Jump to content

Bobby_Batronic

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    2563
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Bobby_Batronic

  1. Always. Jackson Hole was actually pretty benign compared to Castlegar or Telluride. And yes, I’ve seen more than a few people go ballistic when they were told that they couldn’t overload the plane and clear the mountains or skip the de-ice in a near blizzard that day. Had to talk one moron into just flying from Hilton Head directly to Houston for his cancer treatment instead of trying to fly into the edge of a hurricane in Florida before hopping another private flight the next day to...Houston. Hurricanes....no problem. Miss some radiation and chemo? Oh. Maybe I shouldn’t fly into that hurricane. I doubt Bryant had the first clue that the helo operator was violating his ops specs. Deepest pockets is always a thing when suing in aviation.
  2. You haven’t flown enough wealthy folks/celebs. They don’t hear the word “No” very often and many think that their money/fame exempts them from the laws of nature.
  3. When the insanely stupid idea to build a one size fits all services and needs jet to save money got approved in DC.
  4. A hard climbing turn could lead to something like what is known as a death spiral in planes. And you’d be amazed what happens when the artificial horizon in your butt disagrees with the one on the panel.
  5. Yeah, what they were doing is absolutely business as usual in LA and other very busy places. More risky in a single pilot environment using less than modern equipment? Sure. But they’re got airliners between those hills on approach to BUR all day long as well as private aircraft to VNY, and to a lesser extend Oxnard and Camarillo. I’ve never flow special VFR, but he was using the system to his advantage by filing to VFR airport and then requesting a Special VFR clearance probably through tower enroute control and lined up the Swiss cheese just right that day. I guarantee that what he was doing happens on a daily basis, and they aren’t about to change it. Btw, I would assume that he managed to get the thing nearly inverted in IMC and that explains the speed increase and rapid rate of descent up to 4800fpm. Probably pulling up the whole way.
  6. It’s a tool to use when s**t goes pear shaped. Sounds like good CRM in a bad situation to me. We use it for maps and weather etc. Some attach a bad elf for flight following purposes. Also not legal, but the suction cup marks are hard to miss. Very handy. I use it a lot to read notams as the company disseminated paperwork is borderline hieroglyphic in format. i had an FAA guy on my jumpseat today who was speculating about using one as a portable ADS-B out unit to make it more affordable and practical for GA use. Clouds are weird things. I had a minor case of the “rights” the other day in Denver on climb out and let my partner know in case the vertigo got bad.
  7. That’s getting beyond my limited helo knowledge. But certainly possible. I still lean towards vertigo if the audio posted is accurate as there’s no change in sound like an impact or slowing of the main rotor before the crash. Just the sound of acceleration. Could retreating rotor stall cause the sudden turn at the end, or just a hard rolling moment?
  8. What is the bare minimum that will get the job done? It’s rare for operators to retrofit much above that standard. Unless they can use it as a selling point with their clients. And most don’t care.
  9. Using iPads for primary or secondary navigation is not unusual at all. Some iPad programs like Foreflight even have backup instrumentation options in case the ship’s instruments crap out. If it quits working you’d do the same thing you’d do if your car GPS died. You’d handle it manually. I haven’t seen anything about the helicopter clipping a hill before crashing , but that might be the cause for the sudden dive. There’s some thought that the hard climbing maneuver combined with high speed and weight could have caused the main rotor to hit the tail boom. Or, if the pilot got vertigo he may have managed to get the thing inverted or nearly so, and keeping a positive G feeling in his butt led to an unrecoverable dive at low altitude not I liken a death spiral in a plane. All the wreckage in one spot makes the me think the latter case is it.
  10. Yeah, none of our planes were older than 7 years. The average was 3-5. I was shocked by a 29 year old helo, but the overall gist is the same.
