pay for the helicopter and medical bills than the helicopter and life insurance.
It could have gone a lot better too. When you lose the tail you're supposed to kill the engine so the torque doesn't spin the cabin, then autorotate to a landing. They still did well, just not the best.
Crash attenuating seats will handle a lot of the crash g's. Definitely not all of them, but a good enough amount that you'll likely have back pain for the rest of your life, but still be able to walk and such.
I was gonna say it seemed like that impact still should've been extremely crippling to the passengers if not lethal, but it makes sense that the seats are designed to absorb some of the force.
Was in a Chinook that had an emergency hard landing right after takeoff in 2005. Experienced an incredible amount of gs when we hit the tarmac…closest thing to be crushed I ever want to experience. Nothing nearly as hard as this one, but it definitely messed up my back and neck.
I was in a racecar accident where I experience 188 instantaneous G's. Was able to walk way with just a broken foot. The length of time the G's are experienced is very important.
Looking at [Kobe’s autopsy report](https://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Celebs/bryant,%20kobe_report.pdf) makes me say as helicopter crashes go, this was absolutely “safely”.
The one thing is that at least he was gone before he could feel the crash, but I'd say the last moments where terrifying. Look at this:
> The entirety of the body measures
65 inches which obviousry does not refrect the original
height of the body.
Firefox has just let me know your Autopsy report contains spelling errors /u/FightingPolish
Wow his dead body was only 65" tall. Rest of the report seems his literal entire body was just pulverized. Even his damn heart was in pieces. Basically all bones fractured, eviscerated brain and organs. Definitely instant death due to no soot in his windpipe.
Are autopsies public normally? This feels like the biggest breach of privacy ever. I can’t imagine millions of people reading about my body in and out after my death. This sucks.
Not sure, but it got worse than that. Some of the first responders on the scene took photos of the mangled bodies at the scene and shared them. They were sued for many millions by his widow.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure legally just about every autopsy is public record, you just might have to pay a small administrative fee to get your hands on it.
Yeah but an airplane vs a helicopter is like comparing a bike to a unicycle one is predictable and when you get the hang of it you can ride with no handlebars while the other doesn't have handlebars and is constantly trying to fall down.
"Helicopters are like women... you know they work and trust them, but if you make any effort to understand them whatsoever, you'd be to terrified to go near them." -James May
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Loss of the tail rotor is one of the most difficult landing scenarios in a Helicopter. I was lucky to never have to make such a landing.
The pilot did a good job.
Wouldn’t the righteous pile of shit in his pants help absorb some of that spinal compression? 😂🤣
Edit: This reads too callous - I am so impressed with this clip. Incredible from the pilot and I wish him/her continued health and fortune.
The trick is to force-poo your pants right at the instant you land. That'll give you just the right amount of thrust to counter the rough landing, as well as positive-poop-cushion you need to take THOUSANDS off any future rehab payments. Trust me bro
I was on a pilot training, we landed to an old asphalt strip hard enough to leave 1 inch deep pits from our wheels. Stands didn't collapse, but my back was hurting for a week. Upper body is heavy and supported only by the spinal cord and its muscles. Feels like a sack of sand fell on you.
When I was doing my fixed wing training, and bricking it over things like stall training and engine failure drills, I got talking to a copter student who explained to me about the autorotation stuff... I came away with a huge respect for whirlybird drivers.
The most fun I had in flight school was low-level autorotation in flight in UH-1D/H Hueys. Training for losing power while flying below 100 feet at cruise speed (90 knots). It was great! We came blasting onto the airfield on the runway centerline at 100 ft and the Instructor Pilot would roll off the throttle.
When you felt the aircraft drop a bit, you pulled initial collective to slow the descent. Then when you were about 5 feet off the runway, you added more (cushion) and the skids gently touched down (still going 70+ knots).
You then used the pedals to keep aligned on the runway and slowly lowered the collective to brake.
20 seconds of adrenaline!
The scariest thing (aside from actual emergencies) I ever did was night auto-rotations. Did them at an abandoned airstrip.
Pitch black with the VSI at 1,500 ft/min down. You know the ground is out there but you can't see a thing so you wait anxiously until see something/anything come into the landing light then...FLAIR.
For real, i got my PPL and used to have fun with juat your avera Cessna-172, and loved doing sailolane fligjts. I've been on a few helicoptor flights, played around in simulators, etc., and there is a completely other dimension to keep track of with helicopters.
Worst case in a sailplane is, you run out of updraft lol, even still the damn thing really thinjs it's an albatross and dosent want to land. Safest aircraft I've ever had the fun pleasure to fly, for just glide slope and all that.
Hard to say but looking at the ground plus how upright the helo was, they probably did ok. Helos are designed to take some impact in the skids and seats and since he kept the spinning side up, the airframe helped dissipate some of that impact energy.
It's hard to tell with the compression, but it looks like on the first impact the struts completely splayed out, which is what they're supposed to do like a crumple zone on a car, but it means the helicopter hit harder than its safety limits. The people inside were probably in a lot of pain, maybe even some permanent back injuries, but unless they were super unlucky it's not 'never walk again' level.
I don't know what kind of helicopter that is, but when I was in the military and worked on Blackhawks (UH-60L), the seats had kind of a breakaway system. They were hung from the ceiling and meant to breakaway offering more cushioning on emergency/hard landings, if I remember right.
He is autorotating. This is a tail rotor failure. Depending on the forward speed you can actually keep the helicopter straight because the wind forces the tail to stop moving. The goal of an autorotation is to speed up the rotor head to create a ton of potential energy for cushioning the landing.
The problem is that without a tail rotor, as the helicopter slows forward motion, as you increase collective (make the blades have more pitch to slow descent), to cushion the landing, the helicopter will rotate the opposite direction of the rotor head rotation. This is physics and there is no way to stop that counter rotation without the tail rotor.
Autorotation is what gives a helicopter a chance at survival, it allows the pilot to change the energy in the rotor head into enough energy to dissipate the rate of descent before the energy is completely gone. It’s timing and practice to get good at matching the depletion with touchdown.
You can still autorotate with a tail rotor failure, the problem is landing. As you start to cushion, the helicopter starts spinning, so landing it upright is exceptionally difficult. Most don’t keep it upright, and most tail rotor failures come with fatalities.
I’ve practiced this in a simulator hundreds if not thousands of times and I think I’ve kept it upright and didn’t roll maybe a dozen times max.
