[kellyhound]

China. Last Thursday a Zhonglian F-27 model was undergoing a low-altitude test flight when it suffered a sudden mechanical and structural failure. The aircraft lost directional control, causing the tail section to snap off and triggering a violent, rapid spinning motion on a lawn near Haihu Road in the Wujin District.

Both occupants survived the crash landing. They were rushed to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. One person has been discharged, while the other remains hospitalized in stable condition with more serious, non-critical injuries.(the head bouncer).

Aviation groups told that footage strongly indicates the helicopter may have entered a state known as ground resonance or suffered a terminal tail rotor failure. Ground resonance causes destructive vibrations that can disintegrate an airframe within seconds when a rotorcraft makes contact with the ground.

The F-27 is an ultralight, two-seat civil helicopter designed and manufactured by Changzhou Zhonglian Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. in China. It is primarily marketed as an affordable, experimental kit-built aircraft that enthusiasts can assemble themselves and costs around $230.000 USD.

The empty weight ranges between 320 kg to 380 kg, with a Maximum Takeoff Weight of 650 kg. It offers a payload capacity of up to 200 kg for passengers and fuel.

The base model is frequently configured with a modified Subaru automotive engine. Zhonglian also offers their proprietary Flyben 4-cylinder engine, which weighs just 90 kg and lowers the empty configuration weight to 410 kg. A high-performance 180 hp turbocharged variant is available for high-altitude stabilization.

It features a cruising speed of 97–100 mph and a maximum speed of 112 mph. Fitted with a 72-liter fuel tank and burning roughly 25 liters per hour, the F-27 has an flight endurance of 3 hours and a maximum range of 310.69 to 341.75 miles. Its maximum operational altitude is capped at approx. 9,800 feet, 3,000 meters.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China Jiangsu Regulatory Bureau has launched an official investigation into Zhonglian Aeronautical Technologies to determine whether the accident stemmed from metal fatigue, a maintenance oversight, or design flaws.

[Xploit Machine]

I'm sorry .. I just laughed

[Mr.NoCredit]

That is pretty funny I’ll have to admit.

[rohmell]

Helicopter ground resonance happened in an episode of "MacGyver":

[Xploit Machine]

Helicopter Tail Failure Sends Pilot & Passenger Tumbling In Wild Changzhou Emergency Landing

A dramatic piece of cockpit footage out of China is making the rounds this week, and it's the kind of video that reminds you why test pilots get paid what they do. On June 11, a helicopter operating out of Changzhou experienced a catastrophic tail failure mid-flight, forcing an emergency landing that went about as smoothly as one might expect when a major structural component of the aircraft decides to separate from the rest of it. Both the pilot and a passenger were thrown violently around the cabin as the helicopter whipped and spun during the uncontrolled touchdown, with onlookers getting an unfiltered look at just how quickly things can go wrong in rotary-wing aviation.

What makes this footage particularly striking is not just the chaos of the moment, but the mechanical clarity of what happened. When a helicopter loses its tail assembly, it is not a situation that allows for deliberation. The tail rotor is responsible for countering the main rotor's torque, and without it, the aircraft will begin spinning in the opposite direction of its main rotor with no polite request for pilot input. The only viable response is to get the machine on the ground immediately, by whatever means the terrain and altitude allow. In Changzhou, that meant a rough field landing that left the airframe bouncing and the occupants ragdolled in their seats.

Remarkably, both individuals survived the incident. The fact that they walked away at all speaks either to the pilot's competence under extreme pressure, a measure of luck, or more likely some combination of both. Aviation professionals who study tail rotor failures often note that the window between "something is wrong" and "we are now in an unrecoverable situation" can be measured in seconds rather than minutes. That anyone can react correctly and execute a survivable emergency landing in that window is a testament to the kind of training that rarely gets acknowledged until something like this surfaces on the internet.

The video has been circulating widely across social media and news outlets in the past 24 hours, drawing the kind of attention that only footage of real mechanical failure can produce. For those who follow aviation with the same critical eye they bring to mechanical engineering broadly, this incident raises the usual questions about maintenance intervals, component inspection regimens, and what exactly preceded the failure in the air over Jiangsu Province.


