Turn on “helicopter landing sites” on Skydemon or look at helipaddy. There are hundreds of listed sites, hotels, golf courses, etc.
carlmeek wrote:
Turn on “helicopter landing sites” on Skydemon or look at helipaddy. There are hundreds of listed sites, hotels, golf courses, etc.
This must be an UK thing. Many private helicopters for sale in the UK etc and all request for in flight weather I get from private helicopter pilots are from the UK. To give an example over Berlin where I live there is plenty of helicopter traffic 24/7. There are multiple helipads in my area but not a single one is available for private use in the entire city. All belong to hospitals or the government.
So the bottom line is you need a farm and then you can use the helicopter to commute to the airport where the faster plane lives ;-)
Yes; if you are looking for utility/travel value, helis have specific uses. They are often used by rapid-response service workers in specialised businesses. I knew a guy who was servicing lifts and he used one to get around, all over the UK. A lot of the tall buildings have helipads on top.
The UK has the 28 day concession, which can be expanded as much as you like if you don’t get any complaints, and then you can get what is effectively permanent permission if you keep a low profile for 10 years. That is BTW why most private strips don’t want visitors – they are on the 28 day rule and even those which have been running for more than 10 years don’t want to rock the boat.
This is obviously totally country-specific.
Sebastian_G wrote:
So the bottom line is you need a farm and then you can use the helicopter to commute to the airport where the faster plane lives ;-)
The bottom line is you need to live in a country which does not have a blanket prohibition on take-off and landing except for with government permission (licenced airport, general or individual permissions granted by the authorities).
carlmeek wrote:
There are hundreds of listed sites, hotels, golf courses, etc.
Maybe very UK specific? in most countries you can’t land anywhere you want? In France, unless it’s a ULM rotary, you will need more than just owner permission, local police & mayor authorization that you get after lengthy background checks and an additional rating…although I know someone who used to fly his Enstrom from his backyard (before moving to fixed-wing), he said never cared about paperwork as no one was able to explain to him what he exactly needs, he never heard anyone from police or regulator complaining !
In the other hand with rotary one can fly straight London to Paris (30Euros for parking in Issy-Les-Moulineaux), I joined someone who was offering it in Wingly with R44, I have to admit it’s very classy, it’s mostly about convenience that pricing, after 200nm at 6MPG in rotary vs 20MPG in fixed-wing one should afford to pay for limousine & handling in LeBourget 
Peter wrote:
This is obviously totally country-specific.
absolutely. Also the response by the population is very different and country depending. Particularly where airplanes and helos are common and often only practicable means to getting around. I doubt that anyone on the Orkneys or Svalbard would get anywhere being miffed about airplane noise if it’s the only way to get there.
France appears to have changed in that regard. I recall a conversation with an Avignon controller decades ago when we did night flying there. They were H24 at the time because they had postal service flights. I asked her what about noise complaints. Her reply was along the line that “we shut them up the hard way” (“on les a cassé leur gueules” (spelling, sorry in advance)) and that was it.
I know from a rescue helo pilot that even their essential services get people miffed and they get threats at times. Of course those NIMBY idiots would be the first to shout murder if a helo fails to rescue his own backside…
WilliamF wrote:
he R44 is fast and does the most for the least amount of money. If you read into the accident statistics, it would make you sit up straight, the attached link here is pretty sobering reading. LA Times Article
Very interesting. As a fixed wing pilot this mast on the Robinsons always looks very tall and fragile. Is there any good reason to build it that way? On others like an EC120 this mast and the rotor system looks much more solid. Also it has 3 blades which I understand is supposed to be more stable. Also watching autorotations the Robinsons seem to have very little energy in their rotor systems. They arrest the vertical fall and have to touch down immediately. Others seem to arrest the fall and then have some rotor rpm left to make the procedure more controlled and softer.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Also watching autorotations the Robinsons seem to have very little energy in their rotor systems. They arrest the vertical fall and have to touch down immediately.
I am not a helo pilot, but have spent many, many hours in helos of any description. The auto-rotation in the R44 an certainly be controlled, never experienced it in anger, but had it demo’d a couple of times. Admittedly by factory demo / test pilots, so prob90 above average skill level.
Robinsons use a ‘teetering head’ design meaning it has 2 blades – one moves up, the other moves down like a see-saw.
3,4,5 blade designs use rigid or semi-rigid designs where the blades are essentially independent.
The problem with the 2 blade teeter is that it if a blade tries to go down too violently/too far it will hit the “mast bump stop”. Mast bumping then leads to chopping your own tail off and becoming a smoking pile of metal. Not good. The cause is often Low-G situations (i.e. pushing over / a bunt). Not good at all.
I’ve never auto rotated ‘in anger’ but have practiced plenty, including with the engine on idle – remember it’s a turbine, so there’s no way in a million years your engine is spooling back up in time, it’s essentially ‘off’. The first issue is recognition. In helicopters with low inertia blades (R22) you don’t get very long to recognise the engine fail and lower the collective. If you’re too slow, blade RPM goes too slow, and cannot be recovered. Higher inertia blades (Enstrom, Gazelle) you get rather much longer, and can even take the RPM well below the ‘green’ and still safely get it back. R44 I’m guessing is somewhere in the middle.
Obviously once you’re nicely auto-rotating and aiming for your landing site, you still have to pull off a beautiful flare with the limited energy you’ve got.
carlmeek wrote:
The problem with the 2 blade teeter is that it if a blade tries to go down too violently/too far it will hit the “mast bump stop”. Mast bumping then leads to chopping your own tail off and becoming a smoking pile of metal. Not good. The cause is often Low-G situations (i.e. pushing over / a bunt). Not good at all.
I recall an accident with a Huey many years ago in Hamburg which was explained with the rotor hitting the tail. Killed the whole crew of pilots and medics. The Huey is also a two blade design, so this figures.
Friend of mine flies Robinsons. They have some R44s and 22s in a school. The 22 does not seem to be very capable as load carrier. When I asked for a trial lesson a few years back I was told that it would have to be the 44 as the 22 could not carry me and an instructor (who is a triatlonist and very lean indeed).
