Huntington Beach Helicopter Crash

[PhrogPhlyer]

Glad there are no fatalities, and that there is plenty of good video for the NTSB to review.
In the up close video, during the 7 sec. frames, they clearly shows the tail rotor departing the aircraft.

5 injured after helicopter spirals out of control, slams into palm trees in SoCal, police say

The crash happened at Huntington Beach Saturday and has left at least five people injured. It ended with the wrecked chopper tangled and dangling from several palm trees.

abc7news.com

 

[ChuckMK23]

45 year old Helo. The Deuce was popular in its day. I rode in one only once. But it's a smooth, comfortable but complex aircraft. Notice no post crash fire!

The throttles are twist grips mounted at 90 degrees to the wrist. I don't know if recurrent training involves rolling these off in the event of t/r emergency.

 

[Seawolf42]

With all the advanced sim training these days I am amazed that few pilots initiate the “ chop and drop” ie chop the power and bottom the collective before 45-90 degree rotation. Immediately stops rotation and gives you a little bit of rotor power for landing.

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

With all the advanced sim training these days

Therein may lie an issue. Nothing beats hands on for low work, especially emergencies.
But... insurance costs, quality of instructor base, and other real world considerations come into play.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Here's a good pic of the cockpit of a Deuce. Note the collective on the PIC side.

 

[CommodoreMid]

Therein may lie an issue. Nothing beats hands on for low work, especially emergencies.
But... insurance costs, quality of instructor base, and other real world considerations come into play.

And obviously DEI somehow caused this too

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

Note the collective on the PIC side.

Interesting, wonder what the thought behind this design was.

 

[ChuckMK23]

The owner-operator was a well known person in the So Cal helicopter scene. Buzzing hotels was his thing.

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[ChuckMK23]

Interesting, wonder what the thought behind this design was.

Likely had to do with how the engine controls were designed - vs what the 212/412 had with stacked twist grips and mechanical-pneumatic fuel control. Also the Deuce was designed for SPIFR from the beginning and controls had to be laid out as such and integration with automation. Bell put a lot of care into the 222 design. Its weak link was the awful LTS-101 engine.

 

[IKE]

And obviously DEI somehow caused this too

Now I understand why the V-280 beat out the SB>1 for FLARA. It wasn't that Bell had already been flying for so much longer, but because the Sikorsky's rotor goes both ways.

 

[Seawolf42]

PhrogPhyler
That is probably a major issue, even the military is getting away from full autos.
I hope the injuries were not serious but I wonder if “ recreational “ pilots have just a little fear as on a cat shot that you have to tell yourself “ today is the day….”.

 

[Swanee]

Here's a good pic of the cockpit of a Deuce. Note the collective on the PIC side.

View attachment 43667

So for the non-helo folks in the room, what are we looking at?

 

[ChuckMK23]

So for the non-helo folks in the room, what are we looking at?

The finest 1970 to early 1980's flight deck technology. Electro-mechanical steam gauges. Avionics controls on top of glare shield. Standard cyclic stick (attitude) and collective (power) with engine controls embedded in the "twist grips" (think condition levers). 3 axis auto pilot driven through a basic flight director. Complex caution and warning panel. RNAV was not a thing so likely dual VOR/dme ILS/LOC, NDB.

State of the art for its time.

This Helo was designed at the outset for single pilot IFR operations and was a trailblazer.

But at the cost of complexity.

 

[hscs]

This Helo was designed at the outset for single pilot IFR operations and was a trailblazer.

But at the cost of complexity.

And we haven’t even started talking about Airwolf…..

 

[ChuckMK23]

And we haven’t even started talking about Airwolf…..

Hey I had a thing for Caitlin!!!!!