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#1
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
Hi,
Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO |
#2
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
JohnO wrote:
Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO I believe Mr. Schramm suffered a heart attack, and died in the air. |
#3
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
Gem wrote: JohnO wrote: Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO I believe Mr. Schramm suffered a heart attack, and died in the air. Oh. There's worse ways to go I guess... |
#4
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
"JohnO" wrote in message oups.com... Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO Do you mean something other than the NTSB records? http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp Tom |
#5
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
Note: Discussions with Blake Estes of Eagle R&D, the home of the Helicycle,
there were autopsies that disproved the heart attack rumor for B.J. The most probable cause was fuel contamination causing engine stoppage while at a low altitude. BTW after reviewing a bunch of accidents involving experimental helicopters, there are darned few that can be attributable to only a design flaw. Most if not all were avoidable by proper pre-flight, proper inspection, or proper pilotage. Obviously some of the maintenance issues involved in crashes could have been avoided by a different, better, design, but that could be said for a lot of the Bell 47 accidents and they have been successfully operated for years. -- Stuart Fields Experimental Helo magazine P. O. Box 1585 Inyokern, CA 93527 (760) 377-4478 (760) 408-9747 general and layout cell (760) 608-1299 technical and advertising cell www.vkss.com www.experimentalhelo.com "JohnO" wrote in message oups.com... Gem wrote: JohnO wrote: Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO I believe Mr. Schramm suffered a heart attack, and died in the air. Oh. There's worse ways to go I guess... |
#6
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
JohnO wrote:
Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault You can search the NTSB accident records by make of aircraft. You'll have to read the summaries yourself to exclude pilot error. Actually, for the Rotorway with the turbine conversion there may not be very many entries since they haven't been available for that long, and there are not that many flying. Good luck, Don W. |
#7
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
JohnO wrote:
Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO Just look up Mini 500 in the NTSB database. I think that might dissuade you from at least one possibitlity.... =WaVy |
#8
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters
There were about 500 mini 500's sold and about 100 to 150 flying.
There are at least 11 deaths as of three years ago that I know of flying the mini 500. You calculate the odds. Mr Fetters claims the design is fine however when a 60,000 hour professional helicopter pilot dies in one I took notice. I have lost three friends to this machine. John On 8 Dec 2006 20:09:29 -0800, "wavy" wrote: JohnO wrote: Hi, Can someone point me to any official accident statistics that would demonstrate the relative accident rates of various classes of certified and experimental helos? Specifically I would want to exclude any accidents that were pilot error or failure of maintenance. and only consider accidents where there was a design fault I'm interested to know how safe the design is on the various kit helos, in particular for Rotorway in the KISS turbine version. It concerns me that a lot of the luminaries of the kit helicopter world such as Schramm and Bedo have died in accidents, but I'm not sure if the reasons were faults in the aircraft or pilot error. Cheers, JohnO Just look up Mini 500 in the NTSB database. I think that might dissuade you from at least one possibitlity.... =WaVy |
#9
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters (Mini-500)
"Dennis Fetters" wrote in message . net... John_F wrote: There were about 500 mini 500's sold and about 100 to 150 flying. There are at least 11 deaths as of three years ago that I know of flying the mini 500. You calculate the odds. Mr Fetters claims the design is fine however when a 60,000 hour professional helicopter pilot dies in one I took notice. I have lost three friends to this machine. John It's a real shame when people throw out comments like this without the proof to back it up. I'm not interested in debating with clowns like this, I'm just to busy, but for those of you that are interested in facts, here is a complete accident report concerning the Mini-500 below that speaks the story for it's self. significant stippage in the interest of brevety Too busy? You're obviously not too busy to bother to respond to posts like this, which is something I've wondered why you "still" bother to do after all this time? The Mini 500, regardless of it's merits (good or bad) as an experimental helicopter is history. As you pointed out, there is no factory support, there are no parts availability except for what a resourceful builder/owner can come up with on their own. The machine's reliability (or lack thereof) and your companies support of it (or lack thereof) has been debated and re-debated adnausium for what, 10 years now? Seems to me that it's time to move on. All the minds that really care have been made up for a "long" time now and neither side is going to change the others. Take care, have a nice life, and give a rest, will ya? (that applies to all of you, not just Mr. Fetters!) Steve R. |
#10
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Safety of homebuild Helicopters (Mini-500)
Steve R wrote:
Seems to me that it's time to move on. I couldn't agree more............ But, I'm not the one bringing it up. I have the right to tell the truth when someone else puts out faults information about the Mini-500 or myself, just as you do if the shoe was on your foot. Dennis Fetters |
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