This is one of those expectedly fascinating reads.
If you haven't, I recommend seeking out the opportunity to go for a helicopter ride or to try your hand at one. They're really interesting aircraft. One of the tidbits I got is that they're far safer in normal operation than the numbers suggest, because they're often flown into the most challenging rescue situations where nothing else will do.
I remember watching the first US Grand Prix in Austin a few years back, and the commentators were specifically talking about how great the helicopter pilot was. I happened to be there for the race, but as it was my first F1 race, I didn't know if all the pilots got that low and aggressive, or if this was unique.
Another tidbit that sadly sticks in my mind is hearing about ex-Vietnam pilots flying over New Zealand while sharpshooters culled (invasive, non-native) deer.
Helicopters aren't that safe. Helo pilots are in denial because they drank the kool-aid. Their "failsafe" of autorotation doesn't work without enough forward airspeed and doesn't do any good for crashes while at or near hover or severe loss of control. Then you have the massive number of pending single point failures in the mechanical hardware. You are at the mercy of the engineering and maintenance far more than in an airplane.
Here's a rare survivable crash from low altitude[1]. The passengers still suffered serious injuries. Here is an autorotation training landing[2]. How often will this be possible in real life when something is broken? Here's a failed autorotation with RPMs too low like might be encountered with engine power loss [3].
I can believe that autorotation landings are dangerous, but then, so are airplane engine-out landings at night over water... but how often are they necessary?
Helicopters are more dangerous than other aircraft:
The crash rate for helicopters alone is 9.84 per 100,000 hours. That means helicopters crash about 35 percent more often per hour in the air than your average aircraft
But have a lower fatality rate:
The fatality rate in helicopter crashes is 1.3 deaths per 100,000 flight hours versus 1.4 deaths for aircraft in general.
> Another tidbit that sadly sticks in my mind is hearing about ex-Vietnam pilots flying over New Zealand while sharpshooters culled (invasive, non-native) deer.
You can Heli-Hunt invasive feral hogs in Texas for ~5k/person
Interesting. The pilot makes some really close passes over the track, doesn't the downwash interfere with the cars' aerodynamics? F1 performance depends on it quite a lot, and the downwash from a heli can be really powerful.
If it made any difference whatsoever, the Drivers would complain and whine about it relentlessly - so no. They either plan it well, or the wash is negligible
>If it made any difference whatsoever, the Drivers would complain and whine about it relentlessly
While that's a pretty accurate characterisation of pretty much every single pilot that has ever driven in F1, I wonder if they have clauses in the contract saying that they cannot publicly criticise the FIA/F1 organisers about stuff like that.
Actually, they do get to complain about the weight of cameras on board. Back in the 90’s, before there was a camera on every car, they put dummy cameras of the same size and weight on every car that didn’t have a real camera on it, so there was no weight or aero advantage either way.
Guess the point I was trying to make is that as long as everyone experiences the same disadvantage on average, then it’s okay because this is a spectator sport not a “Lets make the fastest lap times” kind of thing.
Cameras are pretty light now but I’m sure you could make a case that cars would be faster/better without them.
The weight of the cameras doesn't really make a difference, because everyone has to carry them and so nobody is put at a disadvantage. What does matter is the aerodynamics of the camera pods - the rules give manufacturers some degree of latitude with regards to the design and placement of the outboard camera pods, so they can be manipulated to provide a tiny aerodynamic advantage.
It doesn't work like that. The effect of the downwash would be minimal in terms of added weight on the tires. But it would seriously disrupt the "clean" air that the car wings need to generate maximum down-force.
They need clean air in mid to high speed corners (where donw-force is of the essence to keep the speed). In fact one of the current problems that makes F1 boring (as in less overtakes) is that cars cannot follow each other closely for extended periods.
If a car follows another closely for 3 or 4 laps, the tires start suffering from overheating (due to the reduction in down-force caused by the disturbed air the tires have less downward pressure and grip making them slide more). After 3 to 4 laps following closely, the chasing car is forced to slow down to cool the tires and avoid damaging them.
