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Engine failure and fly away?


CJ Eliassen

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I read this article and I am curious what you all would have done in the same situation.

 

 

As the Beacon Turns

 

It's a beautiful, clear, Colorado blue-sky morning and I would normally be out sniffing for new dirt or grass upon which to roll my Cub's tires. Instead, I'm sitting in my new hangar office, alone, thinking of yesterday's near disaster.

 

I was flying with a student in a new Schweizer 300, getting him ready for his private checkride. It was our first time flying together. Though a little nervous and short on confidence – understandable for a first checkride -- he was a very good pilot. His command of the aircraft was well ahead of the curve and he competently performed all the things I asked him to do, from normal takeoffs to confined areas approaches, and running landings. I was confident that I could sign him off to take his checkride once we got back to the office.

 

On the way back to the airport, I "failed" the engine at about a thousand feet, one of the required maneuvers in the PTS. The fuel-injected Schweizer 300C helicopters we fly here in Colorado are prone to unsteady idling in hot weather and we have learned to move throttles gently to prevent engines from quitting. If the throttle is rolled off enthusiastically, the engine seems equally enthusiastic about stopping. Our maintenance facility says idle speeds and mixtures are properly adjusted, though they have tweaked them on several occasions.

 

We've briefed our students and instructors that all throttle movements will be slow and easy, whether on the ground during run up, when we verify the operation of the clutch that disconnects the engine from the rotor system during an engine failure, or while in the air, when we practice autorotations.

 

When I "failed" the engine, I simply rolled the throttle closed enough to cause the helicopter to yaw to the left, and announced, "Engine failure." When a helicopter's engine quits the pilot must lower the collective immediately and set the proper pitch attitude for autorotation. We call this the "60-knot attitude," choosing a slightly higher speed for our higher altitude. If the student does that well, we usually bring the engine back online at a safe altitude or do a power recovery in the flare. There is no question this is a high-risk task for us, though one that is absolutely necessary if the student is to become competent at handling that emergency some day on his own.

 

Brain Cramp

 

 

Collective

 

My student, in a moment of stress-induced brain cramp, didn't lower the collective when I gave him the "failure." In fact, he didn't move the collective from cruise position at all. He allowed the nose to drop and speed increased to 70-75 knots, both of which caused the rotor RPM to decay quickly to the point where we felt an aerodynamic shudder, precursor of blade stall. Without rotor RPM, the helicopter falls quickly as there is insufficient lift being developed by the slow-turning blades. We needed to do something quickly, lest we become the latest in not-so-streamlined bricks.

 

I told the student to lower the collective and raise the nose of the aircraft to our 60-knot autorotation attitude. Both actions raised the rotor RPM quickly back into the high end of green arc. We were back in business: We had lift again, and had become established in a steady-state autorotation.

 

Now, with the proper glide attitude established, and the rotor RPM safely stabilized, I continued prompting him with our "normal" emergency procedures: We bring our eyes back inside and do a "panel check" to see if there's something we can do to restore power (mag switch or boost pump, for example), verify rotor RPM again, verify the engine is running, and get our eyes back outside to maintain the constant pitch attitude while looking at our chosen landing spot.

 

As I was talking my student through this panel check, I pointed out how quickly the rotor RPM increased back to a safe value. Then I noticed something odd in the lower corner of the panel: The oil pressure gauge was at zero. As my mechanic mind was wondering why, I looked up at the engine tachometer. It was also at zero.

 

"OK, the engine has quit! This will be a real one. I've got the aircraft."

 

I swallowed and went to work.

 

We were now below 500 feet and falling at about 1600-1700 FPM toward the road I had deliberately chosen "just in case" something like this happened. As we plummeted, I told the student that I saw the wires along the north edge of the road, and the tree line that ran perpendicular to our path. I told him we were going to stay slightly right of the road's center to avoid the wires. I figured the leaves at the top of the trees would be softer than wires any day.

