Bad part failure

Us aircraft fixie people dont get second chances, neither do our customers. The industry is extremely safe and *most mechanics are extremely professional. Some owners/operators are not. That said. You get what you pay for in this industry. I’m sure he pays for top notch maint owning a fleet of helicopters. Must be a catastrophic failure and hopefully not a maint oversite. Helicopters defy physics. They are flying rocks. One failure they fall like one. Really was the best outcome and best time for the failure. I’m wondering if ground effect played a role in accelerating failure. One of my favorite models since i was a big “airwolf” fan as a kid. She to see such a beautiful machine go in
 
Last edited:
If he was higher in elevation, could he have done auto-rotate maneuver? Otherwise, thank god for those trees, they certainly saved the fall.
 
I've heard that he caught a tailwind, loss tail rotor effectiveness, grabbed an armpit of collective and overtorqued the gear box....matches the video.....
 
I saw somewhere pics of there the part that controls the tail rotor pitch tore away from the mechanism. Metal failure. They had slow-mo vid. In the one attached, you can see something fly away from the tail as it starts to spin out of control.
 
If he was higher in elevation, could he have done auto-rotate maneuver? Otherwise, thank god for those trees, they certainly saved the fall.
No, he lost all rotational stability when that tail rotor failed. He would have spun faster and faster with no possible means of saving it. And yes trees helped stop rotation and absorbed some of his falling energy
 
Us aircraft fixie people dont get second chances, neither do our customers. The industry is extremely safe and *most mechanics are extremely professional. Some owners/operators are not. That said. You get what you pay for in this industry. I’m sure he pays for top notch maint owning a fleet of helicopters. Must be a catastrophic failure and hopefully not a maint oversite. Helicopters defy physics. They are flying rocks. One failure they fall like one. Really was the best outcome and best time for the failure. I’m wondering if ground effect played a role in accelerating failure. One of my favorite models since i was a big “airwolf” fan as a kid. She to see such a beautiful machine go in


View attachment c9f25f7783fab954c4c07dfcadc1dcc0.mp4
 
Back
Top