How safe is this tour operator?

[avalys]

There's an outfit in Colorado that gives helicopter tours of the Royal Gorge. I found a video of a typical flight on Youtube.

 

I'm not a pilot, but I'm curious about how safe this is. They fly a Longranger, which I don't think was meant to do any fancy maneuvers - but they seem to push it pretty hard.

 

 

What are your thoughts?

[apiaguy]

If that was with a paying customer or "typical" like you said I would say it is illegal what they did. FAA case law state no more than 90 degrees nose up or down and no more than 90 degrees bank or you are doing aerobatics in a helicopter. Army actually states a bank angle of 60 degrees or nose up or down 30 degrees to qualify as aerobatic. And 91.307 makes it mandatory to wear a parachute for everyone onboard when exceeding 60 bank and 30 up and down. Actual regulation for aerobatics states very little other than an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight. So could this flight be aerobatic? Yes and no. Beyond that rant... it wasn't really that bad or unsafe flying... yeah, a few steep pedal turns is the problem... also the low level over the river flying over the rafters with paying customers just for the thrill... could get you in trouble. He could be cited for 91.13, 91.9, 91.307 and 91.303. Those would be reckless operation, failing to follow flightmanual prohibiting aerobatics, failure to wear parachutes and breaking aerobatic rule.

Edited October 6, 2007 by apiaguy

[PhotoFlyer]

Just a thought... If your passengers react like this:

 

Then the maneuvers are uncalled for.

[delorean]

What an idiot.......

 

But, you know what makes him a COMPLETE idiot? The fact that he's doing this with paying passengers who have digital video cameras!! If human resource depts are smart enough to check Facebook & MySpace for applicants' pages, you know the FAA is looking at YouTube for stupid, reckless pilots.

 

To top it off, he let them get out of the helicopter with the blades turning and walk unescorted off the pad. Friggin' unbelievable. Hot loading and unloading is safe, but only with trained crew to assist.

 

There's another video on YouTube that shows a wild ride from the tour company with a 206B right next to Hoover Dam. Not to long after that, their helicopter rolled down the peak that it sits on, because the pilot left it unattended--blades and engine turning--oops.

[mechanic]

Here is a link to a bunch of helicopter uh oh's from around the world, link from the uk... Also has the R44 hanger door uh oh, too that was removed from youtube.

 

link

 

At first I thought the video was staged for a youtube deal, but the girl really seemed to not be in on the gag. Maybe the dad set it up and didn't tell the rest of them?

[delorean]

Here is a link to a bunch of helicopter uh oh's from around the world, link from the uk... Also has the R44 hanger door uh oh, too that was removed from youtube.

 

link

 

WOW!! Awesome link! Just when you thought you'd seen them all, over and over again, more come along. I hadn't seen at least 10-15 of those.

 

That one of the 206LT taking off is great for illustrating LTE from overtorques. They only built about a dozen of those LT models--looked cool with those four exhaust pipes out of the top, but didn't have that much extra power over the standard single engine L-model.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

He's an accident waiting to happen...actually he's already had I believe 4 doing tours.

[arotrhd]

I got through 1:25 and that was 1:10 more than I needed to see. No margin for error, no safety margins. I just took a look through my L4 RFM and hmmm, page 1-11, para. 1-14: "MANEUVERING - Aerobatic maneuvers are prohibited". So, let's do some aerobatics. Why not . And to cruise up the river @ 75'...any cable or powerline crossings? of course not!. UUUHHGGG. Calgon, take them away!

 

definitely screams "Hey, watch this...."

 

-WATCH FOR THE WIRES-

[avalys]

He's an accident waiting to happen...actually he's already had I believe 4 doing tours.

Really? Do you have any details on the accidents?

[Hovergirl]

He's an accident waiting to happen...actually he's already had I believe 4 doing tours.

 

How do you have that many accidents and keep your job? Does he own the place?

[Paisley]

What a jackass.

[Paisley]

Especially with people who don't know any better.