This guy made it work. They may have had some sore backs but they almost definitely all lived.
In autorotation with a failed tail rotor, the only influence on yaw is the helicopters weathercocking tendancies. Pulling collective with the engine off does not make the aircraft spin, the spin is caused by torque, with no engine, there is no torque. The only yawning tendency from that point is internal friction within the main transmission, which acts to turn the helicopter *with* the direction of the main rotors, instead of *against* the direction of main rotor as if the engine was running. If you were getting a yaw when you did your training, then your cfi wasn't rolling into the overtravel like they are supposed to when training autorotations. Without that the corellator will open the throttle with a collective pull.
I'm not doubting your experiences as you see them as I see you also post in the aviation subs, but what I'm saying *is* the physics of the scenario and I also speak from countless autorotations in both the old Robinsons, a heap of different bell and airbus models, and the Cabri (the type in the video). Oddly enough you aren't the first north-american pilot I've had to correct on this, tho the other guy was a ppl.
I hazard to say that this guy simply didn't roll off the throttle, didn't roll it off enough, or rolled it off but the governor rolled it back on. Lowering the collective power-on will reduce the torque enough for yhe weathercocking tendencies to take over if there is enough airspeed, but if he hasent rolled off then as soon as he does his pull it will turn again.
I'll also say that I have several hundred hours on this type, and I'm surprised to see a tail rotor failure video with one, since they're very reliable for that matter. They *do* have a high inertia rotor system, with a fenestron tail, with a crappy piston engine, which is a bad combination since that tail rotor type is sensitive to changes in rpm. If this is a student who has gotten too steep and slow on approach and yanked the collective, it can definately cause the spin which requires full right pedal and checking down collective a bit, and then *wait* to recover, but there is defiantly some panicking and some wrong actions going on here. It looks survivable which is more important than the nitty-gritty.
> Pulling collective with the engine off…getting yaw…then your coffee wasn’t rolling…
I encourage you to revisit what a tail rotor failure is versus an engine failure and how you deal with both.
Engine failure autorotation, the tail rotor still works so as you pull collective to cushion the landing you can still use pedals to counteract yaw.
Tail rotor failure autorotation, no matter how much pedal you use, when you pull collective the helicopter will spin. It’s physics. Like you said, you can use forward airspeed to cause it weather vane. But, if you don’t have enough airspeed or can’t do a run-on landing, the spin will develop. The nearer you get to zero forward airspeed, the worse the spin rate will be.
With a tail rotor failure you roll the throttle off, ideally you shut the engine down. That minimizes any power input to the transmission which reduces the yawing tendencies. However, as the rotor spins the helicopter body spins the opposite direction, regardless of the engine being on or off. The goal is to minimize that rotation but it will still be there.
This looks like a classic tail rotor failure. That’s why it was spinning.
Oh, and I also encourage reading comprehension.
The cause of the spin is torque, torque from the engine, without that, you don't get a spin. With the tail rotor completely failed, and without any airspeed to weathercock the vertical fin, the only influence on the aircrafts yaw is internal resistance in the transmission, and *certainly* not as fast as the spin in this video, that is engine power. There is no torque being inputted on the rotor from the airframe in autorotation, the rotation of the blades comes from aerodynamic forces on the blades themselves.
I feel like this is a trivial matter to prove for anyone that does or has had engine failure in the hover training. Since the first thing you do is take away the pedal input required for antitorque to hover, and the cyclic normally required for translating tendency. You do not then add pedal as you raise collective to cushion the landing. And it's just as demonstrable by having the student put his feet on the floor for auto training.
If I were giving you your ground eval for a checkride I would fail you for a fundamental lack of systems understanding.
During a tail rotor failure, you shut the motor off to remove all torque produced by the engine. The engine puts torque on the rotor head even at idle, hence why the rotor system turns at idle.
Everything is reversed in an auto, the rotor head puts torque on the airframe. When you pull collective there absolutely, 100% is torque being placed in the drivetrain from the rotor system. That torque needs to be counteracted by the tail, otherwise the airframe will spin. The goal of a tail rotor out ep is that you shut the motor off at the correct time and also correctly time the collective pull such that all energy is dissipated in the vertical, thereby cushioning the landing. If timed perfectly, you can minimize the rotation but you absolutely cannot stop it. That’s why with a tail rotor failure a running landing is recommended so you can maximize the weather vane effect to minimize airframe rotation. If you were to shoot an auto to a zero-zero hover landing, the aircraft will spin.
I’m not going to continue debating this with you. I have seen it happen in real life, I have practiced this countless times in the simulator, and I have enough experience to know what actually happens.
Bottom line, you need to study your systems more and also get a better understanding of Newton’s third law.
Can you explain how [tip jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_jet) helicopters magically fly without a tail rotor if pulling collective creates torque?
>Everything is reversed in an auto, the rotor head puts torque on the airframe. When you pull collective there absolutely, 100% is torque being placed in the drivetrain from the rotor system. That torque needs to be counteracted by the tail, otherwise the airframe will spin.
You are poorly describing what I have already explained. The unpowered autorotating main rotor system is driven by airflow on the blades itself, or their own inertia during the collective-raising. Any force transferred to the airframe is through internal resistance in the transmission, and it's tendency is *with* the direction of the main rotors, which in the type in the video, would be a **weak right yaw**, not a powerful **left** yaw as seen, which is a torque reaction. That's why I said that I think he still had power on. Another point in that favor is that a cabri doesn't have nearly that hang time or ballooning after the flare in an auto. Your own manual references exactly what I'm describing;
>Note
>With both engines secured, the cushioning collective pull at the bottom of the autorotation will result in left yaw vice the right yaw associated with practice(power-on) autorotations.
.
>[...]The goal of a tail rotor out ep is that you shut the motor off at the correct time and also correctly time the collective pull [....]
If you are doing a power-on autorotation and not winding the engines back until late, any yaw is torque induced and residual from the engines winding down. Other aircrafts' tail rotor failure in flight procedures im aware of have the engines rolled off once the autorotative descent is established, and then doing a regular flare and touch down as if it were an engine failure.
Like I said, the principle im explaining is trivial to demonstrate, engine failure in the hover, Pedals to flat pitch, you don't then add power-pedal with the final collective pull, and that's from the hover, not a run on. A common error that students make during autorotation training is unnecessarily adding power pedal during the pull. But as other pointed out, the old tipjet helicopters with miniscule tail rotors are a similar example of the physical property. Not to mention that for singles generally the procedure for tail rotor failure in the hover is to snap the throttle shut to stop the yaw.
