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Octacopters = no more Kobe-style helicopter crashes ??

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I'm not a pilot but why is orientation in a heli so complicated? Just make sure the heli is "level" (ie, no pitch or roll) and ascend to a safe altitude until you can make a decision on what do next --- hovering is a perfectly good option if you're in a heavy fog bank and lose visual clues
It’s hard to explain if you’ve never flown a heli and never been in IMC. I’m not pretending to be an expert but I’ve done both. It’s definitely a lot of workload, especially when your charter certificate prohibits IFR, you’re in marginal conditions, and you have a VIP in the back and a tight deadline. Flying a heli is somewhat more difficult that fixed-wing too (I’d say much harder but that’s probably due to much less heli experience) from a stability standpoint. Transitioning to IFR unexpectedly is more difficult that filing IFR from the start. All of this is why virtually every pilot of these things, and every single expert who’s looking into it, at least that I’ve read about, agree that this was a disorientation issue rather than something mechanical.

Again, it had two engines, and turbines don’t “sputter.” Im not sure why you’re “peeved” about the expert consensus (I’m certainly not peeved that you disagree and enjoy the discussion, though I assume others are getting annoyed at me, so sorry for that) but your argument just doesn’t seem realistic based on everything we know. I lost a friend about 5 years ago, an airline pilot with 2x the experience as this guy, under very similar circumstances (in his personal plane, not an airliner). Even the best pilots make mistakes.
 
I'm not a pilot but why is orientation in a heli so complicated? Just make sure the heli is "level" (ie, no pitch or roll) and ascend to a safe altitude until you can make a decision on what do next --- hovering is a perfectly good option if you're in a heavy fog bank and lose visual clues
You can't hover a rotor wing if you have no visual references. Since you are not a pilot, no disrespect meant, but you do not understand what relevance the wind has on your aircraft in flight. Even if you could hover, you might find that the wind would be slowly blowing you into the hill side, unless you were paying attention to minute direction changes from your GPS. There is a lot going on in trying to do such a thing. Military pilots have been killed when hovering low to the ground or coming in to land low to the ground in the desert or dusty landing zones and the rotors blow up a swirling dust cloud which takes all visual reference away from the pilot in an instant. There is a lot more to flying any aircraft than a non pilot realizes. And rotor craft have a lot more things to be concerned with than a fixed wing aircraft and different helicopters fly differently.

A 2 place Robinson R22 for example is EXTREMELY sensitive to stick movement, compared to a Hughes 300, which feels more like a 3-axis plane. You use your rudder pedals in both fixed wing and rotor wings, but there is a difference when slowing down. When coming in to land a Hughes 500 for example, as you slow your forward movement and lower your altitude when nearing your landing spot on the runway, that left pedal require quite a lot of pressure just to keep everything stable and straight. A great big twin rotor Chinook requires no pedal input after take off, once you pass 35knots, you can just take your feet off and put them flat on the floor and just fly off the stick. So bear in mind things are not as simple as they look on TV to fly a particular helicopter.
 
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Kobe's pilot was flying special VFR. He had to be able to see the ground to proceed, got low enough to see the ground, but not high enough to avoid flying into a mountain. My guess, that mountain was a big surprise to him when he finally saw it. He may well have become disoriented, based on the speed with which he hit the ground. Whatever...it appears he was flying where he shouldn't have been flying.
 
Yes I am referring to an octacopter --- 8 separate motors and 8 separate rotors --- I believe up to 2 motors can fail and the octa can still maintain stable flight --- possibly up to 4 motors can fail if the other 4 are robust enough to maintain lift --- the odds of two motors failing would be very small
Right, that is different of course, but was not stated originally. From the human carrying multirotors I have seen, they almost all have a top and bottom rotor for redundancy.
 
A 2 place Robinson R22 for example is EXTREMELY sensitive to stick movement, compared to a Hughes 300 for just an example. You use your rudder pedals when flying a helicopter and when coming in to land a Hughes 500 for example, as you slow your forward movement and lower your altitude at when nearing your landing spot on the runway, that left pedal require quite a lot of pressure just to keep everything stable and straight. A great big twin rotor Chinook requires no pedal input after take off, once you pass 35knots, you can just take your feet off and put them flat on the floor and just fly off the stick. So bear in mind things are not as simple as they look on TV to fly a helicopter.
I've been a pilot for decades. I've tried to fly a helicopter....did it for a long enough time on the stick that I could almost see how it might be possible to actually fly one. Helicopters are really hard.

That said, Kobe's pilot was a very experienced helicopter pilot...more than 8000 hours, Commericial pilot, insturment rated, instructor, and instrument instructor, . His problem wasn't flying the machine, it was using good judgement about if he should be flying it at that particular time in that particular place.
 
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I'm not a pilot but why is orientation in a heli so complicated? Just make sure the heli is "level" (ie, no pitch or roll) and ascend to a safe altitude until you can make a decision on what do next --- hovering is a perfectly good option if you're in a heavy fog bank and lose visual clues

I don't think it's any more complicated in a helicopter but helicopters do routinely fly closer to objects than fixed wing pilots.
 
I went back and looked to confirm, The lead NTSB investigator said in a news conference that the helicopter was traveling at 170 mph when it hit. If that’s the case, that pilot was going somewhere and not “looking for a place to land“

Edited to remove the unintentional quote
 
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He was not far from the top of the hill where he hit, so I suspect he thought he had clear the top and was heading off to his destination.
 
