Autorotations

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour flying
Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while we
were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along highway 1
just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor blades let go, it
sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds that we had taken an
RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit skidding landing on a
paved highway went exactly like we trained for low-level autorotation.

During the week it took to install a new engine in my bird (67-17565), I
flew other machines assigned to my platoon, one of which did the same thing
to me (don't remember its tail number), although this time we were hovering
from POL (fuel) to the revetment after completing the day's missions. For
this one, I recognized the sounds from the earlier catastrophic compressor
failure so I didn't think about an RPG and just performed a successful
hovering autorotation, just as we trained to do them. This engine failure
came after our formation had flown low and slow in a hard rainstorm back to
Bearcat from the Rung Sat swamps east of Saigon during which it was raining
so hard that we had to fly in a skid at about 40 kts in order to see each
other and to avoid flying into any obstacles (primarily, trees) while our
flight lead navigated home using pilotage.

I always figured that my guardian angel was on the job since both engine
failures came at very nearly optimal moments. The training that the Army
gave us in flight school really prepared me to handle the power failure
situations as in those days we carried almost all autorotations to the
ground. I loved autorotations! I always thought autorotations were the
best way to land a Huey when flying combat assaults primarily because an
approach to a 3 foot hover before landing just served to increase the
exposure time. My mantra was to keep moving and try to avoid flying a
predictable ground track whenever possible, meaning no straight-in
approaches to a hot LZ. Must have worked because despite taking fire I
never took rounds when using these techniques! Of course, some said that I
was a cowboy, but I never got anyone killed so I'm happy with the results.

Thankfully, the Lycoming guys figured what was caused these types of engine
failures and fixed the problem in the L13B, which I flew with until
"retiring" from Army Aviation in 1978.

Cheers,
Leonard Ellis (Greyhound 28)

"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about 30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful

Leonard Ellis wrote:

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour flying
Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while we
were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along highway 1
just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor blades let go, it
sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds that we had taken an
RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit skidding landing on a
paved highway went exactly like we trained for low-level autorotation.


Some great moments there Leonard. Of course I think you didn't think
that way as the engines came apart.

I retired in 1995 and, after flying a season with Papillon Grand Canyon
Helicopters, I had enough money to buy my dream aircraft, the RAF2000
Gyro. The reason I was choosing the Gyro was the ability to land on
country roads, stop the rotor and line it up fore and aft, and drive it
like a motorcycle to a country gas station or big Truck Stop for a
break, food and a shower and a motel for the night. Some time camping
beside the aircraft was another possibility I was looking forward to.
Adding the required lights, brakes and other safety equipment would be
no problem and the Gyro can be licensed as a homebuilt motorcycle. I
couldn't get my Sprint II ultralight street legal with the wings
attached so it wouldn't be worth the bother.

But even with it being street legal, too much driving on the tires would
not be good for it although good street tires can be found I think.

But health going down hill and getting married to a German Tourist I met
flying over the Canyon put the plans on hold. But I still think about it.

Reading all the posts here has been great. Posts about aircraft like the
mini 500 and others are good reading. Is there a place where a person
can go to see some of the helicopters people own here? Maybe someday
I'll get back on track with my old plans.


--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

Actually, there was really no time for contemplation prior to landing, as
I'm sure most pilots of single-engine, low-level helicopters will recognize.
One's training kicks in and takes most of the "thinking" out of the
situation, particularly when fast and low. I always loved the questions one
gets from the maintenance guys after such an engine failure, "what was the
oil temperature? pressure? N1 speed?" My usual answer "I don't know! I
was busy trying to avoid flying into anything and then busy trying to land
the aircraft without busting my ass!"

Neither I nor my peter pilot got off a mayday call on the first engine
failure, I was busy flying the machine and he was busy sucking the nylon
netting from the armored seat up to where the sun don't shine (high pucker
factor situation for a FNG). After the bird stopped sliding I turned off
the main fuel & battery, and shouted to the crew to "unass this thing". We
all bailed to the drainage ditch on the side of the road.

Maybe a minute later I thought about having neglected the radio call and
since we hadn't taken fire or seen any bad guys since landing, I ran up to
the bird and fetched the ammo box we used for an emergency kit and returned
to the ditch. Opening the box, I extracted the rinky-dink survival radio
and used it to call for help. No one heard it. We were less than 3 miles
from the firebase at Gia Ray, there was lots of chopper traffic around that
firebase, and not one aircraft heard my mayday call. That survival radio
was an absolute pick of junk and clearly not worth having along.

