Ground resonance is a hazardous condition during touchdown or at other times when the helicopter is running while sitting on the ground. A series of shocks to the landing gear can pass through to the rotor disk and cause an imbalance in the rotor system. Under extreme conditions, the imbalance causes violent oscillations that quickly build and result in catastrophic damage of the entire airframe. While filming an episode for MacGyver this Gazelle helicopter pilot encountered the first symptoms of ground resonance and managed to recover from this potentially dangerous situation by taking off. During takeoff, the helicopters door opened in flight but the footage was kept and was aired in the episode.
Don’t really know much about this one. This Puma helicopter seems to have a tail rotor failure sending it in an uncontrolled spin… that’s what generally happens when you lose the tail rotor. Hope everybody made it out alive…
The Piasecki H-21 tandem rotor helicopter was one of the first tandem rotor helicopter, entering service in 1952. The helicopter was used for a series of controlled impact tests, in order to determine ways of improving survival methods in the event of a crash. Well, that last one seems brutal… hardly anybody would survive that one!
What I know about this video is that the helicopter is an Enstrom and is somewhere off the coast of Ireland on the deck of a Greenpeace ship. One of the deck straps was not released correctly. The pilot managed to control the helicopter but damaging the anti-torque rotor blades in the process. Check out the guy in the back as the blades pass inches away from his head. Good thing this didn’t turn into a disaster.
These two Puma helicopters were trying to do a nice formation pass over the crowd. In terms of proximity, they were flying at the limit. And when they went beyond that limit, all hell broke loose. Their rotor blades collided sending both helicopters in uncontrolled spins to the ground.
This CH-53E Super Stallion is attempting an aerial refuel but things take an ugly twist. The pilot encounters some turbulence, tries to keep the helicopter under control and…. Well just watch the video and you’ll see what i mean.
