Is this for real?

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:

On 25 May 2006 11:01:28 -0700, "Mike Rotor Nowak"
wrote:

We got to meet the pilot (DJ I think was his name) at HAI... he said
the updrafts were so intense, the collective was bottomed out at the
hover, and to decend, he had to do nose dives (pretty dramatic on the
video). The power to hover up there was virtually nil... hell, he did
a toe-in the entire time, never set it down fully.

They had the chopper there too... not highly modified at all, just a
factory B3 with a flight recording computer and some cameras. No crazy
stripping jobs, it still had all the seats... and Eurocopter made sure
to flaunt that the configuration on the stand was the same as it was
during the attempt.

That contradicts what Eurocopter themselves said at the time (published in
AvLeak). IIRR, they'd stripped the seats, the cabin insulation, steps on
the skids, nav lights, basically anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.
Going from memory T/O fuel was 60-80kg. (I forget the exact figure), and
flight time to the top from Lukla (9,350 ft., 20-odd miles away) was
somewhere in the range of 12-17 minutes; total round-trip including the 3' +
spent on top was 25-40 minutes. Depending on the report, the a/c was either
120 or 160 kg. lighter than stock.

The thing that cheeses me off is that landing on the top with just a single
person on board is basically a stunt. A few days previously they'd landed at
the South Col aka Camp IV (7,906m/25,938 ft.) as a warmup, and rather than
taking the opportunity to demonstrate some practical utility by landing and
taking off there with two people (or equivalent weight) on board, they just
had the pilot. As well as being the highest camp, from which climbers leave
for and return from the summit on the normal Southeast Ridge route, the
South Col is about the highest spot from which you could realistically
evacuate someone in a fair variety of weather conditions. It's also about
the highest place where major medical attention can be available, and it
avoids having to carry/lower someone down the Lhotse face by hand to the
Western Cwm, a slow and hazardous undertaking.

When the Indians set the old landing and takeoff record with the Cheetah
(license-built Lama) back in 1969 at 24,600 feet, they did it with two crew
on board, and did the same when they broke that a month or so previous to
the Eurocopter Everest stunt by landing and taking off at a density altitude
of 25,135 feet, using a Cheetah equipped with a new engine with which
they're considering upgrading their fleet.

I would have been far more impressed by Eurocopter if they'd landed at the
South Col again with an extra 80kg. or so on board, rather than on top with
just the pilot. A Eurocopter type claimed at the time that they could have
easily landed on top with an extra person on board, but talk is cheap. What
is clear is that in most conditions an AS350B3 should be able to rescue
climbers from just about anywhere in the Western Cwm, i.e. Camps I and II
which are both between 6 and 7,000m; helo evacuation from Camp III on the
Lhotse Face is almost certainly not an option. In 1998 Colonel KC Madan
managed to bring out two climbers, one at a time, from the Western Cwm after
they'd been brought down from Camp 4, using an AS350B2 that was operating
well over its certification height, so a B3 would provide a useful
improvement on that in any case, and probably could get to the South Col and
back with two onboard at least some of the time. But Nepal has more
pressing issues at the moment than buying a new helo to rescue climbers.

Guy

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:

On Sun, 28 May 2006 21:49:15 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

That contradicts what Eurocopter themselves said at the time (published in
AvLeak). IIRR, they'd stripped the seats, the cabin insulation, steps on
the skids, nav lights, basically anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.
Going from memory T/O fuel was 60-80kg. (I forget the exact figure), and
flight time to the top from Lukla (9,350 ft., 20-odd miles away) was
somewhere in the range of 12-17 minutes; total round-trip including the 3' +
spent on top was 25-40 minutes. Depending on the report, the a/c was either
120 or 160 kg. lighter than stock.

This is very similar to what we heard through the aviation rumor mill
- including some talk at Heli Expo down in Dallas..

Ok, so now I take back my "wow"...

Interview with the pilot, Didier DelSalle, talking about potential rescue
capability he

http://www.spadout.com/articles/gene...er_everest.htm

Guy

Guy Alcala wrote:

snip

A couple of corrections.

When the Indians set the old landing and takeoff record with the Cheetah
(license-built Lama) back in 1969 at 24,600 feet, they did it with two crew
on board, and did the same when they broke that a month or so previous

to
the Eurocopter Everest stunt by landing and taking off at a density altitude
of 25,135 feet, using a Cheetah equipped with a new engine with which
they're considering upgrading their fleet.

Actually on November 1st, 2004, and it was at a DA of 25,150 feet/(rounded down
to) 7,665m. Both crew were Indian military, and strangely enough the FAI denied
the record because "Pilots were not holding a valid Sporting Licence when the
flight took place." See

http://records.fai.org/rotorcraft/pending.asp#canceled

I can only say I feel the Indian reply should have been the Hindi equivalent of
"Badges! We don't got to show you no steenkin' badges!"

Guy