Seems like if you are flying in a AS350 b-whatever.... If I hear any horn go off....even a car horn, I'm gonna drop the collective an enter an auto instinctively no matter what. If there's a passenger in the back with a pocket air horn you take to a football game and he bumps it just for fun, we are going into an auto....just cuz I'd be so gun shy from all them crash videos. Even if you manage to pull off the auto and cushion the blow enough to survive the spinal compression, there's still a 50-50 chance the MR disc comes thru that fiberglass canopy they call a cockpit and decapitates you and your copilot passenger. Notable Example: The famous 2012 Charleston, West Virginia (HealthNet AS350) incident. Upon landing on a rooftop pad, the helicopter experienced violent, textbook ground resonance. Within seconds, the extreme blade flapping completely chopped through the upper fuselage/canopy and self-destructed the airframe before the engine could be shut down
Notable Example: NTSB Accident Record (DFW08FA062 / EMS AS350). In various hard-impact dynamic rollovers recorded by the NTSB, the catastrophic flexing of the main rotor blades instantly breached the fiberglass upper cabin structure, completely separating or destroying the polycarbonate canopy posts
Notable Example: The 2017 Romania Chairlift Incident (AS350 B3, YR-DEX). After an un-piloted, wind-induced takeoff, the helicopter's main rotor blades struck a heavy steel chairlift cable. The force caused the rotor disc to deflect completely downward, destroying the cabin canopy.
I rode in one once, Taos NM, Big P airmedical, joyride, "reposition flight" sweating bullets. They ground rolled it the very next week. It was back in the main hangar in Laffy before I was even off of my vacation ski trip. Got back to work, Walked by it, stopped did a double take and was like.....NO way! Hot shot, hot dog pilot balled it up, imagine that. I had good reason to be sweating bullets---apparently. |