casualty chopper crash

[apollo7]

we always watch causality and when it came to the drone (Hubsan x4 pro) bringing down the chopper, i find it a little hard to think a plastic quad would take out the tail rotor, do you guys think this could happen in real life?

[Digit]

Clip can be found here.
http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/704598/Casualty-30th-anniversary-helicopter-crash

Couldn';t help but think no the whole time I was watching it.

[hoverfly]

Great  demo for the "what if, but it might brigade." 

[shawdreamer]

why let common sense, reality and actual facts get in the way of a perfectly good story?

newspapers do it all the time so why should fictional crap tv programmes with rapidly dying ratings be any different?

[shawdreamer]

coincidently, I might go buy one of those "pro';s".......I didnt know they were nitro engine powered!

[apollo7]

coincidently, I might go buy one of those "pro';s".......I didnt know they were nitro engine powered!

Yes it did sound rather nitro powered

[Two-Six]

Flippin Casualty...Scaring the population on a regular basis since 1986.

The BBC';s biggest budget Flagship Psy-Ops, along with Tavistock Enders.

This is really going to help our hobby';s PR image.

Have you ever seen an Agusta  AW 109 close up?  The tail rotors are HUGE, HEAVY, and SOLID.  They would smash any multi-rotor to bits, even big ones, in a split second with nothing but a few small dents and scratches to show for it.

I hate the BBC. 

A lot.

[shawdreamer]

well I think their is a call for genuine concern......












I had no idea a huge commercial helicopter could so easily be taken out the sky and crash land killing dozens of people...they should ban helicopters!!.

the Russian Afghan war saw America giving the Afghans millions of dollars worth of semi-effective Stinger ground to air missles to combat the Russian HIND helicopter gunship.

what a waste, just chuck some cheap plastic at it that';ll sort it out.

[DarkButterfly]

At least they got one thing right, the quad was smashed to bits immediately on contact with the tail rotor.

I don';t think a plastic quad will have enough mass to cause damage to the tail rotor of a full size heli like that, but the BBC like to be over dramatic.

[Liftseeker]

That said Hubsan hardly portray the hobby as particularly safe. This is what you can do with the waypoint plotter (apparently)



We may question that missions risk assesment, but the public seeing that are more likely to question our commitment to safety

[Andy7]

Yeah, seriously doubt you can take out a helicopter with a small drone. Probably not much worse than a bird strike or clipping a branch - I expect that happens all the time.

I wonder if the turbulence from the tail rotor would usually just BLOW the drone away (50:50 depending on which side you approach it).

Still - I love casualty and hey you gotta have a bit of artistic license to make exciting drama.

[Andy7]

That said Hubsan hardly portray the hobby as particularly safe.

Actually thinking about it, they were ';fairly'; sensitive about it because the lad had literally just taking it OTB, unsupervised by a grown up - so, accidents ARE going to happen in that case, even if it';s only a prop cut.

Looking forward to an episode where someone gets their fingers cut off with a drone; most likely the grumpy old man waving a stick at the drone-thug in the park  :evil

[Liftseeker]

Its funny, talking about accidents, I took my Epiquad 180 out yesterday, testing Betaflight 3.0.0 RC11 on a CC3D Revo. Its as stable as hell and its great fun to fly it hellish fast over common land just clipping the tops of the grass and heather. During one of the first out runs I got to thinking, if there';s a couple banging away behind that tussock over there and one of them lifts their head, someone';s going to get one hell of a shock.

I didn';t fly it under 3-4 feet after that

[Liftseeker]

In response to shawdreamer';s comments earlier, it does seem that quads don';t NEED the intervention of quads or any other external threats to be a danger to us all ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_helicopters

Most of them (that havent been shot down) seem to just fall out of the sky!

[shawdreamer]

Its funny, talking about accidents, I took my Epiquad 180 out yesterday, testing Betaflight 3.0.0 RC11 on a CC3D Revo. Its as stable as hell and its great fun to fly it hellish fast over common land just clipping the tops of the grass and heather. During one of the first out runs I got to thinking, if there';s a couple banging away behind that tussock over there and one of them lifts their head, someone';s going to get one hell of a shock.