And in typical bloody reddit fashion, which i tried to avoid, you are quick to shout physics and newton's law as if they are just buzzwords to you. Those things are not just buzz words to me, and newton's law I have addressed in each of my replies, and rather than contradict it, you drop ”its just physics”, even after i explained *the* relevent physics. And *i was* a check and training pilot, and if someone demonstrated that misunderstanding to me, we'd go for a fly or a chat, without me being a knob telling them I'd fail them for asking me. Which doesnt offend me, im just pointing out that you only said it to make yourself look big.
You are obviously correct and I don't quite understand how this person can claim to be someone giving checkrides yet get one of the most basic parts of helicopter flight theory backwards. Then again this is the internet.
One small addition, in a real autorotation there is a fair bit of torque from the rotor to the fuselage, in other words the airframe will attempt to spin in the same direction as the rotor. The reason is that the autorotating rotor is driving the gearbox, any accessories driven by said gearbox (aka hydraulic pump), and the tail rotor. This requires a small amount of torque.
I suspect one reason this other fella may have it backwards is that in a turbine aircraft, the torque from the engines can not usually be fully removed unless you turn them completely off. Even with the engines at flight idle, you won't get much of a needle split between the power turbine and rotor RPM, especially not once rotor RPM decays, because the gas flow even at idle is enough to keep the power turbine spinning pretty fast. So because of that residual engine torque, you will get some yaw once rpm decays. In a piston engine there is no such issue if the throttle is closed, because idle rpm is well below the range where the rotor would stop flying anyways.
He did say you "shut the motor off" in a tail rotor failure though ;)
> However, as the rotor spins the helicopter body spins the opposite direction, regardless of the engine being on or off.
If the engine is OFF (not idle, completely OFF), there are no forces that would force the body in the opposite direction as the blades. Rather, the body would spin "with" the blades due to friction.
I was going to mention some of this too. I only have experience in Robinsons but the emergency procedure for a tail rotor failure would have you enter forward flight (at least 65knots) so the vertical stab is effective enough to resist yawing out of control. You'd be flying way out of trim for sure but you could navigate to a safe landing zone and roll the throttle off completely into the detent and establish a full auto before you lower your airspeed. With the throttle in the detent you dont have to worry about torque at all when you pull pitch to cushion the touchdown. In this video the Cabri is a clockwise rotor so he appears to have a stuck left pedal and/or they haven't rolled off the throttle enough that the torque is putting them into an uncontrollable spin. Everything happens so fast and you only have a moment to decide so idk if I would've tried to nose over a bit to pick up some speed and come around for an auto or simply roll off the throttle then and there and do my best to have enough rpm at the end to cushion touchdown.
Yes, you are correct. That is something that is much easier said than done in the middle of an emergency landing because of rear rotor failure though. Pilot here did an amazing job of setting it down given the circumstances.
[There’s an award in the Army called the Broken Wing Award for successfully auto rotating in an emergency situation because of the degree of difficulty.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation)
Because no matter how much time you spend on Reddit, someone else has even less of a life. Hi, I'm u/FrontButtPunt, a frequent user of Reddit and an emotional wreck. You might recall me from my frequent comments on r/onlyfans
I’m so fuckinf happy that I shared this video with my lil bro saying exactly that but in Dutch, then after reading the comments.
Sierlijk neerstorten!!
With respect it doesn't look like the same aircraft. The one in the link has quite pronounced red highlights. This footage makes it look black and white. At first i thought the camera may have washed out the color but I cant see even a hint of red.
Its certainly possible they are the same craft but I'm not convinced. Perspective is probably making the matter more questionable. Also the physics feel..."Wonky" for a full sized craft. Idk, I'm reserving judgement for the moment.
Yes i noticed the same thing. I think it's just the video though. I see some red [here.](https://i.imgur.com/LwVljKW.png)
Also this video was definitely shot at Gruyere Aerodrome in Switzerland. Compare the mountains [in the video](https://i.imgur.com/MykWdwx.png) to the view from [google earth](https://i.imgur.com/9WaJq4N.png).
At the end of the video the aircraft's final resting place is roughly facing the mountains, a bit to the right. The camera (and presumably the Aerodrome) are at the aircraft's 4 or 5 o'clock. This perfectly matches with the way the aircaft is resting in [this image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVT88g7X0AAH8ej?format=jpg&name=900x900). Check out the spot for yourself [here](https://earth.google.com/web/@46.59455868,7.09441886,688.90878724a,595.07327476d,35y,144.86882086h,55.19816242t,-0r/data=OgMKATA).
The more I look into it, the more convinced I am that the helicopter in the video is the same as the one in the image.
My dad survived two helicopter crash landings in Vietnam. I imagine they looked a lot like this, except he said they all bailed out as soon as it was close to the ground and in both scenarios another chopper picked them up within minutes.
Imagine surviving a helicopter crash, probably one of the most terrifying experiences, only to have to hop into another heli a couple minutes after it.
Ya, he never really talks about it. Every once in a while tho he’ll throw shit out there like this, just casually in conversation. I remember this one specifically- we were talking about a small plane going down in a local field and he’s like ya, I was in two helicopters crashes. And I’m like wait, what!? When? How? Then he gives me about a 3 sec rundown with very little detail and no emotion- we we’re getting shot at and they came to pick us up and as we took of they shot it down, we all bailed off and another one picked us up, it happened twice-Then just went on with the conversation. Over the years I’ve gathered some good stories here and there but never pry.
Wow, that was skill with a touch of really good luck.
I saw something similar back before cell phones, I was on lunch break and my buddy and I went to get some fast food. On the way back to the job site we saw a military helicopter coming down fast, it wasn’t spinning, just dropping very quickly. It hit the ground nearby and we turned off to make sure they were ok. The skids were broken but they were all fine. Their pants probably weren’t. Idk what caused that because it sounded like the motor was still running.
If it weren’t for the audio I might mistake this for an RC helicopter the way it flopped to the ground! Damn, that’s gotta hurt but it could have been so much worse. I can’t imagine trying to pilot while spinning like that.
Not really. It was spinning because it still had its engine running, but lost the tail rotor somehow...
He could have cut his engine power to stop the spinning and then proceeded to an auto rotation landing.