Edited October 7, 2007 by Paisley

[BOATFIXERGUY]

I got through 1:25 and that was 1:10 more than I needed to see. No margin for error, no safety margins. I just took a look through my L4 RFM and hmmm, page 1-11, para. 1-14: "MANEUVERING - Aerobatic maneuvers are prohibited". So, let's do some aerobatics. Why not . And to cruise up the river @ 75'...any cable or powerline crossings? of course not!. UUUHHGGG. Calgon, take them away!

 

definitely screams "Hey, watch this...."

 

-WATCH FOR THE WIRES-

 

Check the NTSB web site. I was just talking to my chief pilot, and he has personally seen him fly under the bridge on tours also! If you're not familar with the Gorge, the canyon where the bridge is at is extremely narrow and steep. I'll post the ntsb links when I find them...

 

john

[BOATFIXERGUY]

What a jackass.

 

 

Here's the only one I can find in the last few years...

 

http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=DEN02LA101&rpt=fi

[mountainchopper]

I have never personally flown with him, but i've been around his op while flying in the area and have heard some heresay about it. I do believe he owns his ship and company, so he'd have to fire himself on account of his four purported accidents.

 

As to powerlines, the gorge isn't exactly a constantly changing environment, so if some new lines were going up, you'd notice pretty easily, otherwise one scoping pass would probably give you enough knowledge to perform the flying he is doing with a reasonable ammunt of securty that there are no wires. This isn't to say I condone his actions in any way, or even canyon flying for that matter, whether a wire recon was performed or not.

 

About aerobatic flying, despite the 30 pitch, 60 bank parachute rule, and the 90 and 90 thing from the army, you are watching him fly on video camera footage and poor footage at that. Judging bank and pitch angles through a medium with little to no depth perception, and a very limited field of view probably won't give you the mopst accurate portrayal of what is happening. Am I defending his actions? In a word no.

 

The hammer heads, or ag turns, or whatever you want to call them don't really worry me. If the engine failed in a long ranger there will most likely be enough rotor inertia to recover from the manuever and make a decent landing. That is of course assuming you aren't 200 feet below the rim of a huge canyon with nothing to land on but rocks, some train tracks or a river, none of which are remotely level nor smooth enough to perform a ship saving autorotation to. But, you do have to remember that ag pilots perform manuevers like this day in day out, and powerline patrol helo's spend a large portion of their time in the dead mans curve so it isn't as if what he is doing, given proper knowledge and experience is inherantly more dangerous than other types of flying, the main concern I have is that he has passengers on board who expect that they are being carried in a safe manner, and will live to disembark the ship unharmed. Doing what he is doing, where he is doing it basically goes against his responsibility of provide a safe service as such.

 

As to his hot loading/unloading etc, his ship is on a platform where the TR hangs off about 9 feet or so above the ground, so you'd have to be pretty large to walk into it, or make one hell of a leap. Now, once again, I'm not trying to defend him, buddy up to him, or anything like that, hell the man probably has thousands of hours more time than me. As do, i'm sure, a majority of you on this site. Would I fly like him? Possibly, given a situation where the odds are more in my favor(i.e. doing ag turns over a crop with a sprayer attached to my ship, and flying low level for powerline and pipeline patrol.). I'm not saying that doing such things under different circumstances is any more safe or whatever, but certainly with people on board expecting no harm to come to them he flys rather irresponsibly. An ENG pilot/A and P mech. I know flew with him on a maintnence flight and going off the word of someone I trust I can confidently say that I wouldn't, don't, and will not take the risks this guy does. Nor would I go on a ride, or allow anyone I love or care about, to do so with him at the sticks.

 

I guess the point of this bloated rant is that, yes helicopter pilots do stupid things, but as to the finger pointing and self rightousness, I think that best be left to the FAA who, through the design of our current political system we've elected to do so. Can we learn from videos such as the one in question? I think so, but it takes a little more thought than, "he doesn't look for wires," Or, "He does manuevers I'm uncomfortable with, and passengers are on board." At any rate i'm sorry if this comes across the wrong way, I'm not trying to be some jackass cowboy who thinks he is hot sh*t, I just wanted to give a better picture of what is going on as I've seen it personally.

be safe guys.

