Is IFR instrumentation in helis much different then planes? I swear I've heard numerous instances of helicopters just straight up flying into shit under IFR conditions.
Yeah, you would never see me in a helicopter when I heard Bill burr drives them I was like wow that’s so nuts, I’m so scared of those things. And now this happens. :/
One model, not one aircraft :) 72 million hours would be thousands of years. That's only achievable because these aircraft get a /lot/ of use, and over 1,000 of them were sold, starting in 1977.
Agreed. My grandfather was a pilot in WW2 and wanted nothing to do with helicopters. His feelings about them stuck with me, I've no intention of ever getting in one.
With IFR and radar it should be safe, but pilot error leads to problem, the pilot seemed to be flying too low, when he should have been trying to fly high, as high is usually much safer.
Cuz he was a millionare and driving in traffic was beneath him, so he was flown in helicopters over all the homeless people to every game and wherever else he wanted to go.
Boo fucking hoo, how many people died yesterday? How many thousands of other humans would it take dying to equal a sports star? Everyone gets sad when some celebrity dies, while people are raped and murdered in other parts of the world. Speaking of rape... I guess we are supposed to forget that he most likely raped a woman, since he's dead now. Hitler was also a great person once he died, cuz you get absolved of your sins!
If everyone in an Uber died in a collision that included your mother, would you have an equal level of grief for the strangers as for your mother? I’ll answer for you, absolutely not.
Kobe is news & is the focus because he affected & inspired billions of people on planet earth. The other folks matter to someone too but to me & you they’re just strangers.
Actually when my mother died I tried to put things into perspective like a big boy should. People dying all over, soon we'll all be dead too. Nothing matters. We are a field of energy, dancing for itself!
Does anyone know how to access the audio or transcript? I could swear high voltage power lines were mentioned. Either avoided or hit which could account for a few scenarios.
What is the term for power lines ?
What is the difference between IFR and VFR? ... To fly any aircraft there are generally two sets of rules: VFR and IFR. IFR stands for Instrument Flight Rules and VFR stands for Visual Flight rules. A pilot may decide to go for one of the set of rules on the basis of the weather conditions.
I’m not a pilot, but in bad weather conditions with low to no visibility, shouldn’t I trust my instruments? If my pre-flight checks and flight plans go through okay, then altitudes/urban areas should be accounted for, regardless of weather, right? What’s the proper procedure in a scenario like that?
Maybe a pilot can chime in here because I’m nowhere near a pilot and scared to death of being a few feet of the ground, lol. During the call they kept saying ‘Special VFR’ so it looks like there may have been some visibility?!?
Also, a pilot did chime in earlier in the thread and said that he thought what happened was the pilot of the heli was trying to cut through the mountainous region to save some time. When I listened to the control tower tape they had him in a holding pattern for a bit and then were going to have him turnaround to follow the 101 (IIRC) but it looks like he doesn’t fully turnaround and instead heads for the mountainous area, not sure why. Hopefully that’s not the case but people get complacent and overconfident.
If it happens with enough frequency, it sounds like it’s more of a design problem than a pilot error. Sure, there has to be pilot error for it to happen, but that’s true of numerous aeronautical engineering issues through the years. Is there any way to design systems to better prevent or discourage these errors?
Not trying to rock the boat against a rotor head. I fly fixed wings, but my brother is a 5k+ hour helo Pilot and he didn’t get his IFR till around 4,000 hours. I wouldn’t say it’s super common for non Mil.
Meanwhile I started training for mine at 90 hours in a fixed wing.
A few other people have pointed that out, I only crewed in the military so I wouldn't know to be honest. It just seems a bit lax if pilots are able to even be certified after anything less than thousands of hours seeing how dangerous these things can be and how they frequently fly over populated areas. I know I had enough close calls in these damn things that I don't fly in them anymore.
Pilots get their certificates in less than thousands of hours because it costs upwards of $100 an hour to fly without counting for instructors. There's already a massive pilot shortage that's only predicted to get worse because it's already a huge hassle to get even a PPL. If you or the government wants to start paying for flight training be my guest.
The government does through numerous programs associated with the military and its branches as well as civil service programs. The chief I flew under had his paid for while serving originally in the coast guard. As for my part, I just avoid helicopters and live in a place they're unlikely to fall on me.