What the Footage Does and Does Not Tell Us

The viral spread of this video has generated plenty of commentary, not all of it technically informed. What the footage confirms: the tail separated, the helicopter went into a violent spin during touchdown, and both occupants were thrown around the cabin with considerable force. What it does not tell us is the altitude at which the failure occurred, whether any warning preceded it, what maintenance history the aircraft had, or whether human factors played any role.

Investigators examining similar incidents have noted that aircraft logbooks can reveal whether a failure stemmed from metal fatigue or a maintenance oversight, and the same methodology will presumably apply here. Until that information becomes available, the footage stands on its own as a vivid document of what helicopter emergency procedures look like when they are actually needed, and a reminder that the engineering behind rotary-wing flight leaves very little margin when something goes wrong at the wrong moment.

Source https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/art...114643384.html

[William May]

Looks like the Tucson Rodeo! YEE-HAWWW!!!!!

[LERK]

hilarious

[CatBatMan]

Originally Posted by William May ↗

Looks like the Tucson Rodeo! YEE-HAWWW!!!!!

I'll be in AZ in November!

[William May]

Originally Posted by CatBatMan ↗

I'll be in AZ in November!

Tucson Rodeo is not until January. How long are you staying?

Dillinger Days is also in January, celebrating the ONLY time police actually ARRESTED Dillinger in his lifetime, which they DID IN TUCSON. The police have all his Tommy guns on display in their lobby.

There was a fire at the Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson, where most of Dillingers associates were staying. They had all their guns with them, in sacks. The firemen put up ladders and helped them down, including with their sacks of guns. One of the firemen recognized one of Dillinger's associates from a crime comic book he had been reading just before the fire alarm came in, which had a picture of one of his gang on a display page. And here he was on the ladder, face to face with the guy! He kept quiet, but after they got them all out, he told a police officer, and the officer came over, and arrested everyone in the group.
But they didn't release any information at ALL. They were STILL looking for Dillinger, and it turned out he had rented a house at 927 2nd Ave. So they went there and picked him up. They also arrested some of his gang girls, who had rooms in a motel in South Tucson.
They were arraigned in a courtroom in Tucson, and the authorities in Indiana flew down in a Ford Tri-motor and picked them up.
The owner of the hotel, got an insurance check for the fire damage, and not being a dummy, and it being the depression, he just had them remove the damaged area, and put a new roof on the place, and now it has only 2 floors instead of 3. So the actual room that they COULD HAVE RENTED FOR BIG BUCKS is gone now.
But the guns they seized are on display at the police station. The Ladder fire truck they climbed down is on display at a local car museum. The house they rented still exists. About 30 years ago, a local history buff named Andy Dowdle, bought ALL the furniture from the house on 2nd St. but he has since died, and I don't know what happened to it all. I was sitting at a talk during Dillinger days many years ago, and there was an old guy sitting next to me. After the presentation, he told me he had lived his entire life in the house directly across the street from the one on 2nd Ave, and when Dillinger had been arrested, he watched the entire thing from his front porch! He was 8 years old at the time.
The courtroom has been preserved just as it was, when they rebuilt the city court house about 10 years ago. They changed NOTHING, and when you go inside, you can see all the woodwork, judges bench, witness booth, and the lawyers tables, all just as they were in the pictures which are on display. I think it was originally built in the 1910's or so, and it is very ornate and beautiful. Although Dillinger doesn't look too pleased. The motel that the Dillinger chicks were renting was in South Tucson, and it is still standing also, but the name has changed. (And Dillingers chicks don't hang out there anymore.)
The Tucson City Airport, had a hangar which still exists, and that is where they flew Dillinger out of. That airport is now fenced off on the grounds of Davis Monthan Air Force Base at the end of a road that ran from downtown, directly to the then-airport. When Davis Monthan became an Air Force Base, the government built Tucson a new, modern airport on the south side of the city, (where when airplanes crashed, they would only land on Messicans, so that relieved any worries THERE.)
ANYWAY. Let me know when you come to town, and I will take you to see all this stuff. Plus we have the 3rd largest aircraft museum in the world, next in line from the Smithsonian Collection and the National Air Force Museum in Dayton. And we have San Xavier del Bac mission, which was established by the Spanish in 1692. Tucson itself was founded in 1775, by an Irishman, named Hugo O'Connor, who was working for the Spanish at the time.

And there is now an Armor museum, right next to the Air Museum.