Apache crash

[afterburn 549]

Maybe the Amy has gummied dwn its flight education too? !
I am sure he had a "clue" when he pulled the collective stick up to hover and nota happened.."well just a little more" should have set his buzzers buzzing in his head

[Seahawk]

I emailed this to two retired Apache pilots I work with...they couldn't believe how poorly executed the RTT was.

That said, what drives helicopter rotor efficiency and engine performance (and therefore total performance) is Density Altitude or DA.

DA a a combination of factors: real altitude, temperature, humidity, etc. and is planned for for every flight since DA impacts power required/power available to hover in and out of ground effect, gross take off weight, fuel burn, etc.

A perfect example is a hot, humid day in Florida. A helicopter could be taking off from NAS Mayport, which is essentially at sea level, yet the DA could be equivalent to taking off at 3000ft. The performance of the helo is thus degraded.

In the Apache crash scenario, tough to estimate the DA without knowing the altitude. Oddly enough cold air is, up to a point, more dense that hot air and affects DA positively.

Lastly, all modern helicopter do not have throttles in the sense that the pilot manipulates them in flight: throttles are set to fly detent and left there unless the FADEC/auto control fails.

The collective (so called because the collective affects the pitch angle of all the rotors "collectively") position sets the power setting automatically.