 

The student pointed to a car just beneath us on the road, traveling the same direction and about the same speed. I studied it for a moment and concluded, "I think he's slightly faster and won't be a factor." I hoped I was right.

 

Saving The Best For Last

 

 

With low-energy rotor systems like the Schweizer's, it's absolutely imperative that you save all your cushioning collective pull until the very last second, or you will lose rotor RPM (lift) and the ability to soften your landing. The trick -- since the freewheeling rotor is no longer driven by the engine -- is to slow the forward speed of the aircraft in a flare, then pull the rest of the collective to soften the final descent. Just before reaching flare height, and feeling mighty close to those wires in my left, the student and I spotted something startling in the windscreen: WIRES!!!

 

Right in front of us, extending from the tree line on the right, were two nearly invisible low wires crossing the road -- right in our path! There was no way to turn left because of the wires; no way to turn right because of the tree line. We were committed to land straight ahead.

 

I pushed the helicopter's cyclic forward to fly under the low wires, knowing that there wasn't near enough energy to pull collective and fly above them. A flash-thought: Will this abrupt pitch change dangerously slow my rotor RPM as I fly under the wires? Will I have rotor energy (RPM) to flare after this pitch change? At this wild sink rate, will I have enough room to flare once I've passed under the wires? Damn, that opening between the road and wires looked tight.

 

I had no choice.

 

It looked like we would miss the paralleling wires now. The perpendicular wires passed just above the rotor head -- I saw a metallic flash as we passed under them -- and I flaredandpulledcollectiveinonemovement. We touched firmly on the heels of the skids and I immediately pushed the cyclic forward to level the skids. "Now, it's just a running landing," I pointed out to the student as we slid down the road, my instructor mode still engaged.

 

We slid to a stop in less than 100 feet and the rotors silently spun down. A few hundred feet in front of us, three cars faced us, probably wondering, "I wonder what the hell they're going to do for their second act." On the road behind us, several other cars had also stopped. I hung my headset on the hook between the seats, unbuckled my seat belt and said to the student, "You watch the aircraft and guard the flight controls; I'm going to go outside and look for damage." I wanted to know if we had fuel leaks, a fire, or damage that would require evacuating the helicopter.

 

Kind Farmer

 

 

The helicopter seemed fine -- amazingly fine. I could not fine a scratch on it. As I walked around it, I could see a farmer coming down the road toward me. "You boys all right?" he asked with genuine concern. Salt of the Earth concern.

 

"Yeah, we're fine," I said, shaking his hand. "The engine quit on us so I want to look my machine over."

 

"Next time that happens, you can just use my field over here," he said, pointing a few hundred yards over his left shoulder.

 

I thanked him warmly. People can be so wonderful in times of need.

 

As I walked around the helicopter again I noticed the first driver in the growing line of cars behind us wasn't happy about having "her" road blocked. She started to sneak around us on the right shoulder. But my tail rotor and main blades were still spinning lazily and the main rotor would certainly strike the top of her car if she tried to get by. I stopped her, thinking to myself, "Lady I'm not having a particularly good day here and you are about to damage a helicopter that I have just landed on this road against very high odds and without a scratch. Stop or I'll stop you." I figured with the adrenalin still left in my body, I could throw her annoyed self -- and her car -- off the road if she didn't just relax for a minute.

 

She stopped.

 

I slowed the rotors by lightly grasping the tail rotor shaft just behind the transmission. Then I motioned Ms. Impatient around the helicopter. She passed me with a straight-ahead scowl on her face. In just a few minutes, I had witnessed the best and the worst of humanity.

 

I have often thought about my near disaster in August, when the engine failed on the helicopter in which I was instructing, resulting in a highway landing. My intent is to take the lessons from it that will make me -- and you -- a better pilot for the experience. Here are my musings.

