The plane enthusiasts thread

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figbat

Former slippery scientist
Chinooks too!

Yes! I live near RAF Benson so plenty of those about.
 
This appeared on a FaceBook suggestion this morning

Love it!

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T4tomo

Legendary Member
There are 7 or 9 Spitfires flying at Shuttleworth this Saturday pm for anyone is cycling distance of Biggleswade....
 

Bristolian

Über Member
Location
Bristol, UK
Not really an aeroplane but a friend of mine has recently completed making this model of an Avro Lancaster, complete with Möhne Dam. He asked me to take some photos for his Facebook page and I thought I'd share a few here with you guys. His dad joined 617 Sqn as one of the replacement flight crews after the Dambuster's raid and flew on sorties to sink the Tirpitz and V2 rocket sites using the Tallboy bomb.
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The model is really quite impressive, even if some of the panels don't fit together as well as they should, with rotating props, flashing machine guns, working navigation and landing lights and a rotating bomb. The detail inside the fuselage is very good and the "engines" even start up and stop in the correct order.
 
Location
Widnes
This happened to a helicopter near Bridlington yesterday
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You don't need to know much about helicopters to know that isn't how it left the factory.

Back in October 2021, this happened to a similar helicopter near Cleethorpes

View attachment 818288

In both cases, no one was hurt - which is, of course, the main thing.

WOW!!

did that happen on the ground or in the air

if in the air then the pilot did damn well!
 

ivegotabike

Well-Known Member
WOW!!

did that happen on the ground or in the air

if in the air then the pilot did damn well!

The pilots did well. Sure, they will be bothered about the wrecked helicopters, but no one was injured.

In both cases, I suspect the chopping off of the tail boom by the main rotor blade happened very close to the ground, at the end of a very urgent landing / autorotation (essentially an engine off descent / landing).

It can happen when the pilot is a bit too harsh on the controls just prior to landing at the end of an autorotation, or if the unpowered main rotor has lost too much speed during the procedure (and other reasons too, but they are a couple that do happen).

The autorotation itself is a standard procedure. However, whilst all pilots do lots of them in practice, not many do many of them for real. That is a high pressure situation to be in and not much needs to go wrong for the helicopter to get damaged.

The pilot's primary objective is, of course, to get on the ground without injuring anyone. As mentioned already, in both of the cases mentioned above, that is what happened. Everyone walked away with no injuries.
 

DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
WOW!!

did that happen on the ground or in the air

if in the air then the pilot did damn well!
The tail rotor failed in flight, with 4 parachutists on board. It's unclear as to whether they jumped or stayed on board.

With no tail rotor, the pilot had no option but to autorotate to a landing. It's likely that it would have been a hard one, causing the main rotor to flex on impact and chop off the tail (which was found nearby).
 
Location
Widnes
The tail rotor failed in flight, with 4 parachutists on board. It's unclear as to whether they jumped or stayed on board.

With no tail rotor, the pilot had no option but to autorotate to a landing. It's likely that it would have been a hard one, causing the main rotor to flex on impact and chop off the tail (which was found nearby).

I know they train for it - but they did damn well to pull it off
 
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