Helicopter Breaks In Two [Video]

• Kidder says:

  May 9, 2009 at 1:29 pm

  My lecturer at Uni showed us this video. If I remember correctly the tail rotor blades started to oscillate wildly out of balance because the pilot was applying too much pressure to the tail rotor pedals. The oscillating blades created unstable forces on the tail boom (i.e. the forces kept changing directions) and eventually snapped the boom.

  It’s hard to see in the low res vid, but the boom and tail rotor start to sway from side to side just before it snaps.
• gobbledegook says:

  July 18, 2009 at 6:09 am

  Right. I note also that it started to oscillate during forward motion, which is when the downwash from the main rotor starts causing more stress on the tail(rotor).

  The quality makes it hard to see, but it looks like there’s some oddity where the boom broke off – has someone just welded together the front and back end of 2 other choppers? I’ve never heard of a properly manufactured chopper that cant withstand maximum deflection on the rudder controls under normal circumstances. Who are these clowns? After all that, they drop the poor guy they recovered onto big rocks!

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