 

After landing on the road and doing my walk-around inspection -- looking for leaks and damage -- my student and I restarted the helicopter, lifted into a hover and alternately each peered out the doors of the helicopter to check the skids for damage or deformation. They were fine. I checked the flight controls. They seemed fine, too. Amazingly, the helicopter was undamaged, apparently no worse for the wear.

 

Since I couldn't lift up and slide to the left because of the wires above and alongside the road, and couldn't takeoff straight ahead or behind us because of the people and cars that had gathered to watch us crash, I decided that my only option was to slide right, crossing a water-filled swale and electric fence at the road's edge, and hover taxi into a roomy, 20-acre field. There we did more control checks, hovered a bit more, and decided it was safe to take the aircraft home.

 

The return flight to our ramp was uneventful. On the way back, we talked about our exciting day, and how we might do it differently next time (like get the collective down, for starters). I also simulated several other abnormals with the student, including alternator failure, clutch failure, etc. Remember, this student was still getting ready for a checkride.

 

Back At The Ranch

 

When we got back to the airport, I called the flight school manager and the chief pilot to debrief our incident. After finishing my narrative, the manager asked where the helicopter was; I told her that it was parked on our ramp. That surprised her.

 

Just before making that call, I asked another instructor to inspect our aircraft; I wanted another set of eyes to look over the machine now that the excitement had passed. He came back to report that the tail stinger had some paint knocked off but everything else looked as good as new. I had missed that paint loss during my inspection on the road, probably because the tail rotor was still spinning when I was back there and the stinger didn't appear to be bent. The chief instructor told me that he would paint all the tail stingers I wanted if I would bring the aircraft back in one piece again.

 

Take Aways

 

So what do we take away from this incident?

 

The first lesson is: Don't panic. Even though your first reaction might be to yell for your mommy when the impossible happens, panic will almost surely lead to poor thinking (or more likely, no thinking at all), with predictably poor results.

 

Even when it doesn't look possible, don't give up -- fly your aircraft all the way to the crash. Thirty years ago, Bob Hoover told an interviewer that he always flew right into the crash -- and he has certainly crashed his share of airplanes. This is the second time in my flying career that Hoover's advice was a lifesaver. Thank you again, Bob.

 

I was not certain that we would fit between the first set of paralleling wires and the tree line, let alone beneath the perpendicular "surprise" wires. But I was going to give it one hell of a try -- even if it meant damaging the aircraft. That's important. The goal is to live through the experience; reusing the aircraft is a distant second goal.

 

Another important lesson is to make a plan and stay with until it is obvious that it won't work. Focus on the plan! My plan was to land to the right of the wires and left of the trees; if I had to choose which side to crowd, though, I would pick trees over the wires any day. The plan changed dramatically at flare height when we encountered the second set of wires. But I stayed focused on my plan all the way to touchdown -- modifying it for the added wires -- and it was successful.

 

Restart?

 

 

Some of you asked why we didn't attempt a restart when I discovered the engine had quit. Here's what the Schweizer POH says under AIR RESTART: "If less than 2000 feet above terrain, proceed with autorotation landing." We were well under 2000 feet.

 

We might have tried restarting the engine, but by the time I was aware that the engine had quit, it was very late in the game and I was very busy with aircraft control and concentrating on the less-than-optimal landing spot below. At 4-500 feet above ground, sinking 1700 feet per minute, it would be stupid to expect the helicopter to "fly itself" while you fuss with things inside. These light helicopters are just too unstable for that.

 

I didn't have the trim selected to my side of the aircraft when I assumed control of the aircraft, and the machine was out-of-trim, requiring one hand for the collective and the other on the cyclic. A Schweizer's trim is controlled by a panel toggle switch that selects right or left electrical control to the trim hat on the top of the respective cyclic. The switch was selected to the student's cyclic because he was flying when the fun began. In the heat of the battle, I didn't switch it to my side. That increased the workload because the unstable machine was out of trim and I didn't have time to notice -- nor did I care, really; I had bigger issues to address.