I didn';t fly it under 3-4 feet after that

no you flew at 10ft with a hd cam onboard and went to look "behind that tussock"

[LuMan]

I';m sure there';s a heli pilot somewhere who could clarify this, and I';m only taking into account the fact that a tail rotor could actually be rendered useless by a drone strike.. Which may, or may not be true...

Anyhoo - let';s say that a helicopter lost its tail rotor mid-flight. In order for the pilot to be flying, they would need a PPL(H). Part of the training for this licence is an auto-rotate land. A bit like the ';engine-out'; drill you do with a PPL(A). If the tail rotor goes, the engine is spun down, reverse collective is added and the heli put into a dive, in order for the passing airflow to spin the blades up to sufficient speed for the heli to pull out and land under auto-rotation. There';s a load of auto-rotate landings on YouTube, and they';re bloody great to watch!

Obviously, if the heli is taking off or landing, then things may be different, and I didn';t bother watching Casualty 30 years ago, and don';t plan on starting now (sorry, Casualty fans..), so it may be that I';ve missed the key detail. But, as an aviation geek, and a fan of anything that can get itself airborne, I just want to see things done right! 

Finally, I didn';t really mean the ';slap'; emoticon, but I just love it so much!!! 

[Slayer23]

auto rotation is only effective if the vehicle has enough altitude most tail strikes below 500 foot end in fatality unfortunately

[LuMan]

Yep. True. I did just watch the clip, just for.. er.. research. I';ll shut up now....  :embarrassed

[Slayer23]

even the BBC is tightening its belt
Every other disaster at holby has involved a fire and well seeing as the price of fuel has gone up and how expensive pyrotechnics are I guess using a out of the box drone and a scrap helicopter fuselage was a cheap option

[shawdreamer]

actually its more like there using the same set cliche that everyone else is using (including newspapers)

whats controversial right now (regardless of whether theres a rational reason for it to be)....

drones...

ok so drones = controversy = unimaginative, unrealistic storyline with the word "drone" in it = hopefully gets enough attention to get some viewing figures before we get the axe because the bbc are desperate to save money after screwing up the only show they had that anyone even bothered watching anymore.

[DerbyshireDrones]

I would of though it was big news if it had actually happened before:

Producer Erika Hossington told the Radio Times: "We've been working with the Association of Air Ambulances for about seven months on the storyline because we knew dramatically what we wanted to do, but we felt a huge responsibility.

"Every accident we feature in the show has always happened for real – so we have to apply huge sensitivity to that.

"They came in to meet with us and we had various ideas about how the helicopter could crash and the drone suggestion came from them.

"It';s not happened in the UK before but it has happened elsewhere, and it is something the service is incredibly worried about."

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/1651301/more-drama-heading-for-casualtys-30th-anniversary-episode-as-helicopter-crashes-into-the-hospital/

[shawdreamer]

why let common sense, reality and actual facts get in the way of a perfectly good story newspaper article?

[LuMan]

"Every accident we feature in the show has always happened for real – so we have to apply huge sensitivity to that.

"They came in to meet with us and we had various ideas about how the helicopter could crash and the drone suggestion came from them.

"It';s not happened in the UK before but it has happened elsewhere, and it is something the service is incredibly worried about."

So says Erika Hossington..

I';m not aware of a commercial or private helicopter (or plane for that matter) being brought down by a drone. Even after a good trawl through the inter-webs I could only see articles on the ';chances of it happening.'; which range from ';a good chance'; to ';imminent.'; Obviously the Daily Mail ';experts'; state that a drone can definitely bring down a passenger jet, but that';s another argument..

For the producer of the show to state it';s not happened here, but it has happened elsewhere, when there';s no easy-to-obtain evidence of this is somewhat irresponsible and serves only to heighten the current paranoia about drones.

After watching the clip, I must say I';m impressed with the sequence. It was better than the tram crash in Corrie!

[Slayer23]

What they fail to mention if the fact it was a reaper using a stinger missile :) slightly different to a hubsan