Thread: The replacement for the UH60 Blackhawk

Complicated bloody things. Still, the Osprey works.

A very emotional Juan..

Speaking of Blackhawks..

A very emotional Juan..

No doubt that something is seriously wrong, but it may not be the Blackhawk! As he stated, he does not know if the Blackhawk has any anti icing systems. I very much doubt it as very few helicopters do, especially of such vintage as these.

But he is a bit confused regarding retreating blade stall. He is correct that the angle of attack of the blade can lead to stall, but its true cause is airspeed, which limits the forward airspeed of a helicopter

If in this case the problem was icing, then the build up is not instantaneous, but occurs over a period of time, and will show up, as he has mentioned, as rotor speed droop and vibration. As the speed tends to droop the natural pilot reaction is to increase collective pitch in an attempt to maintain both airspeed and altitude.

I rather think that the accident (unreported elsewhere) that he is referring to may have been CFIT (controlled flight into terrain), related to the weather.

Just as an aside; I once had a former US Military instructor in the US, and his complete attitude was overbearing and far from being an "instructor". If his attitude was any indication as to how it is done in the great old US of A, then accidents are not surprising!

A couple of links for anyone interested:

Rotor blade icing | (aopa.org)

Proficiency: Helicopters and ice - AOPA

Is he right? I dunno. Some interest in the comments.

Is he right? I dunno. Some interest in the comments.

Pretty much confirms that which I have posted. Gung-ho at it's best!

Originally Posted by Old Farang

Pretty much confirms that which I have posted. Gung-ho at it's best!

Your comments prompted me to post it, Thai man.

More from Juan

More from Juan

He brings up some good points, and just confirms that which I posted previously; that it is highly unlikely that the "accident" was the fault of the helicopter. He also now seems to be sure that the helicopter had some form of anti-icing equipment, although I would have to say that any ice coming off the windscreen is unlikely to migrate to the engine intakes because of the downwash.

I have never had any flying experience with the military in any form,(apart from the dickhead instructor mentioned previosly!). But it appears that the crew in this case were all "National Guard" members.

The last helicopter that I had I bought from the owner in the USA, whom was the commanding officer of a National Guard unit. He took me around the base and showed me all the ins and outs of the operation. The number of helicopters operating out of the base was unbelievable! From what I was told all of those crews were current civilian pilots in some commercial operation. He himself was running his own helicopter charter business.

Given that, and as Juan has mentioned, then where is the upper supervision of these types of operations? I have worked extensively with Americans in the offshore oil industry, and it is usually the loudest mouthed, gung-ho, self centred ***** (just like Trump), that ends up running these operations. "My way or the Highway", was very often the case!

Being gung-ho is not restricted to Americans, we certainly have some home grown ones of our own. However, I doubt that they are to be found in any Australian military operation.