 

I also didn't have a start switch on my side of the cockpit; it's installed only on the left seat (pilot's side) collective. It would have taken some pretty quick crew coordination to attempt that restart.

 

Job number one is always aircraft control. In helicopters, that includes maintaining rotor RPM, and I wasn't willing to forgo that for anything else. I focused on rotor RPM and that's a big part of why I'm here to write this.

 

Field of Dreams

 

The farmer who came up to us after we landed offered his field for landing. The student also asked me later if we would have been better off landing in a field instead of the road. Here are my thoughts: We need to do running landings -- not zero airspeed touchdowns -- at our higher density altitudes because of our lower rotor inertia. A running landing may not be possible in a field due to uneven terrain, high grass, prairie dog holes, hidden logs or abandoned airport cars. It's hard to judge that in the few seconds allotted when plunging toward earth at 1700 FPM. Conversely, a road is mostly known; it's level, free of ruts, swales, stumps, high grass, and prairie dog holes, and has a predictable, smooth surface. Of course, you might have to contend with a few cars.

 

Low inertia rotor helicopters can be successfully autorotated to a landing at this high altitude. But judging from my experience, you don't have any margin for error. When I ducked under the wires I'm sure rotor RPM decreased, though I was a little busy to notice how much. That decrement showed when the RPM did not increase as it normally does in the flare. There was very little rotor inertia left to cushion our landing.

 

Safeguards Are Life

 

Instructors, don't fail to put your safeguards in place -- every time. Your safeguards are what keep you alive when all else fails -- and all else might just fail. You must always have a safe haven -- a Plan B (and C and D, if possible) -- if Plan A doesn't work. If you have only one real option, you have a real emergency. Don't create an emergency for yourself.

 

I've been an instructor over 31 years and long ago learned that you don't put yourself and your student into a situation that requires extraordinary skill or luck -- or everything to go right -- to pull it off. In this case, the road below us allowed me to continue to the ground without too much panic. We need to make training realistic so that students learn and are tested, but don't overdo it.

 

Instructing is dangerous -- often when you least expect it.

 

Training works. So does recent experience. I probably do more autos with students in a month than the average helicopter pilot does in years. It helps to practice frequently and often. Practice lowers your personal insurance premiums.

 

An average two-lane highway is not much wider than this little chopper's 27-foot rotor disc but this event reminded me that we can sometimes fit into very tight places if we do most things right. I never, ever want to have to thread such a narrow needle again, thank you very much.

 

Wires

 

 

Wires are invisible from most angles. If you talk to pilots who have had wire strikes and lived to tell about it (helicopters are particularly vulnerable since we fly low so often), they will often tell you that they were actively looking for wires -- and never saw them before the strike!

 

I flew back to the road where this happened a few weeks ago in a JetRanger and asked another pilot to locate the wires crossing the road that nearly ruined our day. Even when he knew where to look, he couldn't see them until we were almost right over them. Made a believer out of him.

 

Maintenance Issues

 

If there's something wrong with your aircraft -- get it fixed! The engine on this ship quit three times in one day while a student and I were doing hovering autos the week before this incident. Our maintenance shop tweaked the idle, and pronounced it "good to go." We thought it was fixed. It obviously wasn't.

 

It's almost always these little things that get you.

 

I learned something about engine failures on piston-engine helicopters from this incident: When the engine stops on a helicopter, the oil pressure always goes to zero. This is because the engine rotation stops when the overrunning clutch disconnects the main transmission from the engine, allowing you to make an autorotation landing. In my thousands of hours of piston-engine fixed-wing flying I've had several engine failures and the oil pressure usually continues to show normal or near normal values because the prop is usually still spinning -- as is the oil pump. If the pressure says zero, you often have a windscreen full of oil or smoke, as it was on one of my failures.

