You bet . I saw a program the day I got home from Hospital and it caught my fancy so that for that time at least No Pain ! It was about this " Super - Puma " used in the North sea by Aberdeen Air Services to the Offshore platforms .
Seems the weather turned bad on the flight out and about four miles from the platform they were headed to they got hit by lightning ! Not a little strike either . About 60 thousand volts .
Well , seems that burst hit a lightning tag on the tail rotor . ran fine for about two minutes and then Wham ! ! no tail rotor ! I’ll explain .They were able to set down on the floats and get out . All fourteen souls .
When the aircrew checked the bird they saw the tail rotor hanging by two hydraulic lines only ! Everything else inside was gone ! Blades broken and missing etc . Needless to say , thanks to another " Puma " just loading ( he had everyone get out ) he went and found the raft and hovered while giving positions to the rescue ship .
Got the Bird up during a later lull in the weather . Found out the tags were built in such a way , when hit they blasted the Composite ( Carbon Fibre and Fibreglas ) blades to smithereens . They fixed everything . I have one and I am going to do an Aberdeen Air Services Bird here . Yup , the Big one ! T.B.
“Construction Helicopters”, based at the airport I work at acquired one a few years ago (along with the main fuselage of a British military example as a parts donor). I was there one day, while one of the pilots was getting a training flight. As he lifted off…he either had too much or not enough “rudder”…came up, turned sideways and tilted…main rotors came within inches of the runway…damn close to disaster!
Parts donor…
Been quite a while since I’ve seen it…but these days, I’m pretty much only there when it snows in the middle of the night.
There been a few accidents with these in the last few years, including one in Norway where the whole rotot came off mid flight as well as one in the North Sea in 2009 and another in 2013. I think they are still grounded in the UK.
See it goes like this . A friend of mine and Fermis’s . Humper is his name , found me one of the Heller big kits . My gosh Four parts to the main fuselage .But it has the collectives .
Have you noticed how many companies seem to forget that very important stick ? T.B.
