helicopter charters
Overall, FY05 was another mixed year in the Air Force helicopter world in terms of the benchmark Class A Flight mishap rate. The MH-53 and the UH-1 experienced an exceptional year, with no Class A mishaps. However, HH-60s were far above five- and ten-year averages with five Class A flight mishaps. Class A mishaps tragically claimed the lives of two Airmen. The USAF helicopter community again trended above five- and ten-year averages in Class B and C mishaps. The MH-53 experienced no class A mishaps, six Class B mishaps, and 11 Class C mishaps in FY05. Two Class B mishaps were the result of powerplant malfunctions, two resulted from damage during landings to unimproved areas, one resulted from a serious injury while working a GAU-2 Mini-Gun malfunction, and finally, the most notable Class B mishap resulted from a tail rotor ground strike during upgrade training at an improved field.
HelicopterNumerous individuals have contributed to the conception and development of the helicopter. The idea appears to have been bionic in origin, meaning that it derived from an attempt to adapt a natural phenomenain this case, the whirling, bifurcated fruit of the maple treeto a mechanical design. Early efforts to imitate maple pods produced the whirligig, a childrens toy popular in China as well as in medieval Europe. During the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci, the renowned Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer, sketched a flying machine that may have been based on the whirligig. The next surviving sketch of a helicopter dates from the early nineteenth century, when British scientist Sir George Cayley drew a twin-rotor aircraft in his notebook. During the early twentieth century, Frenchman Paul Cornu managed to lift himself off the ground for a few seconds in an early helicopter. However, Cornu was constrained by the same problems that would continue to plague all early designers for several decades: no one had yet devised an engine that could generate enough vertical thrust to lift both the helicopter and any significant load (including passengers) off the ground.Igor Sikorsky, a Russian engineer, built his first helicopter in 1909. When neither this prototype nor its 1910 successor succeeded, Sikorsky decided that he could not build a helicopter without more sophisticated materials and money, so he transferred his attention to aircraft. During World War I, Hungarian engineer Theodore von Karman constructed a helicopter that, when tethered, was able to hover for extended periods. Several years later, Spaniard Juan de la Cierva developed a machine he called an autogiro in response to the tendency of conventional airplanes to lose engine power and crash while landing. If he could design an aircraft in which lift and thrust (forward speed) were separate functions, Cierva speculated, he could circumvent this problem. The autogiro he subsequently invented incorporated features of both the helicopter and the airplane, although it resembled the latter more. The autogiro had a rotor that functioned something like a windmill. Once set in motion by taxiing on the ground, the rotor could generate supplemental lift; however, the autogiro was powered primarily by a conventional airplane engine. To avoid landing problems, the engine could be disconnected and the autogiro brought gently to rest by the rotor, which would gradually cease spinning as the machine reached the ground. Popular during the 1920s and 1930s, autogiros ceased to be produced after the refinement of the conventional helicopter.
Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 was another exceptional year for U.S. Air Force helicopter mishap prevention. Most importantly, our community again experienced no fatalities or serious injuries during the fiscal year. USAF helicopters experienced 1 Class A mishap, 4 Class B mishaps, and 20 Class Cs during FY07; statistics very similar to last year. As in FY 2006, the 2007 mishaps were mixed between materiel failures and human factors showing no clear trends. The HH-60 experienced no Class As, 2 Class Bs, and 7 Class C mishaps in FY07. The Class Bs resulted from a hard landing and a ground taxi operation blade strike. The first Class B of FY07 involved an aircraft executing a tactical takeoff during which the aircraft was unable to sustain flight, resulting in a hard landing on rocky, uneven terrain. The impact caused significant structural and component damage to the belly of the aircraft. The second Class B involved an alert aircraft taxiing for takeoff. The aircrafts main rotor blades struck a vehicle adjacent the taxiway damaging the main rotor blades, the vehicle, and an adjacent parked aircraft. The MH-53 experienced 1 Class A, 1 Class B, and 3 Class C mishaps in FY07. The aircraft suffered a hard landing with the crew suffering minor injuries. The accident is still under investigation. The Class B involved engine damage during start. A crew chief noticed significant sparks shooting from the engine exhaust during the start sequence. The crew shut down the aircraft and returned it to maintenance. Initial inspections revealed substantial damage to the engines compressor section. The UH-1 series had no Class As, 1 Class B, and 6 Class C mishaps. The Class B resulted from a materiel failure within the combustor section of the engine during single-engine functional check flight operations. The resulting gas path and cooling flow disturbance seriously damaged components downstream resulting in engine failure. The crew successfully performed a single-engine run-on landing.