OT: AH64 crash in Afghanistan

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: USS America

I desperately need more rum punch!!! [8|]

You always need more rum punch and have never needed a reason for that! [:D]

[Nikademus]

Rum.....blech. Whiskey. Put hair on your chest. [:D]

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Rum.....blech. Whiskey. Put hair on your chest. [:D]

I brought him Whiskey, but the bottle is propably still full when I meet him the next time

[UniformYankee]

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

give him a nice pension,
send the apache bill to the taxpayer... maybe they have a cost-plus contract... the more you lose the more you sell

I wonder if you have a PURPOSE ?


(I doubt it [:D])

[Sredni]

first of all... can you people stop discussing the inappropriate comments? It just makes the thread even worse. The thread was started about a nasty looking helicopter crash. Talk about that.


For me, man that looked crazy at the end where it had started to break up and lose control and start spinning wildly. I always find it hard to believe the people involved can still be alive after seeing stuff like that.

Was that maneuver inappropriate? Like showboating or something? If it was a normal maneuver or training then I would hope the pilot doesn't get punished for it (and I would see being "promoted" off to some desk job as punishment) since you can't really expect to push machinery and people to their operating limits without mistakes being made. Mistakes you learn from and become better at your job after making.

I know it shouldn't surprise me to see snow in Afghanistan like that but I'll admit it did. First time I've seen a shot like that.

And that website was super annoying. Had to load windows internet explorer to get it to load the video (since firfox for me blocks all that crap and I didn't feel like sorting through 50 different permissions to find out which was the video) and it had weird popups and crap all over the bottom of the page.

[zzodr]

Yeah his tail boom snapped off on impact (fairly common) so it's bye-bye to the anti-torque rotor.. and instant
washing machine effect. Luckily they were already close to the ground. A Singapore AF Longbow lost its tail during forced landing in 2010 also.

Which makes me wonder - if you did this in a KA-50 - (no tail rotor) would it have kept flying after initial impact?

If you lookup all the low-passes on Youtube there are heaps of them - yes it's showboating but it's awesome for ground troop morale too.
Unless you get it wrong of course! [X(]

[UniformYankee]

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

give him a nice pension,
send the apache bill to the taxpayer... maybe they have a cost-plus contract... the more you lose the more you sell

Come on out and play bubba!


I say again - do YOU have a purpose ?


(again - I doubt it [:D])

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Rum.....blech. Whiskey. Put hair on your chest. [:D]

I brought him Whiskey, but the bottle is propably still full when I meet him the next time

There is a bit gone from it. [;)]

[janh]

ORIGINAL: zzodr
Which makes me wonder - if you did this in a KA-50 - (no tail rotor) would it have kept flying after initial impact?

Technically, it sounds like the twin-rotor frames could just bounce off with a certain probability to get the chopper back under control, just like the Apache could likely have if it hadn't lost the tail rotor. Especially if the ground was soft. Seems like the ground was frozen pretty hard, though. Interesting question, though -- might search for KA-50 crashes, if there are videos of that...

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: zzodr

If you lookup all the low-passes on Youtube there are heaps of them - yes it's showboating but it's awesome for ground troop morale too.
Unless you get it wrong of course! [X(]

MSNBC just showed the tape here in the US.

A "return to target" maneuver is a standard tactical maneuver for gunships. It's executed just as this one was, with a steep climb to a stall, a hammerhead/ axis rotation at the top of the stall resulting in a 180 in azimuth, and a nose-drop dive to regain speed while adding collective to hold the aircraft off the ground. The latter wasn't sufficient in the tape. Maybe due to air temp, I don't know. But it's not "showboating" or anything similar. It's a way to get weapons back on a target just overflown as rapidly as possible without a long circular bank around.

When I was writing my novel I sat with a gunship pilot who flew in Desert Storm. The book's climax concerned a gunship attack. He drew a RTT on a napkin, which I still have somewhere. He also flew Kiowas and is very much alive. This tape showed an error, or a mechanical failure, not recklessness or showing off. RTT is in the manual.

[castor troy]

but this very much looked like a friendly base and those guys on the ground also didn't really seem to be in combat so if RTT, which target? The BBQ?

[zzodr]

I think the guys who leaked the vid will be in as much sh!t as the pilots.