The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

11 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

That thing looks like an accident waiting to happen - how it doesn't snap in half (even without a load) must be one of life's great mysteries....

The advantage with a helicopter being it does not need an aerodynamic body, just a some rotary wings which are effective (and a tail rotor or other system to stop it spinning.

 

If you look at the picture carefully you can see the main securing point is directly under the rotor head so apart from that part of the airframe that holds the load connector to the engines, the load on the other framework that carries the cab and tail is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

I suspect hat the majority of space out of sight in the large fore and aft beam houses the fuel tanks.

[polybear]

32 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

If you look at the picture carefully you can see the main securing point is directly under the rotor head so apart from that part of the airframe that holds the load connector to the engines, the load on the other framework that carries the cab and tail is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

 

That's also why heli's are usually (always?) lifted by the rotor head.  Except for the time when HMG gave (?) a couple of Lynx to Pakistan - the boys didn't (a) have a clue, and (b) didn't have a lifting beam.

So they hooked up the crane to the lashing points on the nose and main undercarriage sponsons.

And then wondered why the airframe bent, writing the whole show off....

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

That's also why heli's are usually (always?) lifted by the rotor head.  Except for the time when HMG gave (?) a couple of Lynx to Pakistan - the boys didn't (a) have a clue, and (b) didn't have a lifting beam.

So they hooked up the crane to the lashing points on the nose and main undercarriage sponsons.

And then wondered why the airframe bent, writing the whole show off....

You certainly wouldn't trust them with transporting cake would you?

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

That thing looks like an accident waiting to happen - how it doesn't snap in half (even without a load) must be one of life's great mysteries....

I felt the same about this one.

It was very noisy and just didn’t inspire much confidence. We didn’t take the tour!

The Peter and Paul Fortress (helicopter base)  didn’t have working lavatories but there was a bus converted to portaloo duty. A Russian lady was collecting the money to use it and issuing approved toilet paper. I hadn’t got any Russian coins and was going to offer a Euro or a dollar (I really needed the loo!) but the tour guide stopped me and said not to give the loo lady so much and gave me one of her stock of coins she kept for such situations. They were the only pay loos we found in St Petersburg. 

[Happy Hippo]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I felt the same about this one.

It was very noisy and just didn’t inspire much confidence. We didn’t take the tour!

The Peter and Paul Fortress (helicopter base)  didn’t have working lavatories but there was a bus converted to portaloo duty. A Russian lady was collecting the money to use it and issuing approved toilet paper. I hadn’t got any Russian coins and was going to offer a Euro or a dollar (I really needed the loo!) but the tour guide stopped me and said not to give the loo lady so much and gave me one of her stock of coins she kept for such situations. They were the only pay loos we found in St Petersburg. 

Dave will probably remember this as the Mi 8 'Hip' from his enemy aircraft recognition pamphlets.

[polybear]

31 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I felt the same about this one.

It was very noisy and just didn’t inspire much confidence. We didn’t take the tour!

 

 

Probably a wise decision.  Routine Russian maintenance is often somewhat "shaky" (lack of money etc), which is never a good thing when it comes to heli's....

 

21 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Dave will probably remember this as the Mi 8 'Hip' from his enemy aircraft recognition pamphlets.

 

Shortly before my Boss retired in 2019 we had a "Boy's jolly" (i.e. a couple of days out of the office for 3 of us, with a night in a decent hotel) to the Helicopter Museum at Weston-Super-Mare (highly recommended), using the excuse that we were giving some kit to them.  They have a Russian Hind Gunship there - boy is that a serious bit of kit; the armour plating wouldn't look out of place on a tank.

Edited December 5, 2020 by polybear

[figworthy]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

My understanding is that airships docked to relatively low ground masts, and were secured by large groundcrews which moored them using ropes (the famous film of the destruction of the Hindenburg shows this operation). They seem to have been berthed in hangars wherever possible. I can’t find any reference to an airship mooring to a tall building anywhere, other than some accounts of a brief test mooring by a small craft (no one attempting to embark or disembark). 