Edited October 8, 2007 by mountainchopper

[BOATFIXERGUY]

Hi mountainchopper,

 

Good points!

 

As a ride operator myself, let me say that it's all in the "perception" by the FAA. Last season we did over 4000 operations. Rides at air shows, concerts, bike rallies, etc. Our routine was approved by the FAA and we were allowed our own "box" during aerobatic performances of other aircraft. We were all over the country and had no problem doing our routine which was no more than steep turns, s-turns, desending turns, etc. All within the 40 - 80 knot range. We demonstrated this for the FAA to avoid the possible enforcement action because of what it looked like. The "perception was that during a couple of our maneuvers, were were at zero airspeed in steep truns and climbs, and performing aerobatics with passengers without parachutes. It did look like aerobatic maneuvers. That's the whole idea...perception. Well one faa guy took offense and ran us through the ringer for 10 months. He was a supposive helo driver. Not a very good one though as we found out. He knew nothing of actually flying a chopper. More the airport enviroment type. He had VIDEO of our routine. Looked tame enough to me and the FAA judge, but not him. Thanks to my FAA attorney, we finally won the battle, but not after an exhausting fight. When they started loosing the case, they went through every single asspect of the business. It was a pain in the a$%.

 

Through 7 years of rides, we have had zero incidents or accidents. This helped us immensly with FAA Legal. Every routine is chorographed at each venue to get the patterns down. Just as an aerobatic performer does. They are practived over and over again to ensure they are always in the power curve and safe on equipment and passengers. After a weekend, pretty boring on the pilot, although the passengers love it. I could do it in my sleep.

 

The Gorge guy will have a hell of a battle on his hands if the Denver FSDO goes after him. Bad video or not, the FAA thinks it''s always right. You have no rights with them. I wish him luck in his busines, and incident free. The industry can't afford a crash! The FAA just released the new part 91 / part 119 laws pertaining to ride operators. AN incident in the gorge would kill us!

 

john

[hooked4life]

The gorge video seems pretty tame compared to this video I ran across today.

 

 

Both seem exciting to watch in a video or movie, but not something I'd be comfortable with IRL at all.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

Looks fun...without passengers. As long as you don't have paying passengers, and you want to push the odds, go nuts... its your life. But don't put their lives in harms way so you can have fun. I don't think this last guy had passengers except for his camera person.

 

Kind of makes my boring mandated 20 degree max banks with "guests" here in the gulf look a little lame.

[heli.pilot]

The gorge video seems pretty tame compared to this video I ran across today.

 

 

Both seem exciting to watch in a video or movie, but not something I'd be comfortable with IRL at all.

 

That video is impossible to watch without leaning and tilting your head!

[DakarNick]

My brother did a ride with this outfit last year. I will ask him how it compared to the video.

 

I, myself, have driven by the pad and seen the aircraft there. I live in Denver and the Gorge is in Canon City, CO. I thought about taking a ride but not so sure now!

Edited December 21, 2008 by DakarNick

[Goldy]

The gorge video seems pretty tame compared to this video I ran across today.

 

 

Both seem exciting to watch in a video or movie, but not something I'd be comfortable with IRL at all.

 

I learned something watching that video.

 

When flying in the gorge, always wash your windshield first.

[hooked4life]

When flying in the gorge, always wash your windshield first.

 

no kidding

[Marc D]

Check out this link. It's an accident analysis from the accident in the Canyon.

 

Tour crashes into cliff wall

Screw around and it will bite you.

 

Marc D.

Edited December 22, 2008 by Marc D

[Darren Hughes]

Check out this link. It's an accident analysis from the accident in the Canyon.

 

Tour crashes into cliff wall

Screw around and it will bite you.

 

Marc D.

 

That was pretty disturbing reading. Evidence of 99^o angle of bank and 55^o nose down pitch with passengers on board! He certainly earned his "Kamikaze" nickname.

 

It takes a lot for me to shake my head at something, more than most people anyway. But this definitely got it shaking!

[CFIAP5544]

WOW!!

 

ENGINE OUT

ENGINE OUT

ENGINE OUT!