My experience is fixed wing but the symptoms are the same, erratic flight path nearly always equals disorientation. Interesting angle about vertical flight and just landing the damn thing though, seems very reasonable to consider simply making a slow vertical descent.

The problem with just landing is you have to know the area, wires, obstacles, etc. or people on the ground can get hurt. It is a yard sale when a helo has a wire strike.

That said, I did it twice in flight school, initial helo training in a H-57A that was not instrument rated.

Instructor said 'land there' and we will ride it out. 15 minutes later we were flying again. The joys of Florida weather!

Heard a news report last night that said the pre-lim NTSB report is out.
You guys seen/heard about it?

Basically it said that the pilot radioed the air traffic controller that he intended to climb to 4000' to get out of the fog. In fact, he banked left and was descending at a rapid pace when he slammed the side of a hill at 184 MPH.

An analyst said that the pilot was experiencing "somatogravic illusion" which induces spacial disorientation. Sounds to me like they never knew. Or if they did it was only for a second or two when the hillside was becoming visible as they were closing in.

Although not discussed in the report, the occupants must have died instantly. The helo blew apart "strewing wreckage across an area the size of a football field."

I've read the coroner reports. No bueno...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-BzhIpYvHNQMicSTzCY3UbtiIkWudyqW/view?fbclid=IwAR3U4QEEs5HTJrXswKpRWflVgz88LluA6UiK NYWCEbEAS3CoBuKeYU9pv-M

Prior to a ILS approach, my buddy the pilot said to smack him if he looks up from the glide slope indicator. Streaming clouds on final approach to minimum altitude visibility of the runway threshold is very disorienting and nerve wracking.

JFK jr. all over again with same results, total loss of spatial orientation

Yea, flying out into the total blackness of the open ocean at night is a really dumb thing to do for a non instrument rated pilot.

https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/jfk-jr-plane-crash-cause-what-caused/

He killed himself and two passengers with stupidity. There is zero visual references over the ocean.

The trick is to do it before you get into trouble and can't see those things!

Yeppers!

Both the pilot of Kobe's helicopter and JFK Jr were spacial disorientation, vertigo, whatever the term is today, accidents.

Speeder and I talked about this a few days ago. I told him the only time in over 4000 hours of fixed and helo time I have ever become spatially disoriented was on the route JFK Jr flew.

I had it bad. My co-pilot, another high time helo guy, XO at the Sikorsky Factory was surprised...we had flown a lot together. He almost trusted me too much since I had all the qualifications in the world of helos: Instrument Check pilot, NVG Instructor, Maintenance Test Pilot, NATOPS Instructor, Deck Landing Instructor...on and on.

He took the aircraft right as I was giving it to him. Thank god. I was so done I would have crashed the Blackhawk we were flying. Embarrassing, but there it is. It would have a first time, last time eulogy.

That section of the Long Island Sound is really difficult, tons of lights and reflections, rising terrain of the left with lights, dark ahead, lights and flat to your right.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1592516169.jpg

As I said in the "Are You an Expert thread:

That is tough to read.

My dad was a dentist stationed at Nellis AFB in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He told me stories from Nellis and the nearby fighter weapons school, which were their responsibility. They used to see guys fly into the nearby mountains. Only thing left was a blackened hole in the mountain.

After I graduated HS, in the 80's I became friends with this guy named Todd. He was very charismatic and a total lady killer. He was a great wingman. We had lots od adventures together, fun times.

He laid eyes on my childhood crush and wanted me to introduce them. I really didn't want to as I felt he was not right for her, he was a player and I did not want him to hurt her. He pursued her anyway and they have now been married 30+ years. I was wrong.

I keep in touch with him and contact him once in a blue moon. I would not say we are friends anymore but more old friends who keep in touch.

I tell you all that to tell you this.

After JFK died he told me a crazy story. Todd is a millionaire, he took daddys company, a parking lot sweeping company and turned it into a very big corporation on Long Island that expanded into asphalt resurfacing, joint replacement on highways etc.. he also started a diving equipment sales website in the infancy of the internets and made a fortune with it. My friend went to flight school with JFK and made friends with him, as I would expect. IIRC the flight school was in New Jersey.

Once day after class he asked John is he wanted to come to his house for a home cooked Italian dinner (his wife is Italian and can cook!!) John said yes, so he called his wife and said a classmate was coming over for dinner and to make an Italian dinner. He never told her who the classmate was.

They get to his house and his wife almost passes out.. They enjoy a great dinner together and the conversation turns towards his plane. Todd had stuck a deal for him to buy Johns plane when he upgraded based on his licensure.

Of course that never happened, just thought it was a cool story about John and his friendship with my friend.

I just heard my friend moved locally to me, I am hoping to meet up with him and grab a beer soon, he has his own 1-800 based on his name. He is not hard to find. LOL!!

Damn. Should not have read the report.

I can recall twice in my career when weather deteriorated to the point where i put the thing on the ground and waited it out (and so glad I was in a helicopter!). Once in Arizona and once in Alaska. Both times with decreasing ceilings and forested terrain below.

The time in Arizona the rain was so heavy I found myself slowing down to the point where the rain was no longer blowing/clearing off the windshield. I saw a clearing in the trees and and made a B line for it. Strangely, every Astar I've ever flown has had mounts for windshield wipers yet I've never seen them installed.

Yeah, I could have done without all those details as well. At least he certainly did not suffer, they were all probably killed instantaneously. Both him and JFK Jr. are so tragic to me...young guys taken out at the peak of life from preventable mistakes. :(

My belief is that Kobe pushed the pilot to fly when he didn't think it was safe.

methylphenidate ...

... interesting. Anyone think he had ADHD?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18032226/

There is no doubt in my mind that many type A personalities including celebrities enhance their abilities further with this type of little helper. It sounds like it is also rampant at schools and universities ...

Speculation. But it has been mentioned before in this thread that flying a celebrity does probably come with pressure even if it is not directly applied. Easier to land or turn around if it is some guy's sightseeing trip - "here is a voucher for next Saturday". How many bands / singers died in plane crashes? And we haven't even talked about the entire Polish government getting wiped out in bad weather ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster

G

I know for a fact that it, vivance and adderal are rampant among the wall street types.

My dad started his career as a pilot in the Air Force at Dover, Delaware. He said that is the 12 months we were there he never saw the ground. It was always rainy and overcast and IFR only. They regularly had to fly to Thule Air Base in Greenland. He really hated doing it at night, and that was in a C-124 with full time navigator, and a co-pilot on board.

After a year of going to Thule, his chance for a new assignment came up, and the Hawaii territory was on the list. For some reason he thought Hawaii was a great choice after so many missions to Thule. The rumor was that there was a naked woman behind every tree in Thule. Unfortunately no trees at all.