From personal experience when the tail departs the helo (Even in the dead area of the H/V diagram) you can still walk away if you know what you are doing. Though it isn't a fun day it can be done.
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Helo EPs for FW Types
- Thread starter MAKE VAPES
- Start date
At the altitude we typically operate, the screw it factor wouldnt do you much good.
And after seeing what happened with the 67 we lost two weeks ago and the fact that one guy made it, despite coming down like a comet thats pretty amazing. Especially since the 67 is the least survivable aircraft we operate.
An interesting comment considering the Bell 206x is the safest (statistically) single-engine aircraft in the world. Don't confuse survivability w/ crashibility. If I had to auto in a -57/67 or in a -60, I'd take the -57/67. Chances are pretty good I'll at least walk away. Maybe, maybe not in the -60.
Now if I'm going to go fly over Ahkmed/Jose/Ping and have him fire his AK at me...sure, the -60 (or various other gucci platforms you'll have access to) all day every day.
Id feel a lot more comfortable if they could actually have fixed the Hydraulic Surge problem we keep having up here. Problem with that statistic is while it may be the "safest" per hour flown, guess whose doing most of the hours of flying... Yeah it can auto like nobodys buisness, but combine the fact that our maintinance contractor doesnt adjust the rotor blades pitch settings for Summer/Winter (one setting for all), A C20 that loves to have compressor stall when I need to whined it up in a hurry, a hydraulic gremlin that 8 million dollars couldnt fix, and operation in an area where my DA is typically at or above 3000 feet half the year.... Ill be happy when I have something thats a bit more crashable.
Plus I keep forgetting your guys 60's are bloated F'ing whales compaired to the heaviest Mike Model we have.
I was in an H-3 that lost tail rotor during a PMCF hover check. I don't know what the guys up front were doing, but I know that I was doing a pretty good imitation of a ping pong ball in a clothes dryer in the back. Luck for me I had just shut the cargo door, because I bounced off it a few times before we got on the ground. Everybody walked away (even me) and the aircraft wasn't hurt too bad.
Slightly off-topic, what differences are there between the 57 and 67?
I don't get your point. Those hours are going to get flown...would you want to substitute an aircraft with more mishaps/hour? Our 57's take their beating pretty well, considering the monkeys we put in the right seat.
No Im saying the whole statistic is kinda skewed. Nobody is doing what we do in this aircraft outside of our training so why do we get counted in their per hour statistic. At the same time, we arent doing what a 206 in the civilian world is doing with the aircraft. If we really want to see how "safe" our aircraft is we should only be using our time on the sticks to determine that.
We actually have the 57 you guys parked on the beach a few years ago as a visual training aid in our systems class. Its been painted to look like one of ours and mechanically basically is. From what I can tell the only real difference is that your 57 is the same as our A+ model Kiowas were when they first came out with that smaller instrument panel and is lighter weight than the 206B's we use for Primary training. We've also got specific IFR versions with all the dual pitot static goodness and a whole bunch more in the aircraft. And we have the A+ version we use for BWS which has a few more toys than the basic Primary version has.
We have 2 models. The 57B and C models. B = small panel, no AFCS and strictly day VMC bird. C model is the big IFR panel, avionics, AFCS etc.
It's actually both day and night.
The statistic is skewed not because of what we (the military) do or don't do, it's skewed just because of the sheer number of 206x aircraft that are flying out there compared to the number of other SE aircraft out there, which a large majority of happen to be piston aircraft.
But in the end, it's statistics, which are always skewed, just skewed the way you need them to be.
Only in the lighter Bravo.
Well sure, but it's basically a de-facto day VMC bird, because I never recall me or anyone I've talked to flying it after sundown.
WRT the syllabus all "night" flights are done in the C model.
I don't know what the current SOP is, but when I was a stud, they flew them on NFAMs sometimes. It usually happened because because the IP had two FAM flights during the day and his third bag fell into the evening.
Ya the syllabus has changed around a bit, because the NFAMS are certainly beyond the C transition. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I ever heard a B night event. Meh.