"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
On Mon, 15 May 2006 21:14:51 GMT, "Steve R"
wrote:



Water will dissipate the downwash- kinda like "sorta ground effect".
Same with tall grass.. The water ops I've seen always had the heli
make a vertical pickup to a hover, then a normal takeoff.. I have to
wonder if dumping the collective when the water started coming over
the cockpit might have saved the heli.

I was wondering that myself. I tend to believe, though, that once he had
the nose of the aircraft under water, it wouldn't have made much difference.
If he was holding a lot of aft cyclic (I tend to think I would have been if
I were in that situation, especially after the nose of the aircraft started
going under!), wouldn't dropping collective risk a boom strike? Once he bow
was submerged, I'd think his options were extremely limited.

Lot's of questions to speculate on and not much in the way of answers.

The pilot definitely made screwed the pooch on that one. The real tragedy
is that someone had to die because of it.

I think the pilot was the one who died...

Well, if that's true, I'd call it natural selection. I can't help but
wonder what his flight loading was? What were the circumstances that got
him in trouble in the first place? The video shows the aircraft descending
vertically with a "lot" of visible coning in the rotor blades, suggesting a
low rpm issue. It would be interesting to know more about the specifics.