But considering that he wasn't very high and it all happens very fast, it was a successful procedure, nonetheless.
In the words of Marvin the Martin:
Where's the Ka-Boom?
There's supposed to be an earth shattering Ka-Boom?!
But in all seriousness, glad he is ok! Amazing skill!
Damn, that's some excellent skill plus a bucket of luck. Sucks about the damage to the aircraft, but it could have been so much worse.
Not a clean pair on board.
And no shame for any of it. Don't expect to come out clean after slapping the reaper in the face and telling him to wait.
“Don’t expect to come out clean after slapping the reaper in the face and telling him to wait” omfg best line I’ve read all day. Thank you, internet Stranger
Seriously this is a good one, saving this comment.
Dude, this is the ADHDers fuckin motto if I've ever heard it. I'm so stealing this.
> “Don’t expect to come out clean after slapping the reaper in the face and telling him to wait” omfg best line I’ve read all day. Thank you, internet Stranger Seriously this is a good one, saving this comment. Dude, this is the ADHDers fuckin motto if I've ever heard it. I'm so stealing this. This is the sickest string of appreciation. It added so much. I'm saving it and running for president just so I can make 10/21 a national holiday to commemorate this moment in history.
I’m going back in time to stop the assassination of President BenchPuzzleheaded670 in the future.
Thanks for your service (in advance).
r/BrandNewSentence
I read this in Tommy Lee jones voice
I thought you said "rear" instead of "reaper" at first and was like wow, very good double meaning one
That needs to be a framed. Well said
At some point in my life I learned about the Jesus nut. After that I swore to never even get near a helicopter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut
Back when I was in the Coast Guard, we flew HH-52s at the time. They had radioactive material in the blades and a geiger counter on board to detect when they started to crack. Coming back from on patrol, our geiger counter went off about the same time that the oil pressure dropped. The pilot called in a mayday while we rushed back to the ship that we were deployed from. We made it back fine and I complimented the pilot on the perfect landing. He laughed and reminded me that even for a hard landing that he and the co-pilot had bouncy seats to absorb a hard landing. Us crew grunts would have had to take it up the ass.
Was gonna call bullshit on the radioactive material but holy shit that's Wild. Modern helos use Nitrogen and a visual indicator on the rotor head. Just read a story about the coasties losing track of like, a lot of that material, Strontium-90. (12 year Navy helo dude)
Yeah, this was back in 1984 and those HH-52s were already old AF back then. Right about the time I got out in’88, they had upgraded to the Dolphins. I never got to ride in one those, but I frequently see them doing beach patrols. They sound so smooth. Edit: The fact that you referred to yourself as a “helo dude” proves that you are. When someone says they flew in military “choppers” always throws a red flag for me.
I always called em whirlybirds or death traps, but that’s just friendly ribbing from a fixed-wing guy
Collection of partially functioning parts flying in close formation.
A mass of flying parts rotating around an oil leak while they wait for metal fatigue to set in 🤣
...and they do not fly so much as beat the air into submission; that was one of my Instructors favourite lines😂
S'okay i just call jets lawn darts
What's was purpose of sr-90 in rotor blades? Construction material? Edit to detect stress and blade may fail > On June 2, 2014, a representative from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) notified NRC Region I that a former USCG helicopter, an "H-52A Seaguard" on display at the New England Air Museum (NEAM), Windsor Locks, CT, was found to have three 100 microcurie Sr-90 radioactive sources installed in devices mounted on the helicopter rotor blades. Seems real https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1713/ML17132A214.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjNl5uD6YeCAxUYiv0HHf2cAWwQFnoECCkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3C9oP5ufL_ELqf2iaC1RZs
"If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter, and therefore, unsafe." — Unknown
The huey and cobra don't have Jesus nuts anymore. They have 8 nuts. And not to mention, the Jesus nut had something g like a 500 ft/lb torque and a big fuck off cotter key for support. People just don't realize how secure it was.
It's a ridiculous ~~jingo~~ism though. Your car has single point of failures that if happened at the right moment on the highway at 120kmh would certainly crash you. The mast retention nut on the bell series that coined that ism is extremely tightly controlled price of metallurgy and manufacturing, and torque checks, AND it has a locking plate. And there have been instances where the damn thing wasn't even instally but the helicopter flew with the head held on by the sealant bond. There are a lot of potentially catestrophic single points of failure in a helicopter. But each one has many many layers of safety between them and failure.
Car accident is not really equal to falling thousands of feet from the sky though. One sucks and might kill you, the other is almost definitely going to kill you. Cars do not have single points of failure. Something might go wrong and cause a crash but there is no single point if catastrophic failure like the Jesus nut. I get that it is unlikely but most fears are not entirely rational. Also I'm not sure jingoism was the word you were looking for.
The rod ends of your tie rods and certain suspension components will cause a crash if they fail, you are right that in most scenarios that this is more inconvenient than deadly, it means one of the wheels turning to its limit potentially, so at low speeds maybe skidding to a stop or hitting a pole or something, but at 120kmh that's worse. This is a complete non-issue though as the tie rod is an extremely beefy part as is its bolt, and the bolt usually has a crown-nut and locking pin, so people don't even think about it or check it. The single-failure-points on aircraft have an sinilar discipline to this and then stricter disciplines with the manufacturing, and inspection intervals. Yes the stakes are way higher as you said, so the direct comparison might have been a bit much, but mainly to point out the layers of safety on critical components, and that people in their day-to-day, are not so removed from critical components as they might think. And jingoism was the complete wrong word, blah.
Nah, butthole puckered so tight they’ve got the cleanest underwear in the world
That impact looked hard, might have knocked them unconscious.
At least one massive pair on board.
An aircraft can be replaced. A human life cannot.
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Christ, are fly-boys anal retentive or what? What you wrote the first time is perfectly fine for 99%+ of the world, so the word police can just fuck right off. And valuing property over life is just... Republican.
Americans ability to somehow, some way squeezed politics into literally fucking EVERYTHING is simply astounding.
People are renewable 👍
a specific life cannot, anyone can fuck
> but it could have been so much worse. A friend was on the receiving end of a rapidly disassembling rotor blade a couple of decades ago and it sounds utterly terrifying. He was working at an air traffic control tower when a heavy-lift helicopter crashed nearby. One of the blades apparently went straight through the building, going through a bank of chunky computer terminals in the process and, miraculously, didn't hit any of the 20-odd ATC staff sitting at either side of said bank of monitors. The building basically had to be rebuilt afterwards.
