helicopters should never be flown in poor visibility (night) I don't think the military recommends it.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. (we really need a sarcasm font) but military aviation is really good at analyzing risk/benefit and we flew in some pretty dreadful conditions when we had to. It's hard to see that a flight to a charity ball game is mission critical though. It will be a high profile NTSB investigation and those guys do a very good job in breaking it all down. Who, what, where and why to the extent that they can.
I flew most of my operational career at altitudes from 200'AGL (day) to 400 (night) at similar speeds (maneuver flaps) and tight, fast turns chasing subs and mostly at night with nary a horizon or moonlight. The helos worked lower. Over land, about 200' and 400 kts, but ALWAYS VFR. Then again that was operationally required and not because going to a ball game. The old adage still holds for me; "I'd much rather be down here wishing I was up there, than up there wishing I was down here."
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
As Pugs said, in the military you do things that have to be done. Period. I took off in a combat emergency once during the Vietnamese monsoon. The field was closed being below IFR minimums, so I took off VFR in that little bug smasher over there under my name. Once off the runway, there was no way to come back and land. I went. I found my team that was in a fire fight. I got shot at, but I got the team out. Oh, and the two Vietnamese helicopter crews launched in those same conditions. All of us eventually found the field again and landed. Illegally.
In civilian life? no flipping way would I even THINK about doing that.
Yep - I'm VFR or I'm IFR, the middle ground is where bad stuff happens.
Note: Just because he was too low for flight following doesn't make it especially dangerous. There are lots of places out there without low coverage.
Yes indeed. "Too low for flight-following" just means you're below the lower limits of the radar tower ATC is using in that area, it doesn't mean you're below the MEA (minumum safe altitude). However: if the pilot was trying to use flight following, that means he was running VFR, and it sounds pretty clearly like the conditions were well below VFR minimums. So it would appear he did not have an IFR clearance and flight plan.
This is how a lot of IMC CFITs happen... the pilot looks at the forecast or the local weather and says to himself, "Yeah, it's pretty bad, but it looks like it'll clear up soon, so I'll just go VFR rather than go through the hassle of filing IFR for this short hop." Everything looks good until you get into the soup.
"I'm gonna have to science the schit out of this." Mark Watney, Sol 59, Mars
Witness. This is why there will be no vid, too much fog to see anything.
That guy is a great witness.
Absolutely he was!!
Articulate
Not the usual purple haired transvestite negro talking about droppin his Hot Pocket and chit.
Boomers are like that............articulate and all........................most of us even understand the word.
Geno
The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men. In it is contentment In it is death and all you seek (Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)
chit happens, we ran a boat aground in the fog last week.
God bless Texas----------------------- Old 300 I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull Its not how you pick the booger.. but where you put it !! Roger V Hunter
Why on earth would I have an instrument (1969) and CFII rating in choppers that dates back to 1970? Why would my flight log books have so much night flight time logged? One of my primary missions in '72 was Night Hawk with B/229th AHC and that's all I did for about 3 months. How can that be?
Let's see here. Flying at 185 mph, low altitude in dense fog.
I dont know the source for that 185 mph claim, but that guy interviewed said the bird was more/less hovering or hunting around just above him in cloud. [ATC had them waiting, so they were circling]
Thus i cannot realistically imagine the pilot then Radically gunning the bird up to 185 mph - even exceeding VNE and crashing just short distance away from the witnesses location.
I can tell you one thing for certain, - you will know when an S76/twin PT6 is passing low at top speed in your near vacinity.... And that is not what the witness described.
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
