Near miss!

[ghjcmo]

I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. It looks like flight simulator to me. Do you know how fast the helicopter had to be going to become visible and close the gap in seconds? I was flying my Piper Cherokee Pa28 140 @120 MPH with 5 mile visibility and passed another plane coming right at me so it seemed. It passed 1 or 200 feet to my left. It looked a lot like this video. So the helicopter had to be going over 200 MPH when Life Flights top speed is 140 MPH. Again I think it looks like flight simulator.

I thought it looked fake myself

 

[SpitFire]

Real or not, its good to fly VLOS all the time, with a spotter especially flying at 400 feet.

 

[ricardo964]

If a 750 gram drone hits the rotor blades of a helicopter the pilot won't even notice.

It doesn't have a jet engine what can be dangerous when the drone goes in.

 

[maelstrom]

If a 750 gram drone hits the rotor blades of a helicopter the pilot won't even notice.

You've clearly never had a bird strike in a helicopter - I had several during a long career flying them. You may not always notice a fuselage strike but the rotors are a whole different ball game - rotor tips can easily exceed 550 mph in forward flight. Imagine the damage a 500g bird or drone could do hitting the tip of a composite blade at that speed. It could easily cause airframe vibration and potentially force an emergency landing or worse.

It doesn't have a jet engine what can be dangerous when the drone goes in.

All modern military helicopters and most civilian commercial helicopters are turbine (jet) powered. However, as the engine intake(s) are generally just below the rotor disk a drone is much more likely to hit a rotor blade than to be ingested by an engine.

 

[NattyDread]

I also have so questions about that video and the potential for damage. Seems to be the 4-ton heli is displacing a whole lot of air the stay afloat and fly, would not this displacement fling a 3 kilogram drone way out of course? I'm thinking it's like a dingy colliding with an ocean liner.

 

[maelstrom]

I also have so questions about that video and the potential for damage. Seems to be the 4-ton heli is displacing a whole lot of air the stay afloat and fly, would not this displacement fling a 3 kilogram drone way out of course?

No. The downwash from the rotors of a helicopter moving forward is slightly behind the leading edge of the rotor disk so, hypothetically, the drone wouldn't be affected if it hit directly in the plane of the disk. If it was above the disk, it would almost certainly be sucked down into the rotors. In reality, in forward flight the rotor disk is tilted forward (the front of the disk is lower than the horizon and the back higher) so anything approaching the helicopter would generally be above the plane of the disk in the column of air being sucked through it. Even things passing under the rotor disk tend to hit the fuselage rather than being blown away by the downwash.

 

[jsflyrv]

I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. It looks like flight simulator to me. Do you know how fast the helicopter had to be going to become visible and close the gap in seconds? I was flying my Piper Cherokee Pa28 140 @120 MPH with 5 mile visibility and passed another plane coming right at me so it seemed. It passed 1 or 200 feet to my left. It looked a lot like this video. So the helicopter had to be going over 200 MPH when Life Flights top speed is 140 MPH. Again I think it looks like flight simulator.

I agree that is a flight sim. I instructed to many years and this is not real IMO.

 

[jsflyrv]

No. The downwash from the rotors of a helicopter moving forward is slightly behind the leading edge of the rotor disk so, hypothetically, the drone wouldn't be affected if it hit directly in the plane of the disk. If it was above the disk, it would almost certainly be sucked down into the rotors. In reality, in forward flight the rotor disk is tilted forward (the front of the disk is lower than the horizon and the back higher) so anything approaching the helicopter would generally be above the plane of the disk in the column of air being sucked through it. Even things passing under the rotor disk tend to hit the fuselage rather than being blown away by the downwash.

As close as that was there would be air displacement. Been there many time in formation in real life.

 

[maelstrom]

As close as that was there would be air displacement.

Yes, through the rotor disk as I explained. Unless they're under the fuselage, things rarely get blown away by the downwash in forward flight. If they did, we wouldn't have so many helicopter bird strikes.

 

[westwind77]

I have looked very hard and cannot see one issue or cause to believe this is CGI/fake. That being said I am shocked that the drone was not 'disturbed' by the rotors as it passed under it. Sure, the gimbal should have taken some movement but I would expect to see a drop in altitude at a minimum as well.

 

[itsneedtokno]

That plane was around 350' AGL. I had to lower altitude.

Just like cars, not everybody follows the laws.

 

[edcMavicPilots]

For the helicopter to buzz right by the drone that closely and at that speed there would be very obvious turbulence evident in the drone video. Total fake. Also note how far away you see the helicopter coming but when the drone pivots there is no helicopter in sight.

 

[maelstrom]

For the helicopter to buzz right by the drone that closely and at that speed there would be very obvious turbulence evident in the drone video. Total fake. Also note how far away you see the helicopter coming but when the drone pivots there is no helicopter in sight.

Helicopter turbulence happens below and behind the aircraft, not above it - it's not a big cone of disturbed air like you get behind a fixed wing aircraft. Also, the aircraft is pointing to the right of its track, indicating a wind from its right (from the left of the drone), so any turbulence would be blowing away from the drone anyway. The helicopter could easily have turned to its right as it passed the drone to get a better look at it (that's what I would have done) meaning that it would no longer be visible to the drone. It's perfectly plausible that this is real.

As I said in an earlier post, the video was posted in August 2018 and there was nothing publicly available then which even remotely approached this level of fidelity - there are no photogrammetry artefacts anywhere and the the waves on the beach just look much too realistic. Even the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, which currently has the best sim graphics by some margin, isn't as good as this video. If this is fake, it's something that a commercial CGI studio would be proud of.

 

[edcMavicPilots]

Helicopter turbulence happens below and behind the aircraft, not above it - it's not a big cone of disturbed air like you get behind a fixed wing aircraft. Also, the aircraft is pointing to the right of its track, indicating a wind from its right (from the left of the drone), so any turbulence would be blowing away from the drone anyway. The helicopter could easily have turned to its right as it passed the drone to get a better look at it (that's what I would have done) meaning that it would no longer be visible to the drone. It's perfectly plausible that this is real.

As I said in an earlier post, the video was posted in August 2018 and there was nothing publicly available then which even remotely approached this level of fidelity - there are no photogrammetry artefacts anywhere and the the waves on the beach just look much too realistic. Even the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, which currently has the best sim graphics by some margin, isn't as good as this video. If this is fake, it's something that a commercial CGI studio would be proud of.

 

[maelstrom]

That simulation is for a helicopter hovering in still air. The airflow in forward flight is significantly different (especially so in the cruise).

 

[edcMavicPilots]

That simulation is for a helicopter hovering in still air. The airflow in forward flight is significantly different (especially so in the cruise).

I'm sure a drone wouldn't wobble at all from wake turbulence though.

 

[maelstrom]

I'm sure a drone wouldn't wobble at all from wake turbulence though.

You need to read my previous posts! In both of those videos, the subject of the downwash was below and behind the helicopter. In the first video, the helicopter was clearly slightly higher than the paraglider, which subsequently turned into its wake. In the second, the R44 was above the runway that the aircraft took off from, so again, behind and below the helicopter. If the turbulence somehow spread out sideways from a helicopter (at the same height), you'd never be able to fly in close formation beside one. Similarly, if the wake turbulence was immediately behind a helicopter at the same height (and not below it), you'd never be able to fly close in line-astern (trail).

I'm basing my comments on the experience gained from having flown helicopters (and taught others to fly them) as a career for almost the whole of my adult life before I retired. Apart from those videos, what are you basing yours on?