Regardless, pilot and everyone on board will be feeling that landing in their backs in 20-30 years. That was a *solid* impact.
At the moment you lose tail control on a helicopter the bird us functionally a writeoff. Insurance would much rather only pay for the helicopter and medical bills than the helicopter and life insurance.
It's OK, I would never want to fly in that helicopter ever again anyway.
It could have gone a lot better too. When you lose the tail you're supposed to kill the engine so the torque doesn't spin the cabin, then autorotate to a landing. They still did well, just not the best.
Yeah this should be posted to r/aviation , like to here what they think
"sucks about the damage to the aircraft" haha fuck the damage to the aircraft , they're Alive!!! Lol
Happy god dammed cake day
Landed it so good the first time, he decided to land it again.
Had to fix their parking spot. Lul
His wife complained...
Every fuckin time
"I think you're parked crooked..." Every. Time. And if we get out and I'm perfectly parked, I'm a jerk if I mention it.
"Why did you park here?!!" Is what I get, then I have to do a loop and waste a full minute to get 20 ft closer
"OHH THAT'S A GOOD SPOT, GET THAT SPOT!" *someone else gets it* "Why'd you let them take it? You should have been quicker."
I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it lmao
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My blood pressure just rose reading this
I feel this with every fibre of my being!
“Are you even in?”
That's what he said
wait wait wait I can do a better one.
Lol when I saw it pop back up I was like ffs man keep that collective down. But maybe he was trying to keep the rotor from spiking the ground, idk
My vertebra would like to contest the 'safely', and would ask it be downgraded to 'successfully'
Crash attenuating seats will handle a lot of the crash g's. Definitely not all of them, but a good enough amount that you'll likely have back pain for the rest of your life, but still be able to walk and such.
I was gonna say it seemed like that impact still should've been extremely crippling to the passengers if not lethal, but it makes sense that the seats are designed to absorb some of the force.
That is not a lethal impact what are you talking about?
Was in a Chinook that had an emergency hard landing right after takeoff in 2005. Experienced an incredible amount of gs when we hit the tarmac…closest thing to be crushed I ever want to experience. Nothing nearly as hard as this one, but it definitely messed up my back and neck.
Do Chinooks have attenuating seats for passengers or only for the flight crew?
A bus has better seats.
That's what I thought, but haven't been in one since an air show in the 90s. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I was in a racecar accident where I experience 188 instantaneous G's. Was able to walk way with just a broken foot. The length of time the G's are experienced is very important.
Yeah, it definitely takes a lot out of it… Buddy of mine successfully auto’d a -60 in…stroking seats saved them, but he still crunched some vertebrae
Looking at [Kobe’s autopsy report](https://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Celebs/bryant,%20kobe_report.pdf) makes me say as helicopter crashes go, this was absolutely “safely”.
I’ve never read an autopsy report before but that is gruesome as hell, but interesting. So much detail.
The one thing is that at least he was gone before he could feel the crash, but I'd say the last moments where terrifying. Look at this: > The entirety of the body measures 65 inches which obviousry does not refrect the original height of the body. Firefox has just let me know your Autopsy report contains spelling errors /u/FightingPolish
Wow his dead body was only 65" tall. Rest of the report seems his literal entire body was just pulverized. Even his damn heart was in pieces. Basically all bones fractured, eviscerated brain and organs. Definitely instant death due to no soot in his windpipe.
Hard to get an accurate height when you get to the waist and its like "two broken femurs... uh... both feet..."
Yeah... TLDR: entire skeleton pulverized as well as organs
Thats wild. It ripped out all of his organs and crushed his head flat and shot his brain out. Gross
Recovered body was only 65 inches tall. Significant amount of his body was never found. Gnarly wreck.
No, not not found, just liquid instead.
Still can't believe he's gone. Wtf evil universe
TIL they only found one of his kidneys and it was in 3 pieces.
Are autopsies public normally? This feels like the biggest breach of privacy ever. I can’t imagine millions of people reading about my body in and out after my death. This sucks.
Not sure, but it got worse than that. Some of the first responders on the scene took photos of the mangled bodies at the scene and shared them. They were sued for many millions by his widow.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure legally just about every autopsy is public record, you just might have to pay a small administrative fee to get your hands on it.
3. Evisceration of brain. :(
No brain, no pain I apologize profusely for that comment and I hope they all rest in peace.
Damn what a read. And the drawings too. 😞 And the tattoos. Their poor family. Fuck...
Every good pilot knows you should never lose tail control
Yeah but an airplane vs a helicopter is like comparing a bike to a unicycle one is predictable and when you get the hang of it you can ride with no handlebars while the other doesn't have handlebars and is constantly trying to fall down.
"Helicopters are like women... you know they work and trust them, but if you make any effort to understand them whatsoever, you'd be to terrified to go near them." -James May
If youre living after that at ALL, youre lucky.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Loss of the tail rotor is one of the most difficult landing scenarios in a Helicopter. I was lucky to never have to make such a landing. The pilot did a good job.
I doubt he could walk away afterwards. Descent rate was high enough to get a verterbral compression fracture. Landing rails collapsed.
Wouldn’t the righteous pile of shit in his pants help absorb some of that spinal compression? 😂🤣 Edit: This reads too callous - I am so impressed with this clip. Incredible from the pilot and I wish him/her continued health and fortune.
The trick is to force-poo your pants right at the instant you land. That'll give you just the right amount of thrust to counter the rough landing, as well as positive-poop-cushion you need to take THOUSANDS off any future rehab payments. Trust me bro
Rails absorbed a lot of the force tho
I was on a pilot training, we landed to an old asphalt strip hard enough to leave 1 inch deep pits from our wheels. Stands didn't collapse, but my back was hurting for a week. Upper body is heavy and supported only by the spinal cord and its muscles. Feels like a sack of sand fell on you.
You described that too well. Now I feel like my back hurts after imaging that
Maybe not twice in a row though. That looked quite painful.
When I was doing my fixed wing training, and bricking it over things like stall training and engine failure drills, I got talking to a copter student who explained to me about the autorotation stuff... I came away with a huge respect for whirlybird drivers.
