buzzing rooftops

If you mean looking for heat sources for cannabis farms, you tend to find most gardeners have got wise to this so will now insulate the roof, so there is no heat signature. Most farms are found from the ground in any case - the smell from a letterbox reveals more than the heat from a rooftop

If it buzzing around roof tops, there's a good chance is chasing a burglar, thief etc etc

 

This happened very close to where I now live, to the point that we heard the helicopter go down when we were out with the dogs.

We both looked at each other and said "that doesn't sound right". Like a missfire and thought at first a light plane may have gone down - didn't sound anything like a healthy helicopter for sure. No big bang, just something clearly in trouble then silence.

I'm not going to get involved in the politics of police helecopter use or not, other than to say that imo they are a valuable reource. Let us remember that at least 8 people died, including, it appears, the civilian (ex RAF) pilot and the two police officers in the helepcopter, together with another 5 people. And the only pain in the **** buzzing helecopters since have been two media copters, which appeared to want to hover for hours yesterday above and around the crash site.

 

You could live anywhere in Nottingham, making a statement like that.

Notts like to get the helicopter up to look for vulnerable missing people. It's an advantage over the vast park areas north of the city as response cars can't get in to them, or cover them as fast, so good for preventing loss of life, should someone be trying to hide in the middle of nowhere to top themselves.

 

Bet you can't wait to retire

 

Terrible accident. Seems however that H&S has taken over. They expect the death toll to rise. As previously said this pub is on the banks of the River Clyde & the helipad is a few hundred yards from the accident.

 

indeed - whenever that's going to be.
I did have 17 years to do, but this will end up being 27 years now and all for a bag of nuts at the end of it

 

Really?? - I would support ANPR over anything else road related to be honest - it really seems to target the scummers very precisely.

 

Yeah - my impression from the news this morning (and the annoying Ms Sturgeon!) is that the Health & Safety brigade are all wringing their hands in despair 'at the danger the crews are in' - I bet the crews are itching to get in there and get it sorted but they are being told what to do (or not do more probably!)

 

A) what difference does the altitude make? Gravity is going to mean it lands on your head from 100 feet or 1500 feet.

B) so you wouldn't mind if they crash landed into a farm house with a family inside in the middle of no where?

Scott.

 

Think about it this way , the copper chopper can probably do the work of 2 or 3 patrol cars
What would you prefer 1 experienced pilot hovering about or 3 cars with the drivers abilities that are what you would call , let's say not always the best

 

If you stopped and thought about it for a minute, you'd know exactly what difference altitude makes, and that difference is time

If something fails at 100 feet, there's pretty much **** all anyone can do

If it goes at 1500 feet the pilot has time to assess the situation and initiate emergency procedures, which includes finding a safe area to set down.

Barring catastrophic gearbox failure, there isn't much a helicopter can't be recovered from given time and space, pilots are required to practice simulated failed engine landings on a regular basis

 

Couldn't have put it better myself and is the main crux for my disdain of their low flying habits over residential areas.

 

A) has been covered

B) Of course Ali or anybody else are not saying they 'mind' it crashing into a farm with a family in. Lets be honest here, as bad/tragic as it is, 9 people (last I heard) dying after a helicopter crashes into an open pub is quite amazing a hell of a lot more people haven't lost their lives. If you had to choose between hundreds maybe thousands or 5,6,7 people, it's a no brainer.

 

I'm sure choppers still have their uses, but a handful of well-operated unmanned camera drones could do a lot of the more routine stuff far more cheaply, safely and reliably.

 

Has anyone else heard mention of either black box or flight recorder?

My son texted me with some alarming news last night, but I don't want to mention it on here in case it's false, and the BBC haven't mentioned anything about either?

 

Was it not mentioned that they dont have them?

 

The news said that the heli rotors were not turning when it crashed and they have been recovered intact. If it was a twin engine heli it’s very unlikely to have run out of fuel as it would have separate tanks for each engine. Sounds like a gearbox failure or seizure which would have left the pilot zero options for landing safely.

 

The news reports I read said they were unsure if it had a blackbox.

 

Similar routes exist across Heathrow. In fact if I had the money and associated bits of paper, I would be able to fly a heli over parts of London, so it's not just the police who can.

If anyone wants to post up pictures of the police regularly flying at tree top height, please feel free as I'd love to see them.

 

The lack of damage to the rotors really supports that, have a look at any helicopter accident video (either real or radio controlled) and you'll see that the rotors pretty much disintegrate on impact.

I suppose we'll hear soon enough what state the gearbox is in. The wreckage tells a bit of a story though as the landing gear looks to have been crushed flat against the fuselage telling of a hell of an impact.

 

I've got some at home somewhere on a SD card, will have a look when I get back.

 

AKAIK it has no "black box" data recorder..........it does however have a number of sensors storing data (like the Subaru ECU stores error codes) which should be able to give quite a bit of info on what went wrong.

Shaun

 

Pretty much guarantee this was a sudden catastrophic gearbox seizure.... Its what I thought straight away when I first saw the story... nothing you can do - the rotors stop, your flying in a brick.....

 

Heard a news report last night saying that that type of helicopter has a good safety record
They said there's around 1000 flying and only been 13 or 14 crashes
That doesn't seem great to me , if I heard correct and if the reporting is correct
As far as forms of transport go I can't think of another that's statistically as bad
Motorcycles maybe ?

 

There's a thought , wonder how long it will be ?

 

If you look at aircraft safety records nearly all of them have impeccable safety records (ignoring anything Russain being operated in outer Mongolia ). Even Cessna 150s are considered "safe" yet more fall out of the sky than any other private aircraft! (mostly pilot error, but hey ho).

IMO its pointless statistics as it doesn't really measure near misses.

 

Don't be frightened, its an internet forum, discuss.

 

Sabotage

 

Horses

Whilst it’s sad that people got killed, it’s hopefully a single isolated incident which pales in to insignificance if you compare it to the number of people killed on our roads each day; but I don’t see anybody, except the odd fruitcake clamouring to have those shut down.

 

I thought that when I first heard those statistics. But considering first introduced in 1996 then say the average age is 9 years. How many 9 year old cars have had an accident? I bet its >1.5%.