 

Sure, this makes perfect sense now -- when the earth isn't rushing up at a horrible rate -- but I'd never thought of that before. Live and learn.

 

Brand-New Experienced Pilot

 

The student who accompanied me on this adventure got his private pilot certificate (rotorcraft) a couple of weeks ago. The examiner said he did a nice job with the autorotations. What a surprise.

 

My student will never forget our flight. Nor will I. Our little incident didn't seem to faze him a bit, and I envy his experience as a young, 50-hour pilot. He learned a lot through this life-threatening emergency and will likely never fail to get his collective down the next time an engine quits.

 

Learning by mistake is the very best learning -- as long as you survive it. In spite of all our careful training, all my conservative flying, and my high priority for safety, we came damn close to busting our butts on this one. Too damn close.

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Well you can't argue with success.  The instructor did a great job in getting the thing on the ground in one piece.   It's a good thing that he chose an area where they had a place to go, just in case.  

 

There is only thing that I myself would have done differently.  That is I would have called an AME to come and check the thing over prior to flying it back to base.  

 

Cheers

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I agree with desert racer.  Plan ahead alot more than that.  I have 5 places where I will chop the throttle...I will not chop them anywhere else because I know these spots in and out and know there is no surprise wires, poles, terrain, etc.  All and all he kept his cool and all ends well.  But with a little more planning this would have been no where near as exciting of a story and therefore a much better example of what to do.  Kudos to the instructor though for saving his, his students, and the aircrafts ass.
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Aside from making any judgments, I'd just like to congratulate you on avoiding disaster, and on a very well written summation of the events.

 

You made no mention of the need for either you or the student to replace your underwear, and that's equally impressive.  :D

 

Nice job.

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The article was by Michael Maya Charles.  Not me.  His name must have not been caught in the cut and paste.

 

I felt he chose a bad area to do a throttle chop, and then endangered him and his student by flying with an unknown problem. I view myself as a qualified A&P and I probably would have called for someone to bring some tools, a fuel filter, and a trailer just in case.  I would have at least checked the fuel filter condition, and oil screen/filter for metal.  Especially after the engine quit during hovering autos several times, and the problem was supposively fixed.  I would assume a different problem exist.

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On the side, early in the story it states that after the instructor rolled the throttle off, the student did not repsond with down collective. The CFI then told the student to lower the collective.  I have no S-300 expirience, but do you have that kind of time from a throttle roll off, tell someone to lower it, then lower it before the blades stall.

Yes, you do! The 300 has a LOT of inertia - one of the first "throttle chops" I experienced my CFI rolled the throttle, then looked at me and said, "are you going to lower the collective?" We were pulling about 25" (70kt cruise). I lowered the collective. I would guess that one 300 rotor blade weighs almost as much as both R.22 blades (and there's three of them).

 

The downside to this is if you are trying to get the RPM back near the ground - it takes a lot more engine torque to get that mass wound up again.

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We can all arm chair quarterback an incident or accident but from what I read in that article the intructor did an excellent job.

 

As far as picking a spot to practice an auto to, I'd say he picked a damn good one if he landed without an engine and only took some paint off the stinger. If he had picked a bad spot he would be staring at a balled up pile of aluminum if he was lucky.

 

Every time you practice an auto you should be flying as though it was real. This just showed that the instructor knew what he was teaching.

 

All of you at one time or another will get yourself into a situation that other pilots will say is dangerous. None of us are perfect. Think about this before commenting negatively on other pilot's decisions. Someone may do the same to you some day. We all try to do the best we can and some days are better than others.

 

As far as picking up again and flying it back. I wasn't there so I can't make a decision on that.

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Said by CJ: "The article was by Michael Maya Charles.  Not me."

