Speaking of POP OUT FLOATS

How many of you saw the shots on TV last night of the
helicopter upside down in the water... in NYC.

Looks like the floats at least kept the machine at the water's surface
as apposed to the machine sinking.

But as a lurker who only saw one shot of the machine.... what do I know.

Where's Micbloo when you need him.

Yeah, I saw that on the news last night. The good thing is that everyone (3
souls, I think?) got out Ok and I assume the bird can be salvaged?

It would have been interesting to witness that one. I wonder how well he
sat the bird down on the water and what the water conditions were at the
time.

Some time ago, I had expressed a curiosity about how well floats like that
would support the helicopter on water. Specifically, I was wondering how
likely it would be for the helicopter to float upright. Someone responded
with a link to pictures of a Jet Ranger that had done an emergency auto into
San Francisco Bay. No one on board was hurt and the aircraft was floating
upright and appeared to be relatively stable. The sea conditions looked to
be fairly typical of SF Bay, at least as far as I've ever seen it. That is
to say, a far cry from smooth so I have to wonder what ultimately caused
this one to turn turtle?

Fly Safe,
Steve R.


"SHIVER ME TIMBERS" wrote in message
...
How many of you saw the shots on TV last night of the
helicopter upside down in the water... in NYC.

Looks like the floats at least kept the machine at the water's surface
as apposed to the machine sinking.

But as a lurker who only saw one shot of the machine.... what do I know.

Where's Micbloo when you need him.

Steve R. wrote:

Some time ago, I had expressed a curiosity about how well floats like that
would support the helicopter on water.

Why me too...... kinda

I was commenting about how cute some of those machines looked like on
floats, and was kinda wondering what they were like to fly.

Boy did I get an earfull about how unwieldly they were and how they
affected performance.

I've got pop outs on my Jet Ranger. They're only supposed to be good
in seas up to about 2 feet. Personally if I did have to pop'em and the
ship stayed upright I'd be happy, but the real reason to have them is
that even if the thing flips you're near the surface and egress stands
a chance of being a lot less traumatic than it is in one without floats.

To answer your other Q. They can salvage the ship, but the engine
and a lot of other things are probably worth close to scrap.

The old chief flight instructor at Bell told me that more helicopters
flipped over when somebody tried to tow them with a boat than
after landing. I thought it was an interesting factoid, and it was
funny to imagine what the guys at TowboatsUS would say if
I called em up on channel 16 for a tow back to the airport.

Bart

B4RT wrote:

but the real reason to have them is
that even if the thing flips you're near the surface and egress stands
a chance of being a lot less traumatic than it is in one without floats.

Yuppers.... being just an armchair pilot I looked at the video and
thought the same thing about those floats being good for keeping the
machine close to the surface.

Scary for all no matter what the circumstances.

They will all have interesting stories for the grand kids.

"B4RT" wrote in message
...
To answer your other Q. They can salvage the ship, but the engine
and a lot of other things are probably worth close to scrap.

Bart

That's a little disappointing but not surprising. I figured that anything
electronic would be hosed. Com and Nav radios as will as electronics used
to control the engine and flight systems, if any. I was hoping the engine
and transmission components would, at least, be rebuildable after a total
overhaul.

Oh well! At least the people are Ok and that's the important part. The
aircraft can be replaced.

Thanks for the response & Fly Safe,
Steve R.

"Craig Welch" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:57:45 GMT, SHIVER ME TIMBERS
wrote:

How many of you saw the shots on TV last night of the
helicopter upside down in the water... in NYC.

An amazing helicopter! It runs on diesel fuel, according to this
article (NOT):
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.a...55E954,00.html

--
Craig

Well, it's a write up in newspaper or other such news periodical. I'm not
sure I'd take the "diesel fuel" report too literally. Besides, isn't Jet A
just a slightly more refined version of diesel fuel anyway? It would be
easy for a lay person (ie: reporter) to mistake one for the other.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.

Steve R. wrote:
"Craig Welch" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:57:45 GMT, SHIVER ME TIMBERS
wrote:


How many of you saw the shots on TV last night of the
helicopter upside down in the water... in NYC.

An amazing helicopter! It runs on diesel fuel, according to this
article (NOT):
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.a...55E954,00.html

--
Craig


Well, it's a write up in newspaper or other such news periodical. I'm not
sure I'd take the "diesel fuel" report too literally. Besides, isn't Jet A
just a slightly more refined version of diesel fuel anyway? It would be
easy for a lay person (ie: reporter) to mistake one for the other.

Jet A is a lot closer to diesel than gasoline, which is what I read
in another article about the same crash. Apparently the people were
taken to a hospital and treated for gasoline exposure...

I ferried several helicopters from SoCal to Panama and the slowest was
a Hughes 500 with inflated floats that was going on a tuna boat. It
flew like a pig and I had to use the nose of the floats for my airspeed
limiter....when the nose began to dimple too much, that was it. I've
done a number of practice autos to the water (part of 135 training and
checkrides) in Long Beach harbor. they are easier than to the ground
and when you spash down its like jumping onto a big pillow!
Pop out floats are much lower profile and don't kill your airspeed.
They do have a weight penalty but still make a water landing survivable
as B4RT said. Generally if you are going to the water and don't have
floats it is recommended that after you pull pitch and hit the water
you throw the stick over to the right so the advancing blade hits the
water first.
I haven't seen the news on the NYC crash (I don't have a tv in the
trailer) and no idea what caused it. Only the pilot knows for sure and
typically the news media gets it all wrong.
My first float helicopter work was on a Bell 47G5 in New Orleans back
in 1967. Back then nearly all the offshore helicopters had the big
inflated floats, well most of them did. Then they gradually switched
over to the turbines like JetRanger, and then began using the pop-outs
in the 70's.

B4RT wrote:
I thought it was an interesting factoid, and it was
funny to imagine what the guys at TowboatsUS would say if
I called em up on channel 16 for a tow back to the airport.

Bart

I reckon they'd ask for a credit card or membership number

Dave