Emergency Services Helicopters

[GB]

Bonne chance!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I can understand you not wanting gas for cooking - but for heating?

[js.b1]

#1 - Well power to the rotors was lost, hence it went down.

Gearbox lubrication failure (plastic plug in a new pump to low oil from hos e failure), but not locked rotors.

#2 - I do believe he successfully auto-gyro'd at least in part.

Helicopter does show a degree of pancaking, but I saw at least one ski inta ct and the degree of pancaking was trivial compared to freefall from 2000ft

+. Likewise there was no fire, now that could indicate out of fuel due to a screwup - but I suspect not.

#3 - The roof did not collapse immediately.

Roof joists even in Scotland on a 1 storey building are pretty slim compare d to a 3 ton chopper falling at any speed. The static load is a bit harsh - although of course we could have had RSJ in the location it hit re span bu t probably not.

That it did not smash straight through and bury itself in the floor and exp lode indicates to be it was auto-gyro and the pilot valiantly tried with wh at he had. Auto gyro at night is pretty hard, re seeing when to flare re al titude and piloting the proverbial brick before the blades do a poor parach ute job.

Yes there are ejector seats for helicopters, and parachutes, rotor is shear ed and chute deploys. They have been tested at Sandia test range (I recall) . Same exists for small "you are NOT getting me up in a reliant robin with a propellor on the front".

Now chinook, or that slightly nutty plane/helicopter... the loads on those gearboxes is "interesting". All it takes is a crack and nasty things happen .

12 ft to the "left" and the pilot may have got it in the proverbial car par k (although I doubt survived, it hit hard enough to pancake a fair bit). I do recall a police helicopter pilot on a program (not the one with the head to big to fit the helmet!) that auto-gyro at night "was definately somethi ng to avoid".

[js.b1]

I suspect a drivetrain fracture. Such that during auto-gyro it lost part/all of the rotating mass of the turbines, so reducing the energy stored during the fall required to reduce final descent speed. It hit hard enough to kill all 3 occupants.

Helicopter avionics store a lot of diagnostic information. Drivetrain has been recovered, so a matter of waiting.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Oh, f*ck off. Teh chopper is a total abortion of a flying machine.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

A particular fighter ejection seat did, too. It was fixed soon after entering service. Buggered if I recall what one, though.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Proof that, if given enough of a challenge, engineers will come through. They succeeded in turning the silk purse of flight into the sow's ear of the helicopter. Not even that; more of a pig's arse.

[Dave Liquorice]

Add a couple more wheels as well. Motor vehicles are real killers, around 8 people *a day* are killed on UK roads.

[Dave Liquorice]

Not up here, the three Great North Air Ambulances are just that.

And also not within 100 or so metres of any building...

That is the other problem payload is only a few kg.

[Tim+]

A pig's arse that's very good at winching people off hills. Trying doing that with a fixed wing plane!

Tim

[Nightjar]

You must have too much money up there :-)

Colin Bignell

[The Other Mike]

It would in most cases fly on as normal or land within a few minutes.

Presuambly you'd also mark all these on an aviation chart map and have them clearly illuminated at night just in case?

So who pays for thousands of these sites across the country that might get used once in 500 years?

Four engined aircraft crash too, as do eight engined ones

[The Other Mike]

'Most' being iirc just two in the UK, Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire, with somewhere around 35 - 40 air ambulances operating in the UK.

[The Other Mike]

Juggling hand grenades is statistically safer than flying Air France.

[Apprentice 65]

[ #3 - The roof did not collapse immediately.

Roof joists even in Scotland on a 1 storey building are pretty slim compared to a 3 ton chopper falling at any speed. The static load is a bit harsh - although of course we could have had RSJ in the location it hit re span but probably not.[/i][/color]

It was a ground floor of what used to be a four-storey tenement building. Quite a common sight in Glasgow, to see orphaned pubs and rows of shops, topped by a shonky flat roof where the storeys used to be. As you can imagine, they were never designed to withstand much beyond a likely snow load.

A report on Radio Scotland from the Chief Fire Officer noted that the Clutha had THREE roofs over the bar area.

As rightly stated above the bar had been historically a ground floor of a three story Tenement, the external walls, Sandstone were / are over one meter thick, if the fire service had "burrowed in" would have caused a progressive collapse.

The first ceiling was in fact the Historic first floor, floor joist above that there were TWO other "roofs" one was sound insulated all of the roofs were in effect free standing structures.

I believe that is the above three roofs were not in place the fatalities in the Bar, a far from large twin area public space could have been even more Catastrophic than it was?

These three roofs could go some way to explaining why there appears to have been a slight delay in the Chopper strike and the "partial" collapse of the roof structure?

[bert]

In message , harryagain writes

According to the DT this helicopter was following the river then suddenly dived off to starboard and crashed into the pub.

[GB]

I'll see your B52 and raise you one C17.

Evidently, pilots who forgot they were not in fighter planes. Hope they got their Darwin Awards.

[Dave Liquorice]

A year or so ago only two were flying as there wasn't the money. All three are now but one is more of a "spare" to cover maintenance etc of the other two.

There is an awful lot of space up here, they cover North Yorkshire, County Durham, Tyne & Wear, Northhumberland & Cumbria. Sort of every where north of the latitude of Lancaster/Morecombe to the border. I think the only major trauma hospitals in the whole of that area are in Carlisle, Newcastle and Lancaster, they could be a good couple of hours away by minor A road or 20 mins by Air Ambulance ...

[Nightjar]

AIUI most Police helicopters are also equipped to act as air ambulances, even if there are dedicated air ambulances operating in the area. I've seen the Sussex Police helicopter landing at a hospital with a casualty aboard.

Colin Bignell

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Pah; never heard of the Burma Plucker?