 

Duh. Sorry I missed that ... got so engrossed in reading the tale I didn't notice the reference to "this article".  :down:

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I think he did an excellent job getting the aircraft down as well.  I think he should have put a little more thought in were to chop the throttle so he wasn't landing on a road with traffic and power lines, but other then that I think he did an excellent job.  My problem is that he simply did a run-up and flew away.  The number of problems that may exist is too many for me to risk a takeoff without a basic mx check.
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Gotta agree with CJ.

Maybe Im a bit over cautious, but I wouldnt have done a walk around and pulled pitch. I know he did some tests in the nearby field, but to my mind flying it back was a bit cavileir, especially with a known problem.

However I think everything upto that point was done well. He kept his head worked the problem, and flewit till the last bit stopped moving.

I hope that if I ever end up in a similar situation, I will remain as calm.

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  • 7 years later...

I'm not yet a pilot, but will be soon. ( I hope) I'm not going to call myself an expert but I'm not sure I want to learn under a CFI that would take me up in an aircraft that had possibly unsolved issues and then deliberatly remove power over a potentially dangerous area. I simply cannot fathom the idea behind reducing power as a drill then taking the aircraft away from the student. That shows me that the CFI did not have confidence in the pilot's ability to land the aircraft in an auto, strange if the student was so close to checkride. Turn me loose with an auto and then say "I have the aircraft" like that would make me wonder why I wasn't ready and should I be contemplating a checkride at this time. If a CFI is going to panic and take the controls why teach?

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Oh Eric I can tell your not a pilot yet. Yeah sure go ahead 50 hour wonder pilot...you got this...right. You cant be serious? Of course you want the 1000 hour CFI to do the auto. As a pre-private student you will have never even done a touchdown auto.

Edited by ChprPlt
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I'm not yet a pilot, but will be soon. ( I hope) I'm not going to call myself an expert but I'm not sure I want to learn under a CFI that would take me up in an aircraft that had possibly unsolved issues and then deliberatly remove power over a potentially dangerous area. I simply cannot fathom the idea behind reducing power as a drill then taking the aircraft away from the student. That shows me that the CFI did not have confidence in the pilot's ability to land the aircraft in an auto, strange if the student was so close to checkride. Turn me loose with an auto and then say "I have the aircraft" like that would make me wonder why I wasn't ready and should I be contemplating a checkride at this time. If a CFI is going to panic and take the controls why teach?

 

Think of it this way; you're a CFI, and on your very first flight with someone, when suddenly the engine quits. Are you really going to trust someone with whom you've never flown before with your life?

 

Trust in someone's abilities takes time. If these two had been flying together for a while (and thus had built a relationship) then perhaps the CFI would not have taken the controls away?...although I seriously doubt it!

 

Its generally "standard procedure" for the CFI to take the controls if the "sh*t really hits the fan",...no matter how experienced the student is!

:)

 

On another note. It doesn't sound like anything was mechanically wrong with that helicopter,...its just that certain engines have a tendancy to quit if you roll the throttle off too much when practicing autos (I was told the same thing while flying an Enstrom once), especially at higher altitudes!

 

That's why we have Robinson Safey Notice 38, which recomends not rolling all the way down to idle! There's also SN 27, which relates perfectly to this situation.

;)

 

 

2003,...damn this is an old one! I wonder what those two are doing now?

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Great job landing it by the CFI. Not the greatest spot, but it worked. As far as the engine goes... I would find a new mechanic. I've never had an engine quit during training at any time, even on hover autos where you must roll into the detent. Three quits in a day, and they tweak the idle and say "fixed". Did they test it at all?

 

As far as flying it back... I can understand feeling pressured to get it back home, especially on a road blocking traffic. (Interesting that there is no mention of police showing up, surprised no one called.) I can't say I would have spun up, but with the engine quitting history of the helicopter, I can see how just restarting wouldn't be seen as a big issue.

 

Lastly, since I train at altitude here in Colorado (probably not far from where this happened) this just reminded me that it can happen, and to be prepared to have to take it to the ground every time. Fantastic article.

