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NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Elizabeth Barber reports in the Christian Science Monitor that when a CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter plummeted into the ground at more than 30 miles per hour, there was jubilation from the scientists on the ground at the culmination of some two years of preparation to test a helicopter's crashworthiness. 'We designed this test to simulate a severe but survivable crash under both civilian and military requirements,' