scotsman

He may have been unhappy only because he wasn't expecting it - at Moorabbin there are potential conflicts - apart from aircraft joining overhead and descending to downwind we have helicopters crossing mid-field at 500 ft as we take off.The Tower guys here are excellent - they know the local MX2 but if you visited they'd probably expect a sedate Stearman type departure.

Incidentally: to me, a SID is a standard inverted departure.

I remember my first solo aerobatic flight...was a bunch of self doubt before pulling into that first loop. Must have done my HASELL checks three times before manning up!

Enjoyed the honesty about the times where you doubted yourself....I think that we have all been there and probably will go there again from time to time if we are honest. All the effort is definitely worth it

Any chance of some pics of the latest design and build Bex?

From what I have read, not all R44's have a hydraulic system and those that do are similar to the B206, inasmuch as you can turn the hyds off and still fly it, although the failsafe is to "ON" in case of a power failure, meaning power is required to power the "hyd off" solenoid". The hyd pump is always driven from the main rotor transmission so hyd power is available while you rotors are turning.Not sure about R44 rigging, but with B206s the max auto RPM is adjusted in the rigging.

I have spend quite a bit of time in the back seat of a B206 in full autorotation and collective on the floor, with the maintenance test pilot leaning into the middle, tapping the gauge, and hearing "does that look like 365 to you?" over the intercom.

Knowing how much of a handful it can be to land a heli with the hydraulics off I'm not sure how good my chances would be trying to do it in an auto with the hydraulics off!

I am full of admiration for this pilot. Well executed auto rotation with not much height to boot, Scotsman. Why oh why even think about going past top of green with rotor rpm. Risking failure of parts imho Making your situation worse.

 

By the way what do you think about the news reports. Maybe are a bit confusing..pilot said loss of power and hydraulic failure rather than engine stopped. Fuel starvation? I understand no engine no hydraulics.

 

Anyone like to speculate on the causal part?

If you were to read on a variety of sites like pprune or just chatting to some heli instructors you would see that rotor overspeeds do happen and whilst some cause no damage others require maintenance, however you do not hear about minor incursions over the red line equating to blade failure and therefore the better of the two risks to accept.

Extra RRPM is likely to provide better cushioning from spinal injuries as it provides addition energy at one of the critical points of the auto to reduce vertical impact forces. In training we have all pulled off really nice top of the green autos to the deck but in a real world engine failure with the associated stressors your performance is not likely to be as finessed as with an instructor beside you over a nice pad or piece of runway on a lovely day into wind to full down auto into. I believe that most pilots in a real life auto will write off the heli so practically speaking for the lower hours types like myself it is about reducing impact forces and thus increasing survivability.

In short serious spinal injuries with the opportunity to burn at the crash site in a 22 or a blade overspeed under 110% which would not result in blade failure.

Out of interest do you/did you fly helis Chocolate?

We practice autos in the green rotor RPM section but practically in a real auto you will likely slightly exceed the green band to store more energy in the blade for the final yank on the collective which gives you more options.

If I remember correctly a small rotor overspeed only requires a visual inspection post event whereas over 110% I think that it is a strip down.

Not quite correct. You have to specify which type of robbo. For instance R 22s are very different to this model (R 44)22 blades are very low inertia ( later ones heavier than early ones) but 44 blades are quite high. About same as a jet ranger.

When I was doing my 44 endorsement the instructor showed me a "re-take off" on the stored inertia. Landed a smooth and no delay auto - then pull pitch and bought it back to a two foot hover for a few seconds then it settled back onto the ground. He used to fly Hueys and said that in those you could pull back up to the hover do a 360 degree pedal turn and set it back down again.

Don't worry about it and enjoy the journey. The longer it takes and the harder it is the sweeter it will be when you achieve your licence.

Great job from the pilot. Can't have been a great feeling to have your kid and grandkid in the heli with you when it happened.

Very hard to judge the right auto flare height when you don't know the height of the scrub.

Hello Peter/fellow heli type, rightly or wrongly there is quite a lot of noise around the rotorway product and although it seems to have got better there is quite a lot of negative commentary. I went through the same process that you were going through to potentially buy and build a kit helicopter as I would love to own my own at some point but gave up as the risk appeared too high. Some of the single seater Helis have a much better reputation but I fly a lot to share the experience and although it would be fun the limited range of the one seaters is also a problem.