I gave up on the rinky dink radio, climbed into the bird, flipped on the
master and fired up the ARC51BX UHF radio. Everyone heard the mayday call
that went out on that one and we had air cover from an OH-58 within a couple
of minutes. About 15 minutes later, a unit of armored vehicles came roaring
down the road and set a perimeter around my machine. They stayed until a
Chinook came and carried our bird home for a new engine. The next day I
borrowed the CO's machine and carried several cases of cold beer out to them
as my thanks. Cav guys are worth their weight in gold!

A bit before the hook showed up, two pilots from our unit (who on their day
off had been taking the sun on top of our bunker back home) came out with a
spare Huey so I and my crew took that machine on to finish our day of
hauling people around Ham Tan province and my colleagues rode back to their
bunker on the rigging ship. I was a little sad to miss seeing the hook
bring my bird home, but better to go fly all day than to sit around the
company area dealing with whatever the operations or company staff could
dream up to occupy my time. Additional motivation was that my crew chief
would not have been happy if I had left him to fly all day with some other
A/C after the adventurous way we had started the day.

Gyrocopters strike me as a little scary. Several guys 3 doors down from our
Skyhawk's hanger have one. There ain't much to it. I don't think you can
carry much more than yourself, a 16 oz bottle of water, and a toothbrush in
one of those things. Still, I would like to try flying one someday.

Cheers,
Leonard



e muchthe first one, on the highway,
"boB" wrote in message
...
Leonard Ellis wrote:

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour
flying Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while
we were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along
highway 1 just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor
blades let go, it sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds
that we had taken an RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit
skidding landing on a paved highway went exactly like we trained for
low-level autorotation.


Some great moments there Leonard. Of course I think you didn't think that
way as the engines came apart.

I retired in 1995 and, after flying a season with Papillon Grand Canyon
Helicopters, I had enough money to buy my dream aircraft, the RAF2000
Gyro. The reason I was choosing the Gyro was the ability to land on
country roads, stop the rotor and line it up fore and aft, and drive it
like a motorcycle to a country gas station or big Truck Stop for a break,
food and a shower and a motel for the night. Some time camping beside the
aircraft was another possibility I was looking forward to. Adding the
required lights, brakes and other safety equipment would be no problem and
the Gyro can be licensed as a homebuilt motorcycle. I couldn't get my
Sprint II ultralight street legal with the wings attached so it wouldn't
be worth the bother.

But even with it being street legal, too much driving on the tires would
not be good for it although good street tires can be found I think.

But health going down hill and getting married to a German Tourist I met
flying over the Canyon put the plans on hold. But I still think about it.

Reading all the posts here has been great. Posts about aircraft like the
mini 500 and others are good reading. Is there a place where a person can
go to see some of the helicopters people own here? Maybe someday I'll get
back on track with my old plans.


--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:34:19 -0800, "Stuart & Kathryn Fields"
wrote:

We were at the Spurling helicopter fly-in in Ok. and had finished flying
for
the day and were sipping on some beer when some young guy with some lady
in
what looked liked business attire, came out to the edge of the runway and
set a RC helo down and started fooling with it. As hard as a helicopter
is
to fly with all of the butt feedback, we pretty much backed away a bit to
get out of the shrapnel zone of broken blades. Pretty soon the RC helo
lifted off and it became apparent that this guy had a smoke system on
board.
Some of the maneuvers this guy did had all of the helo pilots that were
standing around bending and wiggling their hands trying to figure out just
what control inputs would be required to do what we were seeing. One of
the
maneuvers was a backward flight up a 45 degree line performing rolls. A
split S auto would be a piece of cake for this guy. We later found out
that
he was the current National Champion RC helo driver and the lady with him
was his corporate sponsor. Even tho this has been about three years ago,
I
can remember my mouth hanging open and saying things like: "Holy schit
did
you see that?" Until it got boring to repeat myself. We also found out
that his helicopter greatly exceeded the 10#/hp rule of thumb.

RC helos are pretty impressive in the hands of someone who really
knows how to fly 'em. The smoke may have been normal. We run our
models on the rich side to keep the engines well lubed and cool.
Smoke is a natural byproduct of the rich setting.

Look on the net for videos of a guy named Alan Szabo Jr. flying his
model. Impossible to see just which way the thing is pointed as he
flies...


That's because the model never stays pointed in the same direction for more
the 0.00000002 seconds at a time!! :-o

Fly Safe,
Steve R.

Most folks here know I'm not a rated pilot for full size but if I may, this
is a story that someone else posted on this forum a number of years ago.
Nick Lampos I think? Anyway, I got such a kick out of it back then I'd like
to share.

It seem that the original poster had been in the office at the local FBO,
talking to the fuel guy. In the background, was the usual traffic one might
hear on the unicom frequency at your average uncontrolled field. There was
a helicopter student out on one of his first unsupervised solo flights. He
was returning to the field and announcing his intentions over the radio.
The transmission went something like this.