I've been a pilot for decades. I've tried to fly a helicopter....did it for a long enough time on the stick that I could almost see how it might be possible to actually fly one. Helicopters are really hard.
My sentiments (as a 20-year airplane pilot) exactly. Come to think of it I should try it again sometime. I was glad to hear Cymruflyer (who appears to be an actual expert on these things) mention that the R22 has a very sensitive stick. That thing just about killed me when I was learning to hover (thankfully I had a great instructor who kept me from bouncing repeatedly off every hangar and airplane in the vicinity).
 
He was not far from the top of the hill where he hit, so I suspect he thought he had clear the top and was heading off to his destination.
That was my first thought. I know that area like the back of my hand and a few hundred feet higher and he had a clear shot right to the ocean.
 
I went back and looked to confirm, The lead NTSB investigator said in a news conference that the helicopter was traveling at 170 mph when it hit. If that’s the case, that pilot was going somewhere and not “looking for a place to land“
That Sikorsky cruises at about 170 mph, and he'd been flying at that speed for much of the flight prior while he had flight following.
 
I'm talking all things being equal except the RC aircraft --- so let's suppose an experienced RC pilot flying a nitro copter for 30 hours and then flying a Mavic 2 Pro for 30 hours under the exact same weather conditions --- common sense says the heli has a higher probability of crashing --- simply because of single-engine and single rotor as opposed to four motors and four rotor blades
Common sense would suggest the opposite. That is to the extent we appreciate quadcopters generally don't fly well on 3 or less rotors simple probability suggests you are 4 times more likely to have a propulsion system failure with four rotors than with one. If there is no difference in the power plant reliability I will say you are wrong- the quadcopter is more likely to experience a failure.
 
Common sense would suggest the opposite. That is to the extent we appreciate quadcopters generally don't fly well on 3 or less rotors simple probability suggests you are 4 times more likely to have a propulsion system failure with four rotors than with one. If there is no difference in the power plant reliability I will say you are wrong- the quadcopter is more likely to experience a failure.
Someone smarter than I posted that someone (maybe MIT) had developed a quad with the capability of landing safely on 3 motors, albeit while spinning. I think the OP’s proposal would involve more motors/engines for increased safety, but I just cannot fathom the cost of 6 or 8 turbines, and electric motors capable of doing this are a long way off if they’re going to carry much load.

Also, keep in mind this solution is to resolve an issue with an aircraft with 2 engines anyway. The only way for both to fail at the same time in a million years would be fuel contamination or bird ingestion or something like that. The bigger failure points are the collective and cyclic, which, to be fair, 6-8 props would mitigate.
 
Someone smarter than I posted that someone (maybe MIT) had developed a quad with the capability of landing safely on 3 motors, albeit while spinning. I think the OP’s proposal would involve more motors/engines for increased safety, but I just cannot fathom the cost of 6 or 8 turbines, and electric motors capable of doing this are a long way off if they’re going to carry much load.

Also, keep in mind this solution is to resolve an issue with an aircraft with 2 engines anyway. The only way for both to fail at the same time in a million years would be fuel contamination or bird ingestion or something like that. The bigger failure points are the collective and cyclic, which, to be fair, 6-8 props would mitigate.
It is well known that several proof of concept demonstrations have shown a quad can perform a controlled landing on three props. It is a relatively trivial algorithm. The compromise is that the sUAV has to perform a constant yaw to maintain close to horizontal attitude.

I suspect we have no data to reliably suggest a multi rotor might prove safer than a single main rotor AC. It is a largely pointless argument.
 
It is well known that several proof of concept demonstrations have shown a quad can perform a controlled landing on three props. It is a relatively trivial algorithm. The compromise is that the sUAV has to perform a constant yaw to maintain close to horizontal attitude.

I suspect we have no data to reliably suggest a multi rotor might prove safer than a single main rotor AC. It is a largely pointless argument.
While I agree, in fairness to the OP (whom I’ve made clear I believe his or her underlying premise is false), many apparently pointless arguments have led to innovations. If some sort of transmission system could send power to 6 props, maybe there’s something to this. More failure points, yes, but any single failure would not be catastrophic. But the weight and cost mean it’s probably a long shot.
 
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Yes true but I have 25+ years experience flying both nitro-powered helis and electric-powered quadcopters --- lost count how many times I crashed the helis (although no GPS mode in those days) -- never crashed a single electric quad yet --- the reliability of a human-transport electric octacopter would be orders of magnitude more reliable than a turbine heli

Come on man....
25+ years? That's nice.... I started in 1974....

You're comparing apples to oranges comparing today's gyro stabilized GPS guided MultiRotors to the heli we've flown for decades. In fact one is flying the other is telling the flight controller what you want the aircraft to do and the FC makes the adjustments.... night and day different.

You really aren't understanding half of what you're talking about in this thread. You've missed the point about disorientation, flying in IMC, and most every point you've tried to make in this thread. Take a moment and listen to the other members commenting in this thread that have many hours actually flying manned aircraft who are giving their real world and first hand experience. If you've never experienced disorentation, IMC, and NOT flying by the seat of your pants it's almost impossible to understand what it actually feels like.
 
I'm not a pilot but why is orientation in a heli so complicated? Just make sure the heli is "level" (ie, no pitch or roll) and ascend to a safe altitude until you can make a decision on what do next --- hovering is a perfectly good option if you're in a heavy fog bank and lose visual clues

The discussion was somewhat interesting until you posted "I'm not a pilot but why is orientation in a heli so complicated?"
 
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