Here is some of the content that I was referring to that put me off:

Rotorway Corner - PPRuNe Forums

Sounds like a plan as knowing my luck I would bump something expensive! What is it they say about a forced landing.....try and hit the softest and cheapest think you can find.

Interesting one Geoff, I just assumed that you were bound to the T&Cs by the virtue of hiring it but I'm no lawyer.

What sort of rate do you guys pay for non ownership liability insurance? Just trying to get a gauge for how bad the damage will be.

Thanks bud for the translation. I was searching on the wrong terms and wondering why I couldn't find it offered here! Sent them an email just now. Hope that it is not horribly expensive.

Evening all, for those of you that hire and fly from a school or the like the insurance is usually included in the private hire and fly rate but there is normally an excess (usually a pretty significant amount) that you would be liable for in the event of an accident where, for example, the aircraft is totalled (and assuming you are not totalled as well).

Is there an insurance broker in Oz that offers a product for the hirer to insure the excess? Back in darkest Africa for a pretty reasonable fee you could insure the excess and give yourself the comfort that you wouldn't have to sell the wife and kids if you pranged it.

Any advice would be appreciated (except - don't crash in the first place! )

Cheers

James

Any new aircraft for $50 is good buying (or a donation). For a personal choice you have to pay full price.Whatever aircraft chosen will not please everyone, but they would still take it, I suspect - unless it is the rag & tube or trike style, which has its followers also, but somewhat more limited in numbers.

An RV-12 should tick most of the raffle boxes.rgmwa

People are illogical creatures. If you offer a winner the option of say a dinner for two valued at $100 at a particular restaurant and a $100 cash, a high percentage of people will take the dinner even though the cash would be more useful. You could even use it at any other restaurant or anything else but they still take the prize because they like the idea of getting something exciting that they wouldn't have ordinarily bought. For this reason, I dont think that the exact choice of aircraft is as important as you think it is. As Ben says they can always sell it and buy something else.I do think though that you could try to sell tickets to the general public. As discussed above there are only about 20,000 to 40,000 pilots in australia distributed all over the place and so you might be lucky to get 5% to commit. If you were at an airshow like Wing over Illawarra or Avalon and could convince the organisers to support you with a stall and have the aircraft on display. You might be able to convince the aircraft manufacturer that this publicity is worth at least another $10k discount.... You might be able to sell to 10% of the people through the gates as well as the pilot population? Much bigger audience.

 

Whether right or wrong Jabiru have copped some bad publicity and so in the general public's mind might be a great choice.

You're not going to be able to please everyone. Even tho I suggested the jab, if I won it ild most likely sell it and buy something a bit quicker and with more room. It's the general appeal of the prize that would be important.Aussie built, easy to fly, cheap to operate or learn in I would think would all be important factors.

As far as polarised views? Unfortunately that may not make it ideal but the Brumby would still meet all the requirements.

 

My grandfather won one of those letterbox lotteries many years ago and ended up with a Porsche Boxster which he had traded in on a Mercedes before even taking delivery of it. I'm sure he was just as happy.

I also would have sold it but for an aircraft.

I would buy two tickets in a Jab230 or a Brumby. Or something old and interesting in good order.

Better odds than the lottery!

Without trying to start another Jabi handbags at dawn issue, do you think that a jabi as the prize choice might polarise people who were buyers as there seems to be two distinct jabi camps (either swear by them or hate them)?

It's not limited to PPL holders tho obviously, there are another 10K CPL and ATPL holders.So is that 40k all up then?

Thanks Fishla, much appreciated. Makes then to select an aircraft which has which is on the upper limit of the RA parameters so that it is attractive to both pools of pilots.

I reckon 2000 would be possible with a decent marketing plan covering both sets of pilots. Going to have a few conversations to see if it is possible and who I could get to support me.

Do you have an idea of the number of PPLs at all? On 10000 I would be pleasantly surprised to get 10% so realistically I would need a bigger pool of people to pull this off.

Seems like a good choice Fishla. Is the 10000 the total number of GA and RA pilots in Oz or just RA?

I think there is also the opportunity to sell some tickets outside of the existing aviation market.