Helicopter "imcident" question

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message ...
"Chuck" wrote in message
m...
But, in normal circumstances, a nose heavy rotorcraft would "nose down"
instead of, ummm, well, tail down, for a lack of better words?

I don't know what the phrase "nose heavy" means in that incident report, but
I can't imagine that it actually means what us fixed-wing pilots would
normally think of. There's simply not really any place in the forward area
of the helicopter to load any significant weight that would literally make
the aircraft heavier in the nose than normal. Furthermore, with the whole
helicopter dangling from the rotor, it wouldn't take much change in aircraft
attitude to bring things back into balance.

Helicopters have rather narrow CG ranges. Anything loose that
might shift forward could cause the noseheavy condition. Freight may
have shifted in external carriers, for instance. Perhaps the thing was
already noseheavy at takeoff, when someone didn't do their numbers.

Dan