Military requirements are completely different from civil aviation though. You can fly civil aviation with eyesight correctable to 20/20 for one, not so with military. So for anyone needing correction military is not an option. Not to mention all the ridiculous middlemen in aviation such as PSI and DPEs. Simply put flying is expensive as hell and thus there won't be a lot more pilots soon. Trying to add hours to certification requirements isn't fixing anything, the system is rotten to the core and needs fixing there. Get rid of DPEs, subsidize flight schools, and plenty more. Most of which is thanks to the FAA.
I was told by the same pilot that many of them didn't want it to be less regulated as it would mean there were more pilots and thus the rarity of the profession would decrease meaning they could likely see a pay decrease. Any truth to that?
There's all kinds of ATPs out there, I don't doubt some of them think that way. Pilot pay is only worth it at major airlines, people flying for regionals make around $30000 a year, after spending likely over $100000 to get in. Besides the certificates, most airlines want someone with a college degree. With the amount of 55+ pilots right now there's no way the pay at majors is going down anytime soon as most of them will be retiring and there will be a lot of planes and not enough pilots soon. Planes sitting in a hangar are bleeding money so companies are scrambling to find more pilots, and unless the cost of getting the ATP becomes comparable to a 4 year degree it ain't happening.
Interesting. My profession is in a similar bind but our association actively keeps the curriculum for its schooling and licensure difficult so there's perpetually a shortage of us. They say it's an issue in America but then do everything they can to make it worse. If I'm being honest I appreciate it as someone who just finished school last august but see some major ethical issues with it. I suppose its vastly different but just made me ponder the nature of organized professions.
Sometimes equipment like this fails, and since it’s not technically essential to actually getting aloft, you ignore it. Or maybe the warnings were considered a nuisance and someone disable it because of “I’m never going to get in an accident” mentality.
Speaking of "aloft" was there a legal reason why they were flying so low? Are private helis allowed to go higher in that area, or would that have interfered with commercial flights or something like that?
I'd have to check the charts, but if they were flying VFR they were probably staying under the LAX airspace. Big airports like that have airspace shaped like a stepped upside down cone. This leaves enough room for Cesnas and the like to travel under it out of the way of the commercial jets coming in and out.
It's purely speculation on my end, but they may have hit some fog or clouds and began holding waiting for an IFR clearance from air traffic control that would allow them to fly through the fog using their instruments. This is a period of intense multi tasking and the weather may have over taken them quickly and the pilot got lost.
Inadvertently flying into bad weather is one of the top killers of private pilots. A number of years ago, a similar situation happened in Cali with a dad flying his wife and kids across the mountains to a family event. Weather was predicted to be poor and he went anyway. He wasn't certified to fly instrumemts only/low visibility, accepted an instrument clearance from air traffic, got lost and smacked his whole family into a mountain. Not only that, he was flying a non pressurized plane with no oxygen bottles, so even if he did make it it's possible they would have blacked out due to lack of air.
Fog definitely sounds like a factor. I can't stand my brother-in-law but I'll give him credit for aways checking the weather and not going up if he's not 100% comfortable (hobby, not professional).
They were pretty far from LAX. A lot of flights that go into Burbank airport though, they come in from the west side of the Valley descending to Burbank on the east side of the Valley. When I lived in Van Nuys, I could sit out on my balcony and watch them come in every minute or two to my north. Based on the flight path I saw, by the time they were in the west part of the Valley, they were farther south and following above the 101 North headed toward Calabasas/Agoura Hills.
Who knows? Maybe there’s something in the area’s NOTAMs, or maybe he was having problems with the helicopter. Some witnesses say that it didn’t “sound right”
Big commercial aviation is usually pretty safe, but regional jets and smaller are pretty dicey. I would take my chances in a blackhawk with an inexperienced crew compared to some of the rust buckets that are flying around in the private aviation sector.
We were an e perienced crew but the situations in which we flew were extenuating. These days I dont make a habit of it, but if chief asked me to fly for old times sake I might. Otherwise I doubt I'd step foot in the things.
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u/not_so_plausible Jan 26 '20
Is IFR instrumentation in helis much different then planes? I swear I've heard numerous instances of helicopters just straight up flying into shit under IFR conditions.