----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Foley" <redmenaced@yahoo.com>
To: "Ron" <rojoha@mediaone.net>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 10:06 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Armed Forces Day and MH53 ooppps!
> Excuse my ignorance here, but why couldn't they just
> fly out of the hole?
>
> Stupid me, I thought helicopters did that. And why is
> it that this helicopter can't land on unimproved
> fields? Not that this field is exactly an overgrown
> swamp or jungle.
>
> A UH-1 wouldn't have had that problem!
>
> Joe
Under peacetime conditions, they are not allowed to take a chance of a
blade strike to the ground. Under combat conditions, they would have spooled
up and screwed.
When doing pick ups or extractions, they are done with the pilot still
pulling some pitch, thus keeping a considerable amount of the aircrafts
weight on the rotor and off the gear. Once the engine is off, it's a large
amount of weight on a very small foot print. While digging the ramp after
the port gear punched through, they lost a six foot shovel into the sinkhole
under that gear. During the air bag inflation on that side, the air bags
pushed three sheets of 1 inch plywood right into the ground and splintered
it all to hell. It was at this point that they were getting very concerned
about actually having the entire aircraft drop into the ground, and
considered a powered escape, but the angle was so severe, that ground/blade
contact was probable while trying to bring the rotor up to speed. Blade
droop on these birds is considerable.
In regards to the UH-1, an Army Guard Huey was there on display and it's
pilot noticed the MH53's starboard gear starting to sink after the crew
wandered off and was starting tours of the chopper, and informed the Navy
A/C but was told it was nothing to worry about. He did some very impressive
take off maneuvers when he left...salt in the wound type of thing.
Ron
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Aug 07 2001 - 09:34:13 PDT