 

Nevil Shute's autobiography (Slide Rule) makes for an interesting read as he had a senior role in the R100 project.  Getting airships in and out of hangers was tricky as it had to be done in a virtual flat calm, otherwise if it caught the doors serious damage could occur.

 

Adrian

[SM42]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

That thing looks like an accident waiting to happen - how it doesn't snap in half (even without a load) must be one of life's great mysteries....

 

My understanding, though limited when it comes to aircraft  is that if the wings are moving faster than the fuselage, it is a helicopter and therefore unsafe 

 

Andy

[Adam88]

I was woken up by something like that when I was in the States a couple of years ago.  Very noisy, fascinating to watch and scary when it flew directly overhead.  I cannot recall seeing this sort of thing over here but I do recall an RAF Belvedere being used to hoist the spire onto Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral.

 

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Probably a wise decision.  Routine Russian maintenance is often somewhat "shaky" (lack of money etc), which is never a good thing when it comes to heli's....

On the same day we had a ride in one of the hydrofoil boats. It did look rather worn out. The cabin crew uniforms were very “retro “ too.

[rockershovel]

22 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

My understanding, though limited when it comes to aircraft  is that if the wings are moving faster than the fuselage, it is a helicopter and therefore unsafe 

 

Andy

 

I learnt a long while ago, that the most effective helicopter safety regime is “don’t get in one, if you can help it”.

[laurenceb]

There was one over here earlier in the year on a power line replacement contract. There as a peace in last months Scale Aircraft Modelling

[Florence Locomotive Works]

More Mogul musings, feel free to ignore, lest thou art a hippo.

 

Richard, as we’ve seen, the engine is now certainly running significantly better, but still runs out of steam after what seems a disturbingly short while, and although not shown in my recent videos, is still rather sorely lacking in the power department, a problem I think is linked to the lack of steam. 

 

The only thing I can think of that could be causing this would be my not having the pilot wick high enough, as  according to BL it governs the amount of steam. However, from experiments I’ve done, if the wick is to high it ignites itself. The BL manual states that it should protrude 1/8 out of its “socket” and that the farther out it protrudes, the hotter the burner and more steam produced. I would venture to say that in my videos, it’s was around 2/8 to 3/8, but could go further. Could this be the solution? As always your advice is greatly appreciated. 
 

My thanks again,
 

Douglas

Edited December 6, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[pH]

2 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

My understanding, though limited when it comes to aircraft  is that if the wings are moving faster than the fuselage, it is a helicopter and therefore unsafe 

 

Andy

But that’s only on one side - on the other side, the wings are going slower than the fuselage.

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, pH said:

But that’s only on one side - on the other side, the wings are going slower than the fuselage.

And flapping!

[pH]

2 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

And flapping!

Which is why (I am told by one of them) many old helicopter pilots have back problems.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

More Mogul musings, feel free to ignore, lest thou art a hippo.

 

Richard, as we’ve seen, the engine is now certainly running significantly better, but still runs out of steam after what seems a disturbingly short while, and although not shown in my recent videos, is still rather sorely lacking in the power department, a problem I think is linked to the lack of steam. 

 

The only thing I can think of that could be causing this would be my not having the pilot wick high enough, as  according to BL it governs the amount of steam. However, from experiments I’ve had, if the wick is to high it ignites itself. The BL manual states that it should protrude 1/8 out of its “socket” and that the farther out it protrudes, the hotter the burner and more steam produced. I would venture to say that in my videos, it’s was around 2/8 to 3/8, but could go further. Could this be the solution? As always your advice is greatly appreciated. 
 

My thanks again,
 

Douglas

I'm just off to bed now, so I'll get back to you later (ie tomorrow morning my time) with the next exciting episode of 'The BL mogul mystery'.

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

More Mogul musings, feel free to ignore, lest thou art a hippo.

 

Richard, as we’ve seen, the engine is now certainly running significantly better, but still runs out of steam after what seems a disturbingly short while, and although not shown in my recent videos, is still rather sorely lacking in the power department, a problem I think is linked to the lack of steam.  ...snip... 

 thanks again,
Douglas

I run out of steam in a disturbingly short while!

