[kanga]

..

Every mil rotary craft I've crawled over in the last few years has had a female pilot...

[as I may have posted before .. ]

ISTR a Rally at which the YES stand was near the BWPA stand. An elderly gentleman with military bearing, wearing a RAFA tie, was looking at t-shirts bearing an image of a young lady wearing a flight jacket, leather helmet and goggles, and standing in front of a Stearman. The image was captioned "A woman's place is in the cockpit". An eager BWPA rep came up to talk to him. He said "I was thinking of buying one for my granddaughter." The rep beamed, and said something like "yes, she should know that girls, too, can be pilots." "Yes," he replied, "she flies Chinooks."

[Osprey at Addenbrooke's on BBC News website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... e-56847090

"A hospital's helipad has temporarily closed after it was badly damaged by the draught from a departing aircraft.

The structure at Addenbrooke's in Cambridge was thrown into the air as the USAF CV22 Osprey took off on Wednesday. Its crew had been taking part in medical transfer training.

The East Anglian and Magpas air ambulances have been diverted to nearby Cambridge City Airport while repairs take place.

A hospital spokeswoman said: "Patients are then transferred to the hospital in road ambulances with critical care staff on board, meaning we can continue to see and treat them as normal." "]

[PeteSpencer]

Every mil rotary craft I've crawled over in the last few years has had a female pilot.

Why do you choose only to crawl over those piloted by female pilots? I'm confused as to your motives?

Oh I dunno, I just have a thing about long haired blondes in mil fatigues....................

[PaulSS]

We used to have the Seabees peg the matting down with 6’ stakes.If it was good enough for a 25500lb Pegasus then I reckon it would he alright for an Osprey

[Miscellaneous]

@PeteSpencer ah, you hadn't mentioned they were blondes.

[townleyc]

[Osprey at Addenbrooke's on BBC News website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... e-56847090

"A hospital's helipad has temporarily closed after it was badly damaged by the draught from a departing aircraft.

The structure at Addenbrooke's in Cambridge was thrown into the air as the USAF CV22 Osprey took off on Wednesday. Its crew had been taking part in medical transfer training.

The East Anglian and Magpas air ambulances have been diverted to nearby Cambridge City Airport while repairs take place.

A hospital spokeswoman said: "Patients are then transferred to the hospital in road ambulances with critical care staff on board, meaning we can continue to see and treat them as normal." "]

I would hardly say Cambridge City airport is nearby - especially in the rush hour, the traffic will be dire

KE

[A4 Pacific]

We used to have the Seabees peg the matting down with 6’ stakes.If it was good enough for a 25500lb Pegasus then I reckon it would he alright for an Osprey

Hi Paul

Interested to know what the max weight for vertical take off is on a Harrier? I appreciate it’s environmentally dependent, but I suspect it’s a good bit less than that Osprey, and significantly less than a Chinook?

That style of matting is never a good idea for anything other than fairly small Air Ambulance helicopters. Even then, you have to ask, why? Why use it?

[LapsedRinger]

I believe that helipad was intended to be temporary. I also believe that the previous practice of landing in a field was considered almost as good, but a local celebrity raised a lot of money for a new helipad at a different location, for which planning permission could not then be obtained. The thing that just got destroyed was an exercise in face saving, with a long term ambition to build a pad on top of an Emergency Department Tower. But several chief execs have come and gone since then.

[A4 Pacific]

I believe that helipad was intended to be temporary

Then I would say it’s been an unmitigated success!

[JAFO]

A hospital's helipad has temporarily closed after it was badly damaged by the draught from a departing aircraft.

Draught from a Osprey? That's like saying the Pacific is damp.

[PaulSS]

Interested to know what the max weight for vertical take off is on a Harrier? I appreciate it’s environmentally dependent, but I suspect it’s a good bit less than that Osprey, and significantly less than a Chinook?

In ICAO conditions the II+ would have been around 17-18000 lbs. Yes, definitely less than the two machines you've mentioned but the thrust would have been far more localised and damaging to a pad. Helicopters VTO from tarmac, Harriers don't or else they leave big holes in the ground. The mexi pads used by the UK forces were okay but those used by the USMC were far more substantial and, dare I say it, easier and quicker to lay and secure. I've seen the Seebees lay a runway in the stuff in a day, so that Harriers were able to use it for 'normal' ops and F18s were able to use for cable-assisted landings and mid-weight take-offs. All very impressive stuff

I agree with you, why bother using it for helicopters/Ospreys when grass is good enough?

[A4 Pacific]

Hi Paul. Thanks for the info.

I agree with you, why bother using it for helicopters/Ospreys when grass is good enough?

I haven’t reviewed the video, but my first impression was that the Osprey had landed off the matting, and on the grass. Which exacerbated the problem. In fact it’s not entirely clear the matting even is the helipad?

As you will probably recall, a chinook could lift vertically at a weight in excess of 50,000lbs. Might be more in recent models? Certainly heavier than that Osprey would have been.

[MattL]

I thought the matting that was blown is what they put down for ambulance / stretcher movement - helicopters always actually land by using grass adjacent? [edit having looked online there are photos of East Anglian landed on that matting though with what looks like small lighting around]

[skydriller]

I think they were damn lucky no one got hurt and it didnt end up getting sucked back into the rotors

[Sooty25]

Could the difference between the Chinook and the Osprey be to do with rotor diameters? The Chinook being 60ft and the Osprey being only 38ft.

With a much smaller area with which to generate lift, won't the downdraft be more focused with the Osprey, considering their MTOW's are within 5% of each other?

[Flyin'Dutch']

We don't know all, but it looks as though the matting had little/no fixing to the ground. If so, no great TEM by those who commissioned it.

If indeed planning permission was refused for something more substantial it just is another testimony to broken planning system. Surely heliplatform for HEMS is for the greater good, innit.