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<font color='#000000'>I read this article and I am curious what you all would have done in the same situation.

 

As I was talking my student through this panel check, I pointed out how quickly the rotor RPM increased back to a safe value. Then I noticed something odd in the lower corner of the panel: The oil pressure gauge was at zero. As my mechanic mind was wondering why, I looked up at the engine tachometer. It was also at zero.

 

"OK, the engine has quit! This will be a real one. I've got the aircraft."

 

Just before reaching flare height, and feeling mighty close to those wires in my left, the student and I spotted something startling in the windscreen: WIRES!!!

 

 

Even when it doesn't look possible, don't give up -- fly your aircraft all the way to the crash. Thirty years ago, Bob Hoover told an interviewer that he always flew right into the crash -- and he has certainly crashed his share of airplanes. This is the second time in my flying career that Hoover's advice was a lifesaver. Thank you again, Bob.

 

Wires

 

Wires are invisible from most angles. If you talk to pilots who have had wire strikes and lived to tell about it (helicopters are particularly vulnerable since we fly low so often), they will often tell you that they were actively looking for wires -- and never saw them before the strike!</font>

 

First of all Kudos to this guy for keeping it all together.

 

As for moving the helicopter, since there were no tell tale signs of an engine failure, no bangs, grinding noises and the like, it was most likely a fuel or air interruption. Even turbines will tell you when things go wrong. After you land if you also see no other signs of issues, like a big puddle of oil under the engine or smoke, etc. I would start the engine and see what gives. If it starts and everything is normal, I see nothing wrong with moving the helicopter doing it the way he did it. It is called experience.

 

As for the CFI taking the controls. If I am going to be dinged for balling up a helicopter, I want my hands on the controls. Keep in mind, the student is flying on the instructor's certificate, so if anything happens, the instructor gets it. Personally, I would do the same thing and I don't care what anyone says.

 

Having meet Bob Hoover and talked with him many times, he is the model of the prefect gentleman. He has been pushing the envelope since the early 1940's. He has given many a young airman excellent advise and tips. Another example would be the crew of the United DC10 in Sioux City, IA. That should have been a 100% fatal accident. However, a large portion of the passengers survived. They survived because the crew kept working the airplane til everything came to complete stop and the dust settled.

 

As for looking for the wires, I took the 'Flying in the Wire Environment' course at HeliExpo a couple of years ago. The problem with looking for wires, is that you generally will not see them until it is too late, as we see in this event. You are better off looking for signs of wires. One of the signs happens to be roads. Roads generally have wires on or near them. Not always, but enough to make you leery of them. You still have to keep looking for wires as sometimes they will present you with a gotcha. A case in point was a BH206 pilot doing a fish and game survey, hit a abandon cable-way across a river. The clearing had become overgrown and he didn't see the cable until the last second.

 

If you have a chance, you really need to look at taking that class. I used to do a powerline patrol and thought I had a reasonable handle on flying around wires. It opened my eyes.

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I see nothing wrong with moving the helicopter doing it the way he did it. It is called experience.

 

Well, in my "experience", if an engine does something its not supposed to do, I don't fly it again until a mechanic checks it out, and says its airworthy!

 

That's why, when the particular helicopter to which I'm refering stalled, I was not on board! It happened over the taxiway, so the "experienced" pilots on board (who chose to ignore my thoughts as to what was wrong (I mean what did I know, I was only the pilot at the controls, the first time around <_< )), didn't get hurt.

 

So,...you "experienced" guys are more than welcome to fly it home (before it gets checked out by a mechanic). As for me,...I'm calling a cab!

:)

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Well, in my "experience", if an engine does something its not supposed to do, I don't fly it again until a mechanic checks it out, and says its airworthy!

 

That's why, when the particular helicopter to which I'm refering stalled, I was not on board! It happened over the taxiway, so the "experienced" pilots on board (who chose to ignore my thoughts as to what was wrong (I mean what did I know, I was only the pilot at the controls, the first time around <_< )), didn't get hurt.

