Indonesian Mil Mi-35 cock-up incident on take off

[CharlieOneSix]

Google translation:

Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Doni Monardo canceled flights to Kampung Lebo, Sangihe Islands Regency, North Sulawesi, Monday (1/6/2020). This is because the helicopter belonging to the Indonesian Army that he was traveling with failed to fly after being hit by strong winds while on air.

Hmm.......explanation doesn't ring true somehow!

[PHXPhlyer]

Novel assault helicopter "tactics".

PP

[Boac]

Was he/she breathalysed? That was inexplicable unless the pilot ran an auto-repair shop and trade was flagging..........

[CharlieOneSix]

I wonder if Lt. Gen. Doni Monardo, head of the Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), is an experienced but out of recency and not type rated helicopter pilot and the pilot was a junior officer who felt unable to say no when the Lt.General asked to fly it. Said junior officer was then not quick enough to take control and sort it out?

All the above is conjecture but a similar request was once made to me by a retired highly decorated ex-WW2 and Korean War fixed wing bod, later a Boscombe helicopter TP (second in command D Squadron), in his late dotage....perhaps not late dotage, he would have been a few years younger than I am now . Fortunately he could fly better than I could.......

He was an amazing guy who I soon got to know well - he had a career involving 42 fixed-wing and 24 rotary types. A couple of extracts from his obituary..

.....he commanded 656 Squadron in the messy attempt to help the Dutch recover their East Indies colonies, much against the wishes of the Indonesian people. He was awarded the D.F.C. in 1947.

Amid the chaos and general sense of frustration, he raised spirits by declaring a weekly "Swiss Navy Day", when officers were encouraged to wear caps back to front and to drive their jeeps in reverse.

......at Boscombe Down, he tested an open seated Wallis-Benson autogyro for altitude, wearing an Irvine jacket, muffler and thick boots. An astonished Boeing 707 pilot called the Wiltshire experimental station and reported he had just passed under a teddy bear flying a curious motorcycle at 11,000 feet.

My kind of guy!

[Boac]

All-in-all an amazing piece of flying - to 'back' into something and not lose the TR, and then to hook up another car, to finally make a pretty good landing.........? Do you know more?

[CharlieOneSix]

No, nothing more known.