Helicopters Suck

So those that have flown at Auburn are aware that helicopters are a pain in everyone's ass. For those unaware of that fact: now you know. So here's a little tidbit about helicopters. In an airplane, in the engine fails you (generally) still have 2 perfectly functional wings to at least glide you to somewhere more hospitable to an unsceduled landing. In a helicopter when the engine fails, you're nothing but a potato with a whirly-gig on top. Well in order to minimize becoming a mashed potato (with a whirly-gig on top) they do a maneuever called autorotation. The simplest way to explain it is that they dive at the ground to spin up the rotor (whirly-gig) and then last minute the pull up to use the spinning rotor to cushion the landing.

I've spent many days watching the helicopters at Auburn practicing this maneuever waiting for a screw-up and today I finally did. Although instead of at Auburn it was in Colorado with 7,000ft density altitude. I was waiting for my computer system to give me the go-ahead for takeoff and I heard a helicopter putzing around the pattern and practicing autorotations. I got the ok to go and moved to the hold short line to wait for the helicopter to land and clear the area. So I look up and watch as he begins to dive at the runway. I've seen enough autorotations to know when something looks wrong and this was the case with this one. I figured that either this guy was really good or he was about see how good his helicopter insurance was. The helicopter comes diving in and as he pulls up it keeps going down. The helecopter slams on the back of the skids, bounces forward and back, snaps to boom to the tail rotor clean off, and at that point begins spinning wildly down the runway. It finally comes to rest just touching the grass. Had he went into the grass, the helicopter would have tipped and things could have been substantially worse. Both the pilots aboard were okay. Unfortunately for me, the runway was immediately closed until the FAA and NTSB gave the airport the go-ahead to move the helicopter.

Here's a pic or two of the damage plus some other randoms:


Cell phone pic... the next one is better.


D'oh...


My plane and a brand new Pilatus


The business end of a Pilatus PC-12


Z... Out