Just letting you guys know if you don't go to GD.


GD link

Bummer.

I saw the amateur video. It appeared to be some kind of problem with the tail rotor, the 500 was spinning to the right and pretty much descending vertically. Makes me want to go out and do some stuck pedal drills

That was hard to watch..  Especially knowing an ARF brother is in that helicopter.  

That was a nasty decent, if you could call it that.  


You can hear the rotors striking the aircraft on the way down.  Horrible,  horrible situation.  That had to be a fucking terrifying last few seconds to think about what is coming.  

There was a post on the HTF about the Helo Crash, but didn't know that our Brother Citabria7GCBC was on the bird and has passed away.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Hometown/H-P-D-Helicopter-Down-1-dead-and-1-injured/8-643570/

Very Sad News indeed!!  

BIGGER_HAMMER

2020 is an asshole.

Sad news.  He was only 35.  Anyone know if he leaves behind a wife/kids?  GoFundMe if he did?

Agreed

Goddamn it.

yes, yes it is.

Truer words...

He leaves behind a wife and 2 young kids.

Damn, seriously? Sigh.

Understatement of the year.

Man, we had the UH-1H last week, now this. One helluva rough year so far for aviation when you view it as a whole, and an absolute damn travesty when you throw in good guys like Citabria into the mix.

We are diminished!

Cell phone video was hard to watch.  Are 500s susceptible to LTE like a 206 is?  I know any helicopter can get into LTE, but we spend a lot of time in a 206 ensuring we stay out of it, as the Jet Ranger is known for not tolerating it well.  Possible tail rotor drive shaft failure?

Prayers to his family

According to this paper, LTE is a myth. The paper is quite enlightening. Put all your pedal in and hold it there, and right away. Also, 500's, or in this case a 369, exhibit much better behavior in this regard. It is easier to believe a major mechanical problem than loss of pilot control over yaw.

Any LEO killed in the line of duty is well taken care of in America by the State (Workman's Compensation), Fed DOJ (Life Insurance), and department pension death benefits. There are multiple charities that will provide for the kids education, look into those and make a donation in the officers name there would be my advice.  

How do I know this? A friend and fellow police officer was killed on duty by a drunk driver a few years ago. We served as Reserve Officers together for several years before she went to the DSM PD. I had know her since she was in high school with my son. Yes I still serve my community as a Reserve Officer.

Damn.... Prayers.

Unrecoverable spins in fixed wing aircraft were explained to me as pilots panicking, thinking that they were putting in effective rudder, but fighting their other leg and that rudder input should be thought of not as pushing on a rudder pedal, but pushing with one leg and lifting with the other at the same time. Could the same psychology apply in LTE w/ helicopters?

I am certainly no authority on the matter, but I have had some pretty well respected CFIs over the years talk about LTE, and they have all said the same things:  LTE is kind of a misnomer.  It's not that you lose the tail rotor--just that for whatever flight/wind regime you are in, the tail rotor isn't as effective as it was, or isn't as effective as you need it for that short period of time.  But we still call it 'Loss of Tail Rotor Effectiveness.'  It's a very real thing, and once you have felt it, you usually know when you are about to get into it--the aircraft gets really 'twitchy' and you can feel that you are having to fight the pedals more than usual.  

Early on in my training, we would often induce LTE to practice getting out of it--but at a high altitude--so that recovery didn't include stuffing in a whole bunch of left pedal, and likely inducing an over-torque.  The normal recovery from 'An unanticipated right yaw, that does not subside of its own accord...' is full left pedal, full forward cyclic, and, if altitude permits, a lowering of the collective.  As long as you recognize what's going on, and you have some altitude (say 500+ feet), simply lowering the collective and pointing the nose down a little brings you out of it quickly.  If you don't have altitude to lower the collective, you have no choice but to go full left pedal, which will likely give you an over-torque (but is far better than smacking the ground). All my CFIs have said that as long as you get on the left pedal early enough, that you should be able to stop the yaw.  But if you wait too long and let the rate build, you either A) may not be able to stop it, or B) lose control/SA because you are spinning too fast.  

We do a good bit of OGE hovering, due to needing to point the camera through a small opening in the trees or something, and an orbit won't work--but only at altitude (we also work almost exclusively off the right side of the helicopter, making right hand turns).  We have a unit SOP basically that says thou shalt not do stupid stuff like OGE hovering at 100'--where your options would be fewer for recovering from LTE.

I have no idea what happened in Houston, and I don't pretend to.  Sad day all the way around.

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