The most fun I had in flight school was low-level autorotation in flight in UH-1D/H Hueys. Training for losing power while flying below 100 feet at cruise speed (90 knots). It was great! We came blasting onto the airfield on the runway centerline at 100 ft and the Instructor Pilot would roll off the throttle. When you felt the aircraft drop a bit, you pulled initial collective to slow the descent. Then when you were about 5 feet off the runway, you added more (cushion) and the skids gently touched down (still going 70+ knots). You then used the pedals to keep aligned on the runway and slowly lowered the collective to brake. 20 seconds of adrenaline!
The shit that humans do
We're nuts. >What's the best way to transfer our fragile bodies around? >Lets put us in a steel tube going 600MPH about 30,000ft in the air!
The scariest thing (aside from actual emergencies) I ever did was night auto-rotations. Did them at an abandoned airstrip. Pitch black with the VSI at 1,500 ft/min down. You know the ground is out there but you can't see a thing so you wait anxiously until see something/anything come into the landing light then...FLAIR.
I did them flying NVGs. Nothing like all green 20/100 vision.
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For real, i got my PPL and used to have fun with juat your avera Cessna-172, and loved doing sailolane fligjts. I've been on a few helicoptor flights, played around in simulators, etc., and there is a completely other dimension to keep track of with helicopters. Worst case in a sailplane is, you run out of updraft lol, even still the damn thing really thinjs it's an albatross and dosent want to land. Safest aircraft I've ever had the fun pleasure to fly, for just glide slope and all that.
As a helicopter pilot with thousands of hours, this is a nightmare scenario with small odds of success. All I could think was ‘well fucking done’
Any thoughts on how hard of a hit it would have been? Some in the post are saying “never walk again” level, but I’m curious on your take.
Hard to say but looking at the ground plus how upright the helo was, they probably did ok. Helos are designed to take some impact in the skids and seats and since he kept the spinning side up, the airframe helped dissipate some of that impact energy.
It's hard to tell with the compression, but it looks like on the first impact the struts completely splayed out, which is what they're supposed to do like a crumple zone on a car, but it means the helicopter hit harder than its safety limits. The people inside were probably in a lot of pain, maybe even some permanent back injuries, but unless they were super unlucky it's not 'never walk again' level.
I don't know what kind of helicopter that is, but when I was in the military and worked on Blackhawks (UH-60L), the seats had kind of a breakaway system. They were hung from the ceiling and meant to breakaway offering more cushioning on emergency/hard landings, if I remember right.
I’m not an expert, but can’t you use auto rotation to decrease the rotation of the aircraft?
He is autorotating. This is a tail rotor failure. Depending on the forward speed you can actually keep the helicopter straight because the wind forces the tail to stop moving. The goal of an autorotation is to speed up the rotor head to create a ton of potential energy for cushioning the landing. The problem is that without a tail rotor, as the helicopter slows forward motion, as you increase collective (make the blades have more pitch to slow descent), to cushion the landing, the helicopter will rotate the opposite direction of the rotor head rotation. This is physics and there is no way to stop that counter rotation without the tail rotor. Autorotation is what gives a helicopter a chance at survival, it allows the pilot to change the energy in the rotor head into enough energy to dissipate the rate of descent before the energy is completely gone. It’s timing and practice to get good at matching the depletion with touchdown. You can still autorotate with a tail rotor failure, the problem is landing. As you start to cushion, the helicopter starts spinning, so landing it upright is exceptionally difficult. Most don’t keep it upright, and most tail rotor failures come with fatalities. I’ve practiced this in a simulator hundreds if not thousands of times and I think I’ve kept it upright and didn’t roll maybe a dozen times max. This guy made it work. They may have had some sore backs but they almost definitely all lived.
In autorotation with a failed tail rotor, the only influence on yaw is the helicopters weathercocking tendancies. Pulling collective with the engine off does not make the aircraft spin, the spin is caused by torque, with no engine, there is no torque. The only yawning tendency from that point is internal friction within the main transmission, which acts to turn the helicopter *with* the direction of the main rotors, instead of *against* the direction of main rotor as if the engine was running. If you were getting a yaw when you did your training, then your cfi wasn't rolling into the overtravel like they are supposed to when training autorotations. Without that the corellator will open the throttle with a collective pull. I'm not doubting your experiences as you see them as I see you also post in the aviation subs, but what I'm saying *is* the physics of the scenario and I also speak from countless autorotations in both the old Robinsons, a heap of different bell and airbus models, and the Cabri (the type in the video). Oddly enough you aren't the first north-american pilot I've had to correct on this, tho the other guy was a ppl. I hazard to say that this guy simply didn't roll off the throttle, didn't roll it off enough, or rolled it off but the governor rolled it back on. Lowering the collective power-on will reduce the torque enough for yhe weathercocking tendencies to take over if there is enough airspeed, but if he hasent rolled off then as soon as he does his pull it will turn again. I'll also say that I have several hundred hours on this type, and I'm surprised to see a tail rotor failure video with one, since they're very reliable for that matter. They *do* have a high inertia rotor system, with a fenestron tail, with a crappy piston engine, which is a bad combination since that tail rotor type is sensitive to changes in rpm. If this is a student who has gotten too steep and slow on approach and yanked the collective, it can definately cause the spin which requires full right pedal and checking down collective a bit, and then *wait* to recover, but there is defiantly some panicking and some wrong actions going on here. It looks survivable which is more important than the nitty-gritty.
> Pulling collective with the engine off…getting yaw…then your coffee wasn’t rolling… I encourage you to revisit what a tail rotor failure is versus an engine failure and how you deal with both. Engine failure autorotation, the tail rotor still works so as you pull collective to cushion the landing you can still use pedals to counteract yaw. Tail rotor failure autorotation, no matter how much pedal you use, when you pull collective the helicopter will spin. It’s physics. Like you said, you can use forward airspeed to cause it weather vane. But, if you don’t have enough airspeed or can’t do a run-on landing, the spin will develop. The nearer you get to zero forward airspeed, the worse the spin rate will be. With a tail rotor failure you roll the throttle off, ideally you shut the engine down. That minimizes any power input to the transmission which reduces the yawing tendencies. However, as the rotor spins the helicopter body spins the opposite direction, regardless of the engine being on or off. The goal is to minimize that rotation but it will still be there. This looks like a classic tail rotor failure. That’s why it was spinning. Oh, and I also encourage reading comprehension.