If you watch the Volkswagen IDR record breaking videos some of the helicopters have trouble keeping up with the unexpected speed of the car, particularly when there was tree coverage. People in the YouTube comments were complaining but it looked like a very difficult job.
Tim Wallis [1] was the man that pioneered aerial hunting and recovery of deer, back in the 60s and 70s. The whole history of the commercial deer industry in NZ is fascinating.
Originally, they'd use helicopters to drop hunters off on foot, who'd then shoot deer, collect them, and wait for pickup. Then they figured they may as well shoot them from the helicopter.
It's crazy stuff, they basically fly right through a valley, shooting all the deer they can with with an assault rifle. Swiss army surplus SiG rifles were very popular, because they ejected the spent cartridges downwards, reducing the risky of ejecting brass into the helicopter blades. They'd then fly back, and pick up all the carcasses, drop them off in a truck, and repeat. They were then butchered and exported.
In 1969, deer farming was made legal, so they switched from hunting to live deer recovery. They'd chase deer with a helicopter, and a bloke would literally jump out of the moving helicopter onto the deer, tackle it to the ground, and tie its legs up so they could lift it with the chopper. They eventually moved onto using net guns and tranquilliser guns as they were more effective.
Te Ara (the NZ encyclopedia) has a really good online writeup about it all [2].
Most of the pilots weren't Vietnam vets, as NZ didn't field helicopters in Vietnam. They were home-grown civilian pilots. The people down south are a special breed, the most foolhardy, tough people you'll ever meet. It will be sub-zero and snowing, and they'll still be wearing shorts. Nicest people you'll ever meet though, we fucked a wheel 4wd-ing up a river once, and the cocky just lent us a wheel and asked us to return it whenever, the bloke had never met us before and didn't ask for any sort of security at all.
As for Tim Wallis himself, the man's larger than life. He survived a helicopter crash in 1968 that broke his back (and escaped from hospital to go to the pub). He was an avid collector of old warbirds, owning several Spitfire, P-51 Mustangs, and Russian Polikarpovs and started the Warbirds over Wanaka airshow. He ended up crashing these several times, and unfortunately in 1996 had a crash on take-off that left him several injured and brain damaged.
Tragically, he lost two of his sons in 2018 to two separate helicopter crashes. Bush flying is incredibly dangerous, they say there are old pilots and there are brave pilots, but no old brave pilots. Some of the situations I've seen helicopter pilots flying in are just straight reckless. I've seen pilots with a slung load underneath, flying probably 50 feet above the ground, through winding river valleys with hillsides less than 100 feet away on each side. If they had any mechanical issues at all, they'd be dead.
Sadly this kind of "she'll be right" attitude is incredible common in New Zealand, it seems everyone knows at least one or two people who have died in aviation accidents. I knew a guy who passed away recently in a microlight crash (unknown circumstances), and he'd commonly drop down to 100 ft over land or water (which is illegal), often to buzz a friends house or boat. One time I was with him and we shot straight past another microlight (less than 500 ft, technically a near miss and very illegal) and did a barrel roll in front of them for a laugh. Were were at probably 1000 ft at the time, which is also under 3000 ft minimum for aerobatics. Over the course of the afternoon we probably managed to break at least half a dozen aviation laws, we almost landed on a close airfield (2 weeks after he copped a fine for doing the same) until I reminded him it was closed.
If you haven't, I recommend seeking out the opportunity to go for a helicopter ride or to try your hand at one. They're really interesting aircraft. One of the tidbits I got is that they're far safer in normal operation than the numbers suggest, because they're often flown into the most challenging rescue situations where nothing else will do.
I remember watching the first US Grand Prix in Austin a few years back, and the commentators were specifically talking about how great the helicopter pilot was. I happened to be there for the race, but as it was my first F1 race, I didn't know if all the pilots got that low and aggressive, or if this was unique.
Another tidbit that sadly sticks in my mind is hearing about ex-Vietnam pilots flying over New Zealand while sharpshooters culled (invasive, non-native) deer.