French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

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FD2
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French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#1 Post by FD2 » Fri Jul 08, 2022 9:49 pm



There is plenty of speculation about this incident which happened at the Pointe du Raz lighthouse in Finisterre. It may have been an underslung load that caught on some superstructure. In the dive the starboard floats inflate but not those on the port side. A large cloud of smoke came out of the port side up by the transmission area which may have been from a sh*t or bust large collective input resulting in lots of exhaust and bits of free power turbine (just joking) flying out or perhaps it was something to do with the port flotation gear not working.

Near catastrophe but he regained control and survived :-bd ("learnt about flying" as Granpaw Pettibones would have said L-) ). Good rotor heads on Squirrels!

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#2 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:08 pm

From what I saw, the port float eventually inflated right at the end of the clip.
Definitely pants and some components on the helo need to be changed.

PP

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#3 Post by FD2 » Sat Jul 09, 2022 5:02 am

Well spotted pp. See it now - they were probably sequenced - deliberately or not.

Guess the smoke was from the engine. He should buy himself a lottery ticket!

From the Mail:
The cause of the sudden near-death malfunction is not known, with social media users speculating that the helicopter might have encountered wine shear, which is described as a sudden change in wind speed and/or direction over a short distance, which could have dragged the nose of the helicopter to pitch downwards.

Often encountered but not when flying!

From the archives:
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/h ... ction.html

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#4 Post by bob2s » Sat Jul 09, 2022 6:32 am

Seems to be a sling load getting hooked up, there is a video on TOP that has an inset with a closer view and it looks like something getting caught around a post on
the corner of the roof which then snaps and ends up hanging from the roof, this would definitely account for the sudden pitch down.

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#5 Post by FD2 » Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:44 am

Yes that's a better view - there's definitely a line in view and a wobble as, I suspect, it goes taught. As someone on TOP has suggested, the switch to cut the load and the flotation switch may be close together and account for the floats inflating. Very fast handling in such a situation.

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#6 Post by Boac » Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:47 am

They need to look at the float inflation times!

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Re: French Pilot's 'Pantalon Brun' Moment

#7 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sat Jul 09, 2022 3:58 pm

'Pantalon Brun' indeed! Agreed that it is due to a line snag, but what an amazing instinctive recovery even if almost everything in the drive train will have to be swapped out due to every limit certainly being exceeded. As any helo pilot will agree, in spite of detailed pre flight planning it is all too easy for things to go pear shaped when load lifting. This sad accident off Orkney whilst load lifting to/from a lighthouse in 2002 comes to mind:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3380383.stm

2 tons of concrete unintentionally dumped at the bottom of the Irish Sea between Carne and the Tuskar Rock lighthouse - whilst constructing the helipad - is my own contribution to incidents in the vicinity of a lighthouse. :ymblushing:
tuskar.jpg
tuskar.jpg (38.58 KiB) Viewed 192 times
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
https://www.glenbervie-weather.org

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