Edited December 6, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[jamie92208]

Good moaning, late on parade to the helicopter discussion. However  the various comments remind me of a quote at the start of Chickenhawk, the seminal book about flying choppers in Vietnam, it runs something like this:-

An aeroplane  is made of 10,000 pieces that come together to create a thing of beauty and then fly whilst staying together

 

A Helicopter is made up of 10,000 pieces that have been brought together, that when flying, spend all their time to shake themselves apart.

 

Jamie

[rockershovel]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Good moaning, late on parade to the helicopter discussion. However  the various comments remind me of a quote at the start of Chickenhawk, the seminal book about flying choppers in Vietnam, it runs something like this:-

An aeroplane  is made of 10,000 pieces that come together to create a thing of beauty and then fly whilst staying together

 

A Helicopter is made up of 10,000 pieces that have been brought together, that when flying, spend all their time to shake themselves apart.

 

Jamie

 

Including the “Jesus nut”....

[TheQ]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

If you look at the picture carefully you can see the main securing point is directly under the rotor head so apart from that part of the airframe that holds the load connector to the engines, the load on the other framework that carries the cab and tail is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

 

The Chinook lifting point is in the same place, they open a hatch in the floor and the lifting tackle goes through , hung from the middle of the ceiling.

Darn cold in the back flying round the Falklands in their winter, with an underslung load and all the doors open, so the loadmaster could lean out to see what was happening.

 

[rockershovel]

Glancing through some if the earlier pages if this thread........

 

I've had a long history of being inoculated against things most people never encounter outside of the Discovery Channel, and any fear I ever had of needles (and I have no such recollection) has long since left me. 

 

Despite far far too long at sea, drinking too much beer in the company if other bored males too far from home, and other such distractions, I don’t have any tattoos, although that’s more fortuitous than deliberate. 

[rockershovel]

23 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The Chinook lifting point is in the same place, they open a hatch in the floor and the lifting tackle goes through , hung from the middle of the ceiling.

Darn cold in the back flying round the Falklands in their winter, with an underslung load and all the doors open, so the loadmaster could lean out to see what was happening.

 

 

I was always grateful that the offshore oil industry never really took an interest in heavy lifting helicopters, that really would have been the cherry on the cake.. 

[Oldddudders]

My knowledge of heliclobbers is limited, but I did once take a 20-minute trip overflying the Le Mans course during the 2007 race. We could even see poor Mike Rockenfeller trying to restart the Audi he'd crashed at Tertre Rouge! Deb had more experience, including flying to the British Grand Prix in 1990, and overflying Niagara falls. Her last trip was less comfortable, being to the Uni Hospital at Rouen after her car crash..... 

[Dave Hunt]

8 hours ago, pH said:

Which is why (I am told by one of them) many old helicopter pilots have back problems.

 

They should complain! A lot of old fast jet pilots who spent a fair proportion of their time at considerably more than 1G know all about lower back pain. How do I know that.......?

 

Q is dead right about the cargo bay of a Chinook in winter with an underslung load and the floor hatch open, especially if you misguidedly sat by the hatch in order to see what was going on. How do I know that.....? Much better to wait for summer and then sit on the open tail gate watching the world go by rapidly backwards.

 

My most memorable helicopter experience was doing a dinghy drill in the Far East when the helicopter pilot who turned up to ferry us one by one back to shore turned out to be a friend with whom I had done basic training. When he recognised me he told the winch man to do a solo lift, i.e., not come down with the strop but to remain in the door and just send the strop down for me to put on, then just lift me a few feet clear of the dinghy and leave me there. He then 'trawled' me back to the beach, dipping me into the sea repeatedly so that by the time I got back on land I was doing a fair representation of a drowned kitten. What it is to have friends.

 

I've also been in the cockpit of a helicopter landing and taking off in forest clearings seemingly not any bigger than the aircraft and that, as well as other experiences, has given me a great deal of respect for chopper pilots. Not that I ever wanted to be one though.

 

Time to get on with carpeing Sunday. Have a good one everybody and I sincerely hope that Rick's black mood lifts soon.

 

Dave