"???????? airport traffic, this is helicopter 1234C, five miles south,
inbound for ....... OH SH**!!, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, flare, flare,
flare, level, level, cushion, cushion, cushion ............. Oh my God!!!!!
I DID IT!"

I don't remember what the orginal poster said the problem was with the
aircraft but the engine had shut down for some reason. The student, having
keyed the microphone to announce his arrival in the pattern, never let go of
it when the engine quit and everyone got to listen to him talk himself
through the ensuing autorotation. Which, by the way, he executed perfectly.
Not even a scratch on the skids! The airport personnel went and picked up
the pilot and after thoroughly discussing the incident at the airport, went
to the local pub afterwards. The student bought the first round! :-)

When I first read that, I could see the entire incident in my mind. It was
wonderful. Maybe someone here will remember who originally told this story
or fill in any details I forgot or messed up.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.

Leonard Ellis wrote:

Actually, there was really no time for contemplation prior to landing, as
I'm sure most pilots of single-engine, low-level helicopters will recognize.
One's training kicks in and takes most of the "thinking" out of the
situation, particularly when fast and low. I always loved the questions one
gets from the maintenance guys after such an engine failure, "what was the
oil temperature? pressure? N1 speed?" My usual answer "I don't know! I
was busy trying to avoid flying into anything and then busy trying to land
the aircraft without busting my ass!"


After a low side governor failure in a Bell 206B with French tourists on
board I was later asked if the RPM drooped as I pulled pitch to land. I
didn't think and said I didn't know, I was too busy making sure I had
zero ground run. Later I realized I wasn't flying Army helicopters any
longer and that the FAA is chomping at the bit suspend or revoke
certificates. Gotta watch your words now.

Gyrocopters strike me as a little scary. Several guys 3 doors down from our
Skyhawk's hanger have one. There ain't much to it. I don't think you can
carry much more than yourself, a 16 oz bottle of water, and a toothbrush in
one of those things. Still, I would like to try flying one someday.

Cheers,
Leonard

Yes, the RAF2000 has no space for bags or extras but i was planning on
using the second seat to carry all that stuff. Now married, plans
change. I would have liked doing that. I retired after 25 years and my
retirement pay, even as low as it was, would work out just fine for
flying around the country. Plus a Gyro is always in autorotation. How
safe is that.

--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

"boB" wrote in message
news

Yes, the RAF2000 has no space for bags or extras but i was planning on
using the second seat to carry all that stuff. Now married, plans change.
I would have liked doing that. I retired after 25 years and my retirement
pay, even as low as it was, would work out just fine for flying around the
country. Plus a Gyro is always in autorotation. How safe is that.

--

boB,


Check out http://www.rotaryforum.com/index.php? for lots of good info on
gyroplanes. They're not airplanes and they're definitely not helicopters.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.

Steve R wrote:



Check out http://www.rotaryforum.com/index.php? for lots of good info on
gyroplanes. They're not airplanes and they're definitely not helicopters.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.



Thanks for clearing that up

But back to the question, is there actually a RL helicopter owner here
with pictures of their aircraft? I would like to see the aircraft and
talk with the pilots. Who knows, maybe a Mini 500 would be better than
an RAF2000.

--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

Here's a link to the one I had, flew almost 300 hours and had a blast....
http://members.shaw.ca/m1.mustang/kirt.htm



"boB" wrote in message
news
Steve R wrote:



Check out http://www.rotaryforum.com/index.php? for lots of good info on
gyroplanes. They're not airplanes and they're definitely not
helicopters.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.

Thanks for clearing that up

But back to the question, is there actually a RL helicopter owner here
with pictures of their aircraft? I would like to see the aircraft and talk
with the pilots. Who knows, maybe a Mini 500 would be better than an
RAF2000.

--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:19:27 GMT, "Steve R"
wrote:


That's because the model never stays pointed in the same direction for
more
the 0.00000002 seconds at a time!! :-o

What I'd really like to know is how the judges can tell who flew the
best.. Personally, I think guys like Szabo and Younblood are just
REALLY good at recovering from "unusual" attitudes.



For 3D style flying, it's totally subjective. There are certain maneuvers
they look for but due to the nature of the style of flying, it's difficult
to be precise, at least not in the same way the F3C competitions are
precise. I've watched Curtis and I've watched Alan Szabo. Both of them are
incredably precise in what they do, relative to "average" 3D pilots, and
you're right, they "are" very good at recovering from unusual attitudes.
I'm just trying to get more comfortable with the basics of 3D flying but
considering my age and certain habits I've developed through the years, I
don't expect to get anywhere "near" what those two can do!

Fly Safe,
Steve R.