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Ramp Hazzards?


Ryan
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That story reminded me of a lesson I learnt years ago. I had been doing longline training in the R22 in the training area, Landed dropped off the line picked up another student who was doing his commercial licence as well, then flew the short hop back to the pad..I landed at the pad levelled the disk did the frictions up and jumped out. It was left going as the other guy was going to walk around the front jump straight in and head off by himself. As I walked forwards away from the machine the other guy got something out from under the pilots seat. The seat tilted up and forward and pushed the cyclic forward...The blade went close enough over my head that i felt the shock wave off it through my helmet, needless to say I went a very pale colour and from that day on had a bit more respect for the spinning thing above my head LESSON LEARNT ( assumption is the mother of all evils)

 

Cheers TT

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Here is a comment from a former chief pilot for Sikorsky on the 76 family that I found on Pprune regarding the 76 main rotor ground clearance.

 

"For the S-76 family, the rotor plane is 10 feet above the deck when the disk is leveled, a number that is virtually impossible for most people to jump up and touch (unless they are NBA stars). If the cyclic is pushed forward, the deck clearance can be tiny, of course."

 

He said 10', hmmm, I don't think I level the disk all the way.

 

ttf

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For the S-76 family, the rotor plane is 10 feet above the deck when the disk is leveled

 

Hmmm. Not on the '76s I've come across. When the frictions are on, the disk appears to sit about 6'6" on a no wind day. While taxiing the disk is at chest level on me. Me being almost 6'3" means I **** near crawl around the nose when it's running, I've seen a strong wind gust bring that disk down almost to waist level. If I'm not carefull when it's shut down and parked I'll walk right into one of the drooping forward blades.

 

On a funny note (though it could have turned out bad I guess) I almost became a projectile myself last week. The '61 was coming in and I was out waiting and watching the lumbering beast in awe. There were also 3 cruise ships docked, creating somewhat of a wind break. So in comes the '61 and as it flared it lost most of its headwind and dropped like a rock, nailing the rear wheel on the active and getting bounced about 10-15' back up again. The pilot quickly reefed up on the collective to get it flying again...with poor old me 60' away. I slid back a little bit from the force of the downwash, but nearly got tossed into the fence. Had I not been watching the approach I most likely would have been caught off guard and sent sailing.

 

Good times. :up:

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