Safety of homebuild Helicopters

boB wrote:
Stuart & Kathryn Fields wrote:
JohnO: I think it was an exposure kind of thing. When he took a look at
engine reliabilty in turbines compared to his experience with experimental
piston engines and coupled that with being able to pick your weather days
flying experimentals vs take-it-as it comes as well as night flights over
really nasty terrain and having a strong need to get there because of life
saving situations; the flying would, I think, get a lot more hazardous than
just flying an experimental helo. Hell, I really didn't like the night
cross country I had to do for my helo add-on and that was good weather over
the LA basin. Great horizon reference available. I can't imagine flying at
night, into unknown weather, over whatever with trees, power lines etc. I
would hear every bearing in the engine and transmission just hollering.



I can imagine the urgency of a medivac that's bad enough to require a
helicopter and with all the things you stated above would strain even
the best pilot. One mistake, well, there's no room for 1 mistake.
Unless he was flying with NVG's I would say he's as brave as they come.

--

boB
copter.six

When you talk medivac does that mean air amblance, rescue or both? Down
here air ambulance generally means no winching stretchers etc so it's
relatively tame. The rescue guys do the crazy stuff such as winching
stretchers off ships and cliffs and to me that's the scary stuff - when
the weather is bad. On the other hand when the weather is good they
have the advantage of auto hovering on auto pilot which would make life
somewhat more comfortable than the average R22 pilot!