My dad was a helicopter pilot in the California Army National Guard for about 30 years, starting in the mid-1960s. His Air Force training was the big guys: bombers and transports. After leaving the Air Force and spending a couple years not flying, he joined the National Guard as a part-time pilot flying small fixed wing planes used for recon work. When he moved to helicopters he was Captain, but soon went the warrant officer route to avoid a promotion to full-time major that came with a forced transfer to the Los Angeles area.
My dad loved flying. He hated chauffeuring generals to parties. One story he told me years ago was about an impatient general who demanded my dad "get this bird in the air" while my dad was going through his pre-flight checklist. My dad ignored the general at first, but finally asked him "Do you want to live or die?" That shut up the impatient general. My dad does not suffer fools.
I still need to get my dad's perspective on this crash. I've been too busy to ask him.
Fred
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"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
Many years ago in an unnamed Banana Republic, a Supreme Court judge was barnstorming the country campaigning for his favorite presidential candidate.
Completely improper but that was life in one of the more corrupt counties in a group of countries noted for corruption.
He was traveling in a military chopper.
Again, completely improper but that was life in one of the more corrupt counties in a group of countries noted for corruption.
He attended a rally on one of the Bay Islands.
He wanted to attend another rally and ordered the pilot to take off in a blinding tropical rain storm.
They died.
Poetic
Bill
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"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
I've always thought that a key difference for the rotary wing is that if they got into difficulties like this at least they could really slow down to 40 to 50 mph to figure out where they were, a bit like what he did when in the holding pattern outside the earlier airport.
The ground speed was 120mph plus all the way which just doesn't seem like a good plan when you can't see where you're going in hilly terrain. No time to react to terrain warnings or ground proximity.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
Helicopters frighten me. Ironically, the only time I have been in one was to fly to a pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef to investigate a nearby pontoon where a helicopter went over the side. That was a wheeled Agusta helicopter, and the pontoon had a wooden deck only intended for skid copters.
"Island Express Helicopters was restricted to flying under what are known as visual flight rules, meaning pilots must be able to see clearly outside the aircraft in daylight, Keith Holloway, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesman, told the Reuters news agency."
I did a bunch of work in northern Canada and the chopper pilot used to climb when we approached a lake and drop down after we passed it. I asked him if there were some 'lake effects' that could interfere with the flight, and he explained that he didn't swim and by gaining altitute, he could auto-rotate to the shore... I don't know if this is true, but it was the explanation he gave. One of the worst flights I ever had was in a little Cesna... rougher than anything I've experienced since.
Back in the 80's, before they changed the rules at Orange County Airport (AKA John Wayne Airport) if you wanted a direct flight to someplace like Chicago or Dallas, you had to fly out of LAX. Rather than driving, you could take a commuter flight in a small plane. Eventually a company started to offer a commuter service using helicopters. I used that service a half dozens times or so as it was very convenient and offered a much better gate-to-gate travel time, until the feds shut them down. Back in those days, American air-service companies had to be more than half-owned by American investors. Anyway, the company was using helicopters manufactured in the UK, and after about a year of service it was discovered that the air-service company owed so much money to the manufacturer, who had provided the aircraft on a finance and fly arrangement, that the feds ruled that in reality it could no longer be considered an American-owned company, so they had to shut down and they never got their fiances straightened-out so they never got back in business. That was the only company offering regular scheduled commuter service in and out of LAX using helicopters.
Other than that, I had only been up once before when I was in college. I was home for the summer once when there was a guy who was offering 10-15 minutes flights for something like $25/person (he could take three people at a time). I paid to go up and I took a bunch of pictures including one that showed about 80% of my hometown of Lewiston, MI (and I didn't even have to use a wide-angle lens):
Having grown up in an extremely small village in Maryland, your comment, "...and I didn't even have to use a wide angle lens..." really made me grin! Thanks for making my day.
Two flights in the front seat of an AH-1 Cobra around the foothills near Cucamonga, and UH-60 at Lakehurst NAES. They still had hangars dating to the Hindenberg which were UUGE; I thought the reddish looking trusses and beams were rusty steel, but they were apparently wood.