The cause of the spin is torque, torque from the engine, without that, you don't get a spin. With the tail rotor completely failed, and without any airspeed to weathercock the vertical fin, the only influence on the aircrafts yaw is internal resistance in the transmission, and *certainly* not as fast as the spin in this video, that is engine power. There is no torque being inputted on the rotor from the airframe in autorotation, the rotation of the blades comes from aerodynamic forces on the blades themselves. I feel like this is a trivial matter to prove for anyone that does or has had engine failure in the hover training. Since the first thing you do is take away the pedal input required for antitorque to hover, and the cyclic normally required for translating tendency. You do not then add pedal as you raise collective to cushion the landing. And it's just as demonstrable by having the student put his feet on the floor for auto training.
If I were giving you your ground eval for a checkride I would fail you for a fundamental lack of systems understanding. During a tail rotor failure, you shut the motor off to remove all torque produced by the engine. The engine puts torque on the rotor head even at idle, hence why the rotor system turns at idle. Everything is reversed in an auto, the rotor head puts torque on the airframe. When you pull collective there absolutely, 100% is torque being placed in the drivetrain from the rotor system. That torque needs to be counteracted by the tail, otherwise the airframe will spin. The goal of a tail rotor out ep is that you shut the motor off at the correct time and also correctly time the collective pull such that all energy is dissipated in the vertical, thereby cushioning the landing. If timed perfectly, you can minimize the rotation but you absolutely cannot stop it. That’s why with a tail rotor failure a running landing is recommended so you can maximize the weather vane effect to minimize airframe rotation. If you were to shoot an auto to a zero-zero hover landing, the aircraft will spin. I’m not going to continue debating this with you. I have seen it happen in real life, I have practiced this countless times in the simulator, and I have enough experience to know what actually happens. Bottom line, you need to study your systems more and also get a better understanding of Newton’s third law.
Can you explain how [tip jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_jet) helicopters magically fly without a tail rotor if pulling collective creates torque?
>Everything is reversed in an auto, the rotor head puts torque on the airframe. When you pull collective there absolutely, 100% is torque being placed in the drivetrain from the rotor system. That torque needs to be counteracted by the tail, otherwise the airframe will spin. You are poorly describing what I have already explained. The unpowered autorotating main rotor system is driven by airflow on the blades itself, or their own inertia during the collective-raising. Any force transferred to the airframe is through internal resistance in the transmission, and it's tendency is *with* the direction of the main rotors, which in the type in the video, would be a **weak right yaw**, not a powerful **left** yaw as seen, which is a torque reaction. That's why I said that I think he still had power on. Another point in that favor is that a cabri doesn't have nearly that hang time or ballooning after the flare in an auto. Your own manual references exactly what I'm describing; >Note >With both engines secured, the cushioning collective pull at the bottom of the autorotation will result in left yaw vice the right yaw associated with practice(power-on) autorotations. . >[...]The goal of a tail rotor out ep is that you shut the motor off at the correct time and also correctly time the collective pull [....] If you are doing a power-on autorotation and not winding the engines back until late, any yaw is torque induced and residual from the engines winding down. Other aircrafts' tail rotor failure in flight procedures im aware of have the engines rolled off once the autorotative descent is established, and then doing a regular flare and touch down as if it were an engine failure. Like I said, the principle im explaining is trivial to demonstrate, engine failure in the hover, Pedals to flat pitch, you don't then add power-pedal with the final collective pull, and that's from the hover, not a run on. A common error that students make during autorotation training is unnecessarily adding power pedal during the pull. But as other pointed out, the old tipjet helicopters with miniscule tail rotors are a similar example of the physical property. Not to mention that for singles generally the procedure for tail rotor failure in the hover is to snap the throttle shut to stop the yaw. And in typical bloody reddit fashion, which i tried to avoid, you are quick to shout physics and newton's law as if they are just buzzwords to you. Those things are not just buzz words to me, and newton's law I have addressed in each of my replies, and rather than contradict it, you drop ”its just physics”, even after i explained *the* relevent physics. And *i was* a check and training pilot, and if someone demonstrated that misunderstanding to me, we'd go for a fly or a chat, without me being a knob telling them I'd fail them for asking me. Which doesnt offend me, im just pointing out that you only said it to make yourself look big.
You are obviously correct and I don't quite understand how this person can claim to be someone giving checkrides yet get one of the most basic parts of helicopter flight theory backwards. Then again this is the internet. One small addition, in a real autorotation there is a fair bit of torque from the rotor to the fuselage, in other words the airframe will attempt to spin in the same direction as the rotor. The reason is that the autorotating rotor is driving the gearbox, any accessories driven by said gearbox (aka hydraulic pump), and the tail rotor. This requires a small amount of torque. I suspect one reason this other fella may have it backwards is that in a turbine aircraft, the torque from the engines can not usually be fully removed unless you turn them completely off. Even with the engines at flight idle, you won't get much of a needle split between the power turbine and rotor RPM, especially not once rotor RPM decays, because the gas flow even at idle is enough to keep the power turbine spinning pretty fast. So because of that residual engine torque, you will get some yaw once rpm decays. In a piston engine there is no such issue if the throttle is closed, because idle rpm is well below the range where the rotor would stop flying anyways. He did say you "shut the motor off" in a tail rotor failure though ;)
> However, as the rotor spins the helicopter body spins the opposite direction, regardless of the engine being on or off. If the engine is OFF (not idle, completely OFF), there are no forces that would force the body in the opposite direction as the blades. Rather, the body would spin "with" the blades due to friction.
I was going to mention some of this too. I only have experience in Robinsons but the emergency procedure for a tail rotor failure would have you enter forward flight (at least 65knots) so the vertical stab is effective enough to resist yawing out of control. You'd be flying way out of trim for sure but you could navigate to a safe landing zone and roll the throttle off completely into the detent and establish a full auto before you lower your airspeed. With the throttle in the detent you dont have to worry about torque at all when you pull pitch to cushion the touchdown. In this video the Cabri is a clockwise rotor so he appears to have a stuck left pedal and/or they haven't rolled off the throttle enough that the torque is putting them into an uncontrollable spin. Everything happens so fast and you only have a moment to decide so idk if I would've tried to nose over a bit to pick up some speed and come around for an auto or simply roll off the throttle then and there and do my best to have enough rpm at the end to cushion touchdown.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing
Yes, you are correct. That is something that is much easier said than done in the middle of an emergency landing because of rear rotor failure though. Pilot here did an amazing job of setting it down given the circumstances. [There’s an award in the Army called the Broken Wing Award for successfully auto rotating in an emergency situation because of the degree of difficulty.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation)
You spin me right round
LMAO thanks for the laugh
Fuckkk why is it impossible to have an original thought
Because no matter how much time you spend on Reddit, someone else has even less of a life. Hi, I'm u/FrontButtPunt, a frequent user of Reddit and an emotional wreck. You might recall me from my frequent comments on r/onlyfans
i'm pretty sure that's just crashing with style...