 

So,...you "experienced" guys are more than welcome to fly it home (before it gets checked out by a mechanic). As for me,...I'm calling a cab!

:)

 

Amen, Brother! Amen!

Part of the preflight is an inspection of maintenance records. An open issue stops the whole process there and then. An engine failure, or failure of any system that puts it in the dirt, is going to require that trained maintenance professionals identify and fix the issue before I fly. Period. An honest and capable mechanic's signature is life insurance of the best kind- you collect, alive.

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This is coming from someone who works on aircraft for about 11 years now. If you have an engine failure DO NOT Fly!. Yes the clutch disengaged from the main rotor. Yeaaa. But when He took off the engine could of seized up and then he would of been a rock falling out of the sky. If a mech. just keeps tweaking a problem STOP flying in their ships. Your life and any one else's in ship is at risk. Leave the school find a new one that follows FAA regulations and cares about peoples lives! You can do what you want but this is coming out of a mech. mouth. The last thing a pilot needs is the FAA asking if you know the mech had only tweaked the problem to sign the ship off so its operational and if you say yes your at fault for taking the unsafe ship off the deck. Please think about your passengers and your own life. You are responsible for every ones safety even the people on the ground that have nothing to do with you.

 

Let me put my comments into a better perspective. I have been flying commercially for well over 30 years. In that time I have had 8 engine failure events. All but one of them told me in advance of quitting that they were failing. The one exception was a turbine at idle power. When I pushed the power up, nothing happened. I was high enough to do a restart and everything was fine. It is not unknown for aircraft engines to quit at low idle due to an air or fuel interruption. Piston airplanes generally don't as they have a flywheel out front keeping the engine turning, so all that pilot will see is a slight hesitation. Jets and helicopters don't have that sort of flywheel effect so you can see the engine stop running. After landing, I did a couple of starts and run ups and then I talked with the DM and we were both of the consensus that it was an air interruption.

 

As for this pilot, he checked the oil and fuel level and had a sufficient amount of both, there were no signs of abnormal oil contamination and there was no fuel contamination. He started it up and it ran properly with no indications of engine abnormalities on the instruments. If there was a mechanical issue with the engine, by this time there would have been some indication of a problem. He made a judgement call based on his experience and his knowledge of that particular aircraft. I am not going to second guess him on this judgement call because I was not there and have not talked directly with him.

 

As for mechanics tweaking things. Especially when you are talking about carbs or fuel control units on fuel injection systems, many times all it takes is a tweak. A click or two this way or that. Properly setting a FCU or carb is sometimes more of an art than a skill. Besides, if this was an on going problem with this particular helicopter, why weren't all the instructors not jumping on maintenance and management about this? Many of times I have run across CFI's complaining about a particular aircraft, but they have never talked with maintenance or the Chief CFI about it. Why? The usual excuses I have heard are: 'They already know about it', One of the other instructors complained about it' and so on. Keep in mind what wheel gets the grease. Hint: it is not the quiet wheel.

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This is coming from someone who works on aircraft for about 11 years now. If you have an engine failure DO NOT Fly!. Yes the clutch disengaged from the main rotor. Yeaaa. But when He took off the engine could of seized up and then he would of been a rock falling out of the sky. If a mech. just keeps tweaking a problem STOP flying in their ships. Your life and any one else's in ship is at risk. Leave the school find a new one that follows FAA regulations and cares about peoples lives! You can do what you want but this is coming out of a mech. mouth. The last thing a pilot needs is the FAA asking if you know the mech had only tweaked the problem to sign the ship off so its operational and if you say yes your at fault for taking the unsafe ship off the deck. Please think about your passengers and your own life. You are responsible for every ones safety even the people on the ground that have nothing to do with you.

 

I hit the wrong button, I went to edit and hit the delete sorry.

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