Well, yes, they also cost a lot to maintain as well.
Apparently there is a joke about did you hear about the irish helicopter, it was fitted with ejector seats.
However one may laugh, but the Americans hve actually tested some. What happens is that explosive bolts sever the rotor blades just before the ejection.
it should be as instinctive as putting the nose down when you lose a conventional aircraft's engine. And something any experienced pilot will have practised many times as part of training.
I.e while not routine, its something in the training, like emergency braking in a car.
And its fairly true to say that MOST severe air accidents are a combination of unfortunate events that take the pilot beyond the training envelope. Or result in total inability of any pilot to fly it at all.
Loss of an engine in a multi is not such an event. Nor is loss of two.
One reason that Police helicopter pilots are, like this one, almost always ex-military, is that their training is particularly extensive and covers situations that most pilots will never have to meet.
Going off at a tangent, why do the police need piloted helicopters at all? Some sort of drone could do the job of carrying a camera and communication equipment aloft. The helicopter weighed around 3 tonnes, and the pilot/passengers would have accounted for nearly 10% of that. Add in their seats, cabin and windscreen, and I suspect that a drone would weigh a great deal less.
I suspect that a model plane sized drone would do the job adequately some of the time. Looking for a burglar with an infra red camera might be better done with a model aircraft, for example. The police turn up with the model in the boot of their car, rather than having to wait for a noisy helicopter to arrive.
The technology is certainly *getting* there, but the commercial ones don't have the IR capability of the systems used in manned helicopters. And I expect the larger military stuff is more expensive to run than a manned helicopter.
Already in use in some areas. Merseyside made the first arrest using a drone in 2010.
About a metre across and weighing a few kilos, in the case of the one used in Merseyside. However, the drones are limited to working within about 500 metres of their controller and cannot carry some items, such as the Nightsun searchlight.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.