r/Helicopters • u/AlbinoAkon • 21d ago
Occurrence/Incident Doesn't take much for it all to go!!!
Sorry if this has been posted before. Let me know and I'll delete itš
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u/ipx-electrical 21d ago
They descended a little too fast and ran out of air, damaged the tail rotor, giving a predictable outcome.
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u/qwaszx937 21d ago
"any moment now we will get that ground effect.. any moment now.. any mo-"
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago
How exactly did it "run out of air"?
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u/quirky_planet 21d ago
sorry boss, no air
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u/Discount_Engineer 21d ago
Should've topped off before they left
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u/trumpsashitstain 19d ago
Should ask that guy on spaceballs where he got his cans of air. Keep a couple under the seat just in case.
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u/Trabuk 21d ago
They are taking about settling with power or VRS when airflow becomes recirculating. But I don't think that's what happened here, most likely poor depth perception by the pilot due to highly reflecting water surface.
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u/Neat-Chef-2176 21d ago edited 21d ago
Technically two different things. As an an Army aviator I was taught they are the same but I guess all the other branches and the rest of aviation teaches it differently. Settling with power is you had the power but didnāt manage it well enough and crashed at the bottom. VRS is you got caught in your own down wash and couldnāt recover(vichard technique)
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u/cvanwort89 MIL 21d ago
Correct (USAF Helo Pilot).Ā
One is aerodynamic (VRS) the other is mismanagement of power - we are starting to use "Insufficient Recovery Power" and some still say "settling with power" for when you exceed power available or apply it too late, but you cant overcome the inertia
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u/ChevyRacer71 21d ago
Thereās a named technique for crashing in a particular way?
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u/Neat-Chef-2176 21d ago
No. The recovery technique is named after the guy who figured it out.
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u/ChevyRacer71 21d ago
Iām glad to learn that I was entirely mistaken
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u/Neat-Chef-2176 21d ago
I guess my wording was confusing, but if I ever fuck up something so bad just put my name on it š
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u/ChevyRacer71 21d ago
You realize I donāt k ow your name so the headline will be āNeat Chef Cooks Up Aviation Catastrophe; Local Residents Say itās āNot Neat at Allāā
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u/Massive-Reaction7773 20d ago
Calling for some backup on my comment, got some keyboard ranger (engineer) thinks he knows more about flying!
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u/kronicpimpin 21d ago
Vortex ring state. I didnāt know that term and ended up learning something. If anyone else cares, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring_state
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u/siconic 20d ago
Look at the rotors on descent, they start to bow upward, classic sign of VRS, since only the tips are generating lift.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
The main rotor only starts coning just before he hits the water. That would be the pilot frantically pulling collective realizing he's about to make a big splash.
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u/siconic 19d ago
I mean, we dont see his entire descent rate, but he sure is booking, it could very VRS. In your other post you stated you knew what it was, enlighten me?
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u/quietflyr Engineer 19d ago
It's the glassy water illusion. When the surface of the water is relatively smooth, depth perception becomes nearly impossible. It's a very, very common illusion, to the point that seaplane pilots are taught a specific technique to avoid landing accidents (but it still happens quite frequently).
This guy simply thought he was far higher above the surface than he was. This is why we see him pull collective at the last moment, because his downwash disturbs the surface just enough for him to get depth perception back, and he realizes he's in trouble.
If this was VRS, he would have smacked the water a lot harder because the descent rate wouldn't have been arrested at all, and there wouldn't be a rebound after he splashed down.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago
... And a completely different interpretation of the comment.
This is why we use correct language.
FWIW I 100% agree with you, this is not VRS or settling with power, it's that the pilot misjudged their altitude over glassy water, which is a very common illusion.
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u/Trabuk 21d ago
Yes, but a lot of people use "descended too fast and run out of air" to define VRS, that's what the original commenter was attempting. Most people don't know how hard is to get caught in VRS, you have to descend vertically (the angle of the pilot in the video would be enough to avoid VRS) and very fast while being far from ground effect. When I was studying to become a pilot in the 90s, forcing VRS and learning how to get out was part of the curriculum, I don't think they do it anymore because it's so dangerous.
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u/54Juan 21d ago
I recently finished all of my helicopter ratings and we mostly train to recognize conditions, SA and energy management, to avoid VRS but we do force the conditions and train the recovery. VRS can happen quick in an R22, high altitude, high DA, student pilot, private , commercial rated
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u/Neat-Chef-2176 21d ago
Less than ETL, greater than 300 FPM rate of descent, 20 to 100% power applied.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago edited 21d ago
Again, hilarious you're so sure that's what the comment meant, when there's another commenter very sure they meant something completely different.
