Under 400 ft?

wwohp · Mar 27, 2018

not my video but interesting. Would you say this aircraft was 400 ft or under?

tracer bullet · Mar 27, 2018

Hard to say without being there. The only time there's a chance to know is when there are trees & etc. in the shot. And from memory of actual sizes of helicopters. And of course the camera lens and sensor play a role as well so any guesses are even worse than the guesser might think. Not to mention everyone's memory of what altitude "really" is a certain height.

Given what it "looks" like though, to try and answer the question, I would say about 400'.

frogbmth · Mar 27, 2018

Yeah hard to tell. I have seen a lot lower, once had a puma land right next to me at one of the local flying flields, luckily I had just landed! Also been circled by gunships at like 50feet when trail running.

787steve · Mar 27, 2018

Impossible to tell. Too many variables.

locoman · Mar 28, 2018

Does it matter, did you do something that you shouldn't have.

newt2u · Mar 28, 2018

No doubt about this one! Its why we are in an enhanced warning zone and I have to accept responsibility every time I fly. The air force base is 25 miles away but they practice low flying around here as we are sparsely populated,

Rob W · Mar 31, 2018

frogbmth said:
Yeah hard to tell. I have seen a lot lower, once had a puma land right next to me at one of the local flying flields, luckily I had just landed! Also been circled by gunships at like 50feet when trail running.

Afraid I have to call BS on that reply.
The apache has a rotor diameter on 48' and a weight of over 112,000 lb. The downwash of an apache circling you at 50' would blow you over. Circling at 50' would be be illegal as they still have to obey FAA rules. If you were on a restricted aerial training MOA they still would not fly "around" someone at 50'. If they did they would be grounded and possibly be court marshalled.
Maybe you were comparing their size to that of a Mavic, so they would appear to be 50' away. If you said 500 ft,,,,,, maybe,

frogbmth · Mar 31, 2018

You can call BS if you wish, makes no difference to me. It was on restricted military land here in the U.K. called Salisbury Plain when I ran The Neolithic Marathon which goes over their training area from Avebury stone circle to Stonehenge. There were quite a few tanks on excercise too but they didn’t get closer than a few hundred metres. We were told not to stray from the trail due to a high likelihood of explosives around the area. But the heli was def no higher than 50 feet altitude it swirled up a load of dusty crap that was certainly unwelcome and got into our eyes. As I say, feel free to discount this as bull if you wish to