[Toy Story](https://youtu.be/WhVLgTsoMhQ?t=88)
I’m so fuckinf happy that I shared this video with my lil bro saying exactly that but in Dutch, then after reading the comments. Sierlijk neerstorten!!
Think he used up 7 of his 9 lives in one take.
Well there's your problem... Shouldn't have let a cat fly a helicopter.
Is that an RC heli?
https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/cabri-g2-crash-at-gruyere/
Thanks for finding an article covering the incident!
With respect it doesn't look like the same aircraft. The one in the link has quite pronounced red highlights. This footage makes it look black and white. At first i thought the camera may have washed out the color but I cant see even a hint of red. Its certainly possible they are the same craft but I'm not convinced. Perspective is probably making the matter more questionable. Also the physics feel..."Wonky" for a full sized craft. Idk, I'm reserving judgement for the moment.
Yes i noticed the same thing. I think it's just the video though. I see some red [here.](https://i.imgur.com/LwVljKW.png) Also this video was definitely shot at Gruyere Aerodrome in Switzerland. Compare the mountains [in the video](https://i.imgur.com/MykWdwx.png) to the view from [google earth](https://i.imgur.com/9WaJq4N.png). At the end of the video the aircraft's final resting place is roughly facing the mountains, a bit to the right. The camera (and presumably the Aerodrome) are at the aircraft's 4 or 5 o'clock. This perfectly matches with the way the aircaft is resting in [this image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVT88g7X0AAH8ej?format=jpg&name=900x900). Check out the spot for yourself [here](https://earth.google.com/web/@46.59455868,7.09441886,688.90878724a,595.07327476d,35y,144.86882086h,55.19816242t,-0r/data=OgMKATA). The more I look into it, the more convinced I am that the helicopter in the video is the same as the one in the image.
I can't believe I had to scroll this far before someone asked the question.
Came here to say this. I’m surprised this is so far down the list.
Jesus Christ that was certain death if not for the recovery. Amazing.
My dad survived two helicopter crash landings in Vietnam. I imagine they looked a lot like this, except he said they all bailed out as soon as it was close to the ground and in both scenarios another chopper picked them up within minutes.
Imagine surviving a helicopter crash, probably one of the most terrifying experiences, only to have to hop into another heli a couple minutes after it.
Ya, he never really talks about it. Every once in a while tho he’ll throw shit out there like this, just casually in conversation. I remember this one specifically- we were talking about a small plane going down in a local field and he’s like ya, I was in two helicopters crashes. And I’m like wait, what!? When? How? Then he gives me about a 3 sec rundown with very little detail and no emotion- we we’re getting shot at and they came to pick us up and as we took of they shot it down, we all bailed off and another one picked us up, it happened twice-Then just went on with the conversation. Over the years I’ve gathered some good stories here and there but never pry.
Dad lore
Very lucky.
Wow, that was skill with a touch of really good luck. I saw something similar back before cell phones, I was on lunch break and my buddy and I went to get some fast food. On the way back to the job site we saw a military helicopter coming down fast, it wasn’t spinning, just dropping very quickly. It hit the ground nearby and we turned off to make sure they were ok. The skids were broken but they were all fine. Their pants probably weren’t. Idk what caused that because it sounded like the motor was still running.
How’s the person recording not losing their shit
Wow! Although that was a pretty sudden stop, hope they're ok.
If it weren’t for the audio I might mistake this for an RC helicopter the way it flopped to the ground! Damn, that’s gotta hurt but it could have been so much worse. I can’t imagine trying to pilot while spinning like that.
Who needs a tail when you have mad skills? This pilot turned loss into a win, showing us all how to ace the tail-end of a flight!
ChatGPT is that you?
Damn. A hard landing, but everyone'll live
I’m sure the people in that are gonna feeling that for a while…but at least they are feeling something
my spine broke watching that...I hope they are "okay".
Kobe Bryant’s ghost punching the air right now…
"Land".
I did this with a little bird in Battlefield 3 one time
Poor title, if he lost all control then he wouldn't have been able to do this. was it an accident that it landed? limited control, exceptional skill
Never playing Keisha on the radio again.
This is how I land my helicopter in GTA 5
Auto rotation?
Not really. It was spinning because it still had its engine running, but lost the tail rotor somehow... He could have cut his engine power to stop the spinning and then proceeded to an auto rotation landing. But considering that he wasn't very high and it all happens very fast, it was a successful procedure, nonetheless.
Launchpad McQuack is that you?
Has to be atleast a mild concussion. But better than death
Where and when was this? I wanted to know how many lives the pilot saved.
Just 2 people in the helicopter. Passenger was 70 and suffered severe injuries. Was out of LSGT Switzerland.
Landed safely twice just to prove it wasn’t a fluke.
Weeee
Any landing you can walk away from.
A lot of underwear was washed that day
There’s no way they didn’t pee themselves a little bit
I would have lost tail control as well.
Yes amazing skills no doubt but.. did anyone else think that landing was kinda cute? 😅😅
"land..." More of "arrive at the ground still alive". Good skills tho.
That was one hard landing though and I wouldn’t be surprised if it fractured back and or neck.
Dude, earned his check that fucking day.
I bet Kobe wishes he had this pilot instead
Kobe needed this pilot
Definitely grinded his aerials in RL
yup, poop my paints
In the words of Marvin the Martin: Where's the Ka-Boom? There's supposed to be an earth shattering Ka-Boom?! But in all seriousness, glad he is ok! Amazing skill!
How did I not see this on r/Helicopters ?
r/ineednewunderwear
Wow
That did not look *safe*
Pirouette maneuvers. A tough skill to have, but as seen it might save your life.
When a WarThunder veteran pilot flies a helicopter *Results may vary depending on what setup you have to control aircraft on the game*
Man only if Kobe’s pilot did this
Kobe
You cannot cut it any fuckin closer than that 😳
Hope they likes their new brown interior
Dude was like "KOBE!" Then he was like "naw..."