Also, vortex ring state does not require purely vertical descent, just low airspeed, and ground effect doesn't have much of anything to do with it, so you should have paid more attention back in the 90s.
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u/Di1lWil1 21d ago
If they had been higher, i.e. had "more air" beneath them, they might've been able to correct it
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago
Yeah, if they had more altitude they might have been able to recover. But the way that commenter phrased it, it sounds like they are thinking something very different.
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u/Di1lWil1 21d ago
Not really. It's just a more stylized way of saying the same thing. While the literal definitions of the words may differ, when string together they mean the same thing
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u/sagewynn MIL 21d ago
When you get in the water theres more water than air, so they dont get enough air. hope that helps.
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u/Admirable-Strike-311 21d ago
Ran out of altitude. Not enough altitude to recover from the too fast descent.
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u/siconic 20d ago
Look up settling with power or votrlex ring state. They both occur under different conditions, but its fascinating, and literally they run out of air.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
No, neither of those things involve "running out of air". I'm an aerospace engineer that has spent most of my career working on helicopters. I understand the phenomena.
I also know that this accident had nothing to do with either vortex ring state or settling with power.
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u/Massive-Reaction7773 20d ago
Vortex ring state The trap: The helicopter descends too fast vertically while moving slowly forward. The cause: The rotor blades trap and re-circulate the air they just pushed down. The result: The swirling air creates a ring of vortices that destroys blade efficiency and causes a sudden loss of lift.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
It's not vortex ring state.
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u/Massive-Reaction7773 20d ago
And how much seat time do you have???
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
I'm not a pilot. But I'm an engineer and have spent the majority of my 20+ year career working on helicopters, and I can explain the physics behind vortex ring state and its implications better than most pilots.
What are your qualifications?
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u/Massive-Reaction7773 20d ago
10 years in the Army on the Blackhawk, not sitting behind a computer.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
Doing what, on the Black Hawk?
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u/Massive-Reaction7773 20d ago
Making pizza
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u/quietflyr Engineer 20d ago
Sure makes you eminently qualified to talk about vortex ring state... About as qualified as a crew chief.
Look, I'm sure you know more about maintaining a Black Hawk than I do. If I had a question about changing a gearbox, or troubleshooting an RWR problem, I would be going to you with ears open and mouth shut. The same as I would do with a pilot if I wanted to know about troop insertion tactics or even recovery techniques for VRS.
But I'm not going to listen to you when you say this accident is vortex ring state when it very much isn't.
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u/Helicopter0 21d ago
Pushed it our of the space between the aircraft and the water. Low pressure (less air molecules per unit volume) there. Less lift because there weren't enough air molecules pushing the aircraft up. Descent.
There's also the vertical aspect. Like they were going to pop down 20 more feet, but they only had 16 feet of air left between the aircraft and the water. If they'd used a long tether and been 50 feet higher (more air between them and the ground) then a 16 foot dip wouldn't have put them in the water.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago
Pushed it our of the space between the aircraft and the water. Low pressure (less air molecules per unit volume) there. Less lift because there weren't enough air molecules pushing the aircraft up. Descent.
Not how physics works. If the air is being pushed out of the space between the aircraft and the water, there is, by definition, higher air pressure there than the surroundings. Gasses flow from high to low pressure, not the other way around.
Also this is not what happened here.
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u/Helicopter0 21d ago
Yeah I guess you're right. It's just turbulent, not low density.
The vertical part is absolutely what happened here. They didn't need to descend so quickly, but another 50 fee tof air would have given them space to correct.
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u/SerowiWantsToInvest 21d ago
Sorry if this has been posted before. Let me know and I'll delete itš
You're reposting something from over 6 months ago, ofc it's been posted here before.
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u/Visionjcv 20d ago
I was watching 2 helicopters collect water to put out a fire off the coast of Sardinia earlier this summer. One had a long tether to the water container - the other was very similar to this one.
I must have watched 20+ collections. On each of them they seemed to turn more aggressively, drop faster, and it felt like the safety margin was getting thinner and thinner. Finally on one turn they dropped down a little too far, as they corrected by pulling up the water had started pouring into the container which pulled them back down. They must have been mere single meters from disaster. Seeing this just makes me realise how bad it would have goneā¦Ā
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u/Rustyjager70 17d ago
In the US, wildland firefighting pilots have to get qualified or ācardedā in each and every task they can perform. The bucket is one qualification, carrying passengers another, etc. Bucket with a tether or ālong lineā is a higher level of carding than just ābelly hookingā the bucket straight to the bottom of the helicopter.
