Navy Pilots Caught On Camera Grounded Over Lake Stunt

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SAN DIEGO -- Two Navy helicopter pilots from North Island Naval Air Station have been grounded over a YouTube video that allegedly shows them dipping the $33 million aircrafts into Lake Tahoe.

In the video taken Sept. 13, both helicopters hit the water and one seems to spin out of control and crash into the water before its pilot apparently pulls the craft back into the air.

A Navy spokesman More.. confirmed that the video was genuine footage of two MH- 60 Romeo helicopters from North Island's Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

North Island Naval Air Forces command spokesman Lt. Aaron Kakiel told the newspaper the pilots were grounded

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Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

Very cool video.

I don't know enough about american helicopter training, but is that considered normal training steps?
Did the guy in the closer of the two choppers just loose control for a moment, and dipped into the water?
If so how the hell did he pull it back out again.

Cool.

VVV

Looks like Nevada to me! If any of you have ever seen the trees and lakes in Nevada then you would know what I'm talking about.
Here's a picture of a lake in Lake Tahoe.
www.8664myvacation.com...

That takes some skill.

Can't blame them being grounded though...

Looks like normal pilot training to me, I have seen Army air corps lynx,s hovering next to locomotive engines at high speed, presumably to mask there heat signature from ground launched missiles, Because at that time there was a imminent threat from the local active service unit (IRA) South Armagh...

reply to post by foxhoundone


Foxhoundone.....

Looks like normal pilot training to me

Fair dinkum.....really?

That's awesome!

Cheers
Maybe...maybe not

Totally Possible. If they can get enough juice to the blades as it comes down, they can pull it up. Its like tapping the water keeping the blades above the water. It would take a TON of skills, in order to do it. But its kinda like when a jet lands on a A/C carrier, they punch it before they land. Its like they just time it right.

i do not think that is a normal part of training, way to risky, just a couple macho men screwing around with tax dollars.

reply to post by threadkiller

It would surprise you what the military gets up to with all them "toys" You see in the military you really don't get billed as such for wrecking machinery, March in salute the queen take a £200 pound fine march out, job jobbied,
Take for instance I was tasked to a Met troop with there radar for radio sounds and them guys used to track the TR (1)? for fun in the welsh valleys and the TRs would come back and simulate a ground attack on there Met site.
Meteorological troops are a high priority target.. Just to use that as an example of "high jinx" in the military

reply to post by Maybe...maybe not


I think there was a problem. If I did not know better, they were doing an auto gyro test.

That is when the engine goes down and the movement of the blades is used to maintain a type of flight. They fire up the engines and then regain control.

Reminds me of the engine down tests done for pilots. On landing the instructor will shut down an engine on a twin engine aircraft. The pilot needs to compensate and land the plane with one engine only. They usually shutdown the engine while in landing approach.

My father got in trouble once buzzing my mother's hometown while courting her. Landed the plane at the local airport and when he did the front tire blew. There was a big write up in the local papers about it.

Training exercises like what happened here happen all the time, this one just so happened to get caught on vid.

I don't know about now days, but for the Vietnam War pilots had to undergo emergency training where the instructor would disengage the drive to the rotors to simulate an engine failure and have the new pilot Auto-rotate to a hopefully safe touch down. It was done over land though.

This looks like a slip-up to me as any auto-rotate training would not happen that low to begin with. But I could be wrong. Who knows what they get up to today.

Definitely not normal. Remember the helicopters were damaged as a result and the pilots were grounded. An investigation is underway, iirc. I'm surprised they managed to fly away from it.

www.signonsandiego.com...

double post........

Originally posted by Tayesin
I don't know about now days, but for the Vietnam War pilots had to undergo emergency training where the instructor would disengage the drive to the rotors to simulate an engine failure and have the new pilot Auto-rotate to a hopefully safe touch down. It was done over land though.

This looks like a slip-up to me as any auto-rotate training would not happen that low to begin with. But I could be wrong. Who knows what they get up to today.

Autorotation also doesn't result in a straight down motion (if you ever get into a straight down motion in auto rotation, you have screwed up), as you use the energy stored in your height to generate lift, and you do that by becoming a glider (a highly inefficient one, but the same concept as any fixed wing aircraft) - you build up forward speed by trading height, which means your rotor blades can generate lift (they will never generate lift going straight down).

What they were doing was not autorotation, it was a straight up prank with helicopters - 'who can touch the water'.

Looks like I was correct! It was in Lake Tahoe.
www.kcra.com...

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. -- Military officials say an investigation is under way after two U.S. Navy helicopters dipped temporarily into the waters of Lake Tahoe, before righting themselves and landing at a nearby airport. San Diego-based Naval Air Forces media officer Lt. Aaron Kakiel said a YouTube video filmed by tourists represents authentic footage of the Sept. 13. incident, the Nevada Appeal reported.

Dudes, it looks to me like that chopper SOAKED the blades in the water and then pulled back out of it....seems to me they would snap like twigs upon hitting the water at ANY kind of angle. For them to keep the blades completely parallel to the water surface feels superhuman to me.

Maybe I just have no clue...but I would think the water would feel like concrete to those blade tips at the depth it seems they reached...maybe spray created illusion of deeper dunk than it was

If it were engine failure, would they be grounded or given a medal for saving a Gazillion-dollar bird?

Originally posted by Cole DeSteele
Dudes, it looks to me like that chopper SOAKED the blades in the water and then pulled back out of it....seems to me they would snap like twigs upon hitting the water at ANY kind of angle. For them to keep the blades completely parallel to the water surface feels superhuman to me.

Maybe I just have no clue...but I would think the water would feel like concrete to those blade tips at the depth it seems they reached...maybe spray created illusion of deeper dunk than it was

If it were engine failure, would they be grounded or given a medal for saving a Gazillion-dollar bird?

Rotor blades are actually very strong - go play with some one day, you will be quite amazed. They could certainly survive a momentary dip in water, especially aerated water such as is the case here (the down wash from the rotors would create a lot of chop and spray on the water, mixing a lot of air with the surface of the water - this is what they would be touching and it would be less dense than water itself).

This has nothing to do with engine failure, it was two sets of idiots playing around - they are probably never going to fly again.

reply to post by RichardPrice


"This has nothing to do with engine failure, it was two sets of idiots playing around - they are probably never going to fly again"

Well Richard maybe not "legit" military flying, another two "volunteers" for the black ops brigade,

Originally posted by foxhoundone
reply to post by RichardPrice

 

"This has nothing to do with engine failure, it was two sets of idiots playing around - they are probably never going to fly again"

Well Richard maybe not "legit" military flying, another two "volunteers" for the black ops brigade,

Yeah you right...someone owns that a#$ for $550,000 worth of damaged US military hardware for straight up jackassery.

wow......impressive! They were grounded eh? Is it any wonder...but stilll

that was something to watch indeed!