USN Approach Magazine - April 1994

[Griz882]

The SNA up front was surprisingly collected - I remember turning to him and asking "that twist grip is full open right" - since there is a visible mark on the pilot/students side. I had the surprising forsight to have the SNA verify Ng/TOT as well - which helped in the safety investigation afterwards.

The poor student in the back had no idea what the hell was going on - next thing he knew we were plowing rows in a peanut field.

The aircraft was completely unscathed save for the broken fuel control. Its a testament to the Bell 206 rather than my pilot skills (and I am not being modest) - as you all know its an relatively forgiving airplane and on top of that, the full touchdown autorotation was a maneuver I practiced and demonstrated daily.

Excellent work by all hands. I have to chuckle at the plight of the poor SNA in back. I feel his pain.

 

[ChuckMK23]

3,200 lbs is correct. If memory serves, there is a STC on the 206B to go to 3,350 lbs but involves stronger crosstubes, thus when you have a hard landing the expensive frame bends instead of the cheap crosstubes. Navy, correctly, decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

Army TH-67's suffered a lot of bent airframes doing hard landing full auto's to concrete

 

[Rockriver]

Lt Mahon was certainly "The Man" back in the day! Bravo Zulu indeed.

No attempt here to hijack the thread, but I just saw the movie Sully last night. I was surprised at how that movie got me thinking deeply about the few serious emergencies and close calls I experienced years ago, in particular the delayed reaction I once had hours later when it sunk in that I could just as easily have died as lived.