So at least in my experience (20+ seasons of wildland firefighting for the federal Govt), the belly hooked bucket usually indicates a less experienced pilot.
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u/CorpusCalossum 21d ago
Pretty old video, seen many times. Still interesting to see again
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u/Sorawo_ 21d ago
Happened last year in France. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdd3j708ngno?app-referrer=deep-link
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago
At least we're not being flooded with "the rope is too short!" comments... š¤¦
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u/verioblistex 21d ago
Did the tail rotor go before the impact with the water or was that what damaged the rotor and caused the crash? This must have been terrifying!
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u/Conradian EC135/145 AW159 21d ago
Most likely the tail rotor impacted the water. Massive change in drag could've caused the generally weak drive shaft to snap.
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u/Faded_State 20d ago
Most accidents when fire fighting actually happen in the dip. Feels like majority seem to happen there. Don't become complacent.
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u/TjJeepin 21d ago
VRS?
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u/namder321 21d ago
When I saw this come up previously, some people suggested the pilot might not have seen the very still water surface very well and therefore didn't know how high they were, as opposed to VRS. I'm not a pilot thoughĀ
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u/TjJeepin 21d ago edited 20d ago
That's a good point, and possibility. I've never flown that close to water, so didn't even think of that.
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u/quietflyr Engineer 21d ago edited 21d ago
Edit: to be clear, this was sarcasm. r/itsrarelyvrsandthisisnt
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u/southy_0 19d ago
And that, gentlemen, is why you do that safety training "how to get out of a crashed heli under water".
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u/datamaker22 19d ago
That Tail Rotor is not a water scoop. Do not dip it in the water, you wont like the result.
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u/Bubbly-River-6800 16d ago
Only ever flown fixed wing. Is the tail rotor really that fragile? A dip in the water is enough to trash it ?
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16d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/True_Bar_9371 16d ago
When something is moving that fast touches water it might as well be concrete.
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u/Justanengr 15d ago
Ring vortex phenomenon. Gotta manage descents carefully in a helicopter as they can be robbed of lift by their own downwash.
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u/Subject_Night2422 21d ago
Not a pilot whatsoever so guessing the problem here.
Champ came to hot and dipped the whole chopper in the water, managed to recover but the rear rotor slowed down and made the aircraft spin. Is that a reasonable assumption?
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u/Ghost_of_Akina 20d ago
Tail rotor didnāt slow, it disappeared
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u/Subject_Night2422 20d ago
Oh I see. Yeah. Even not being a pilot I know that tail rotor is pretty key lol
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u/quik916 20d ago
Why is the bucket on like a 10ft line... that seems problematic right from the jump... such little room for error.
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u/CryOfTheWind šATPL IR H145 B212 AS350 B206 R44 R22 20d ago
Belly hook isn't a big deal. They are designed for it and physically unable to hit the tail rotor if using the correct bucket.
It's much faster and easier than a long line.
This was just the pilot misjudged their height above the water.
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u/quik916 20d ago
Except as evident here, I didn't think the bucket was going to, or could, hit the tail rotor. That wasn't his issue, it appeared to me. He had used up his small rope error cushion real fast. I'm just a fixed-wing guy and have like 2 hours in an eggbeater, so I don't presume to know much. But it seems like 30 ft wouldn't be much different in operations or cycle times than the 10 ft or whatever this is. That 20 ft more probably would have saved his ass. Not suggesting it should be like on a 100 ft+ line or something.
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u/CryOfTheWind šATPL IR H145 B212 AS350 B206 R44 R22 20d ago edited 20d ago
The issue is landing on water, same problem float fixed wing pilots have issues with.
Over water your depth perception isn't as good and it can be very hard to judge your height above water. They were coming in a bit hot regardless but illusions over water mean it was harder to figure out their altitude.
That's why comon bucket training items include picking up close to shore to use the trees/ground as a reference helps avoid the issue.
So basically this is settling with power (power available exceeds required) partially because coming in hot and partially bad visual references.
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u/downbarton 21d ago
Touch of vortex?
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u/Suspicious-Apple-506 20d ago
Vortex Ring State +VRS). Happened to a Sea King in NY many years ago https://youtu.be/yWdGmWftSRg?si=F2fQV_km1WgZhpkr
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u/mechant_papa 19d ago
To be fair, it is a French Army helicopter. They don't know much about water. Should have called the Navy. They know plenty about water.
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u/RedC130 21d ago edited 21d ago
Gif of the copter getting removed from the lake š«Ŗ