When you get this low, exhaust and loose, dead grass and parts of trees get swiled around and end up in the aircraft with you.
The original “eggbeater”. If the wings are moving faster than the fuselage, it has to be a helicopter and therefor, inherently dangerous.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
That thing was dangerous. When we received our first briefing before our recon flight, we were told that if you have to approach the aircraft it had to be from the front. If you tried from the rear you get the exhaust, which is about 1000 degrees. From the sides you get the blades which end up being about chest high. And to make it even more interesting a flight, if it started to rain, we land. It doesn’t matter where we were, we land. A light rain could very quickly end up in a very heavy rain in no time at all and the problem was that the wooden blades could shatter in a good rain.
When you are flying around, even though it doesn’t look like it, you can move in multiple directions at once. No only forward and up, but because of the rotor wash beating against the sides you swing slightly left and right too. At least that’s the way it feels in the back.
WHen you get close to the ground, the exhaust fumes get pulled into the passenger area along with whatever light ground debris is laying around. SOmetimes a line of water forms along the top center of the aircraft and you can get wet that way.