The Airplane Fanatic Thread

[Armybrat 40821]

Only one helicopter ride for us - 20 years ago we took the tourist ride up & down the Las Vegas Strip at night. 
The nighttime views were spectacular. 
When we took of from McCarran, our Eurocopter tilted over about 45 degrees while I was sitting (actually  leaning on) next to the plexiglass door looking straight down a couple hundred feet as we turned up over the MGM Grand to head north. 
I didn’t take one picture of the 15-20 minutes while we were airborne. smh

Similar to this video….

 

Edited October 23 by Armybrat

[Brew 3049]

11 hours ago, RPM said:

It was a Robinson R44. You might want to reevaluate "perfectly good." Those fuckers will take themselves out of the air. I'll never ride in another one.

The main issue with Robinson’s are that they are cheap and you only need limited training hours to fly one, so too many people are flying them that have no business/experience flying them. When something goes wrong, they are done. That plus they manage to clip a lot of power lines and trees with them and that gets reported as a Robison crash the same as any other.

I have a number of clients that have them and only have one that technically crashed his but he really just landed in his pond behind his house a couple weeks after getting it. Insurance people were not amused.

[Gil Bang 25907]

53 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Only one helicopter ride for us - 20 years ago we took the tourist ride up & down the Las Vegas Strip at night. 
The nighttime views were spectacular. 
When we took of from McCarran, our Eurocopter tilted over about 45 degrees while I was sitting (actually  leaning on) next to the plexiglass door looking straight down a couple hundred feet as we turned up over the MGM Grand to head north. 
I didn’t take one picture of the 15-20 minutes while we were airborne. smh

Similar to this video….

 

any idea which model you were on?  My kid, like all Army Aviators, trained on a Lakota. 

[RPM 26315]

32 minutes ago, Brew said:

I have a number of clients that have them and only have one that technically crashed his but he really just landed in his pond behind his house a couple weeks after getting it. Insurance people were not amused.

Is he from Nocona? I remember that happening a couple years ago. The thing I was referring to about R-44 is boom strike.

[Armybrat 40821]

13 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

any idea which model you were on?  My kid, like all Army Aviators, trained on a Lakota. 

I have no clue. 
From what I could see, that company had about 8 or 10 of those Eurocopters in operation.

My cousin flew a Huey gunship in Vietnam, and Mrs. Brat’s old boyfriend flew a Hughes Loach.

[Brew 3049]

49 minutes ago, RPM said:

Is he from Nocona? I remember that happening a couple years ago. The thing I was referring to about R-44 is boom strike.

This one was in MS, an older guy that really had no business flying. I’ve briefly read up on boom strike, but the bigger issue I have seen and heard about has been inexperience related. Clipped power lines and trees are a significant cause of fatal Robinson crashes. However, I’m with you, I’m not getting in one. It was more due to the fact I don’t trust any of the guys I know as pilots than anything else though.

One of my contractor clients flies one regularly to job sites. He had 40 hours of flight training before he was turned loose. He was already instrument rated on turboprops which may have played into the time requirement, but that seemed like a very short training window to me.

[RPM 26315]

On 10/22/2024 at 10:32 AM, Lat22 said:

Good point. At least it didn’t chop its own tail rotor off before hitting the tower. 

 

[Lat22 4010]

That poor little Cessna saved his life. 

[HiggyBaby 2529]

 

[HiggyBaby 2529]

man what I would have gave to see a double B1 fly by today 🫡

[Mittens 8256]

Posted a couple pics from that day in the game thread.  1st one is from a buddy out in Steiner Ranch.  Other 3 are mine from west of downtown - they must have made 4 passes each way before the actual flyover.

[CycleTex87 2965]

‘Merica!!!