  11. I’m not talking about one of thousands of small charter operators with planes on certificates, and just hopping in random jets. I’m talking about flying planes that have their names or their LLC’s name attached to it. And it’s not just the sports world. I mentioned those names for recognition as most names are public nobodies. I flew plenty of business/wealth managers etc too. They don’t care. I’m not talking about riding private jets on occasion with friends. I’m flew in that world for 11 years. Some took a real interest. Most did not. The people who roll in their own7X, Challenger, G or Global are by far the exception. Most are doing exactly what Kobe did.
  12. Look, I used to fly folks who had to be worth about $100M just to enter the program. And it went up from there. The planes were lavish in back, but extremely basic in front. A few people wanted to know about it, but most could care less. Did it look good on the ramp, look good on the inside and meet their price expectations? Yes? Then hop in. I know lack of price sensitivity and vetting by experts is a thing with some, but it isn’t the norm. Hell, Tiger bought a used NJ’s GV and paid a crew bottom dollar to fly it. Jim Crane, the Houston Astro’s owner, bought a used Citation X with no frills, ran one Captain into the ground driving it for minimal pay and used contract First Officers until he recently upgraded to a Challenger 350. A good comparison is for us mere mortals to take a ride in a sedan service/Uber Black. Do you really care that the Lincoln that pulls up has 200k miles on it and doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that are now available on modern cars? No you don’t. Does it look good inside and out and reliably get your there? Hop in. More and more of of the modern aircraft are coming out with Synthetic Vision or FLIR etc. as standard equipment. Kobe bought a three decade old helicopter lacking modern toys, and had one guy flying it in the weather between terrain. I’m not throwing shade at him for that as it happens all the time, and people get away with it all the time. But he was fine with it even with his high net worth. And no expert vetted it for an “it’s ok” check other than to see if the aircraft was legal, the company providing the pilot had the required certificates and and the pilot himself had the requisite experience. In other words, it was barely vetted if at all.
  13. Again, many very wealthy people could care less about the age of the aircraft or the toys up front as long as the paint and interior are nice.
  14. There haven’t been any brand new rocks in California in some time. A brand new helicopter might have allowed the pilots to see through the clouds via synthetic vision or FLIR. Ground proximity warnings is tied to the location as calculated by the flight management computer. So that should have been shouting at them, and maybe it was hence the steep climb.
  15. Nah. Just that it lost out to several million year old pieces of rock.
  16. That’s because they don’t understand that quite a few wealthy folks don’t give a rip about the equipment up front or age so long as the paint and interior are nice, it gets the job done and is cheap to purchase.
  17. I’m thoroughly unfamiliar with the load characteristics of an S-76, but they were and are used pretty extensively to haul folks out to oil rigs. And those usually aren’t small people. Also, and this may not be the case here, but rules are often bent on personal aircraft.
  18. ATC gave them the go ahead so the FAA would’ve pointing the finger at themselves. That’s the busiest IFR airspace in the world so taking away special VFR from them probably isn’t going to happen.
  19. 29 year old helicopter. They very likely were flying a six pack or maybe had an electronic HSI. I’d think it’s have a GPWS though.
  20. Depends on the age of the S-76. Synthetic vision is largely a GA item and on a new private jets. This one was 29 years old and probably not refitted. Convenience would be my guess. Flying IFR around BUR and VNY is a hassle whereas Special VFR allowed them to scud run a bit and follow corridors. The weather wasn’t VFR, but it wasn’t hard IFR either.
  21. Autopilot off, pull up, max power, retract the spoilers, wings level and don’t change configuration until clear of obstacles. Keep all of the lift vector pointed up. Probably different than helos though.
  22. Helicopters don’t really stall. Probably pulled up hard after going IMC to clear local terrain, or some granite popped out of the gloom, clipped it and crashed. I’d guess that an S-76 has a ground proximity warning system.
  23. They probably filed to El Monte with the intention of picking up a Special VFR clearance to get the rest of the way home.
  24. Always a chance, but controlled flight into terrain due to continued visual flying in instrument conditions is a pretty common killer. Too early to tell anything, but thats likely the case again.
×
×
  • Create New...