Oddly, the UH-60 made me seasick; there was a low frequency waddle or nutation. Front seat of Cobra was pretty cool; kind of like sitting on the end of diveboard with nothing below you. Scared of heights, but didn't get sick from that.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
We still have two blimp hangers here in SoCal. After the Tustin Marine Helicopter base was shut down the property was transferred to the city, they tried to have the hangers torn down, however, they're listed on the National Registry as the largest WOOD structures in the world and thus are protected. Note that they DON'T got back to Hindenburg era as these were built at the beginning of WWII to house Navy blimps which were being used for anti-submarine patrol/warfare off the coast of California. They basically sit empty but have been used as movie sound stage and ti film commercials.
Aside from the fact that the flight was actually at Lakehurst, their hangars, notably No.1, was the intended destination of the Hindenburg, and Hangars 1 through 4 predate the Tustin hangars, although No.4 was apparently transplanted from Norfolk. Note that Hangar No.1 at Moffett Field predates No.2 at Lakehurst.
Based on the pictures, it looks like we were operating out of Hangar 6, but we could see Hangar 1, particularly when we flew on the test run in the UH-60.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
Hangar No. 1 at Lakehurst is absolutely massive. I've seen it just about every day of my life (from a distance of about 1 mile over the treeline) and I am still awed every time I go onto the base and see it up close from the ground.
Same feeling seeing the hangers at Tillamook, Oregon. While there, they had a competitor blimp to the Goodyear ones; it occupied a tiny corner way in the back, like a party balloon in a normal barn. "The hangar building housing the aircraft is 1,072 feet long and 296 feet wide, giving it over 7 acres of area. It stands at 192 feet tall."
The city heavily touts their cheese and a good thing too as the other hanger there burned to the ground being used to store hay and wood. It's too bad; I saw it when it had the WWII aircraft tucked along one side; they have since moved. I suppose it's only a matter of time before the remaining hanger burns as well through accident or lightning or other reason.
" "Hangar B", which is the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world."
The Tustin hangers look to be on the same scale, so I don't know how fine a scale is needed to determine which is the largest.
According to its wikipedia page ..."Tustin, California measures 1,072 feet (327 m) long by 292 feet (89 m) wide by 192 feet (59 m) tall." so just 4 feet narrower? So close.
I've been in there a few times. Crazy big with the scale messing with your head. When you walk towards it it's about 3X farther away than you think.
Apparently Google has leased just about everything there including the hangers. They stripped all the skin off and are refurbishing the hangers sans hazardous materials.
They apparently like running their corporate jets in and out of there better than the San Jose airport. Probably having the same problem that Larry Ellison was having flying his Gulfstream IV into SJO, it closes around 10pm.
The NTSB released a preliminary report on the crash today. Short but does give some new information. Specifically, it looks like the engines were working at the time of the crash and the blades were rotating at the time of impact. Looking more and more like the pilot may have become disoriented in the fog bank.
The photos included seem to show some amount of visibility, so it's unclear how the pilot got disoriented. Moreover, the pilot was rated for IFR as well being a FAA-certified flight instructor.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
Its been an extremely long time since a pilot invented a new way of killing themselves.
Just because your qualified doesn't mean your current. And add onto that its a completely different situation when you have planned a IFR flight compared to going IMC as a emergency escape manoeuvre.
Many pilots screw it up in fixed wing which are inherently design to be stable (unless its a 737 MAX of course ;-) )
Helicopter its magnitudes harder to do.
The guy might only fly once or twice a year on instruments and his last check could have been months ago under the hood in clear sky's. The company was not licensed to fly IFR and I suspect the machine wasn't maintained to IFR standards. But that's an aside the transition from scud running visual flight to instrument flight is a shock to the system when it happens and has huge scope for things to go wrong very rapidly.
Been there done it in a light aircraft with 800 hours under my belt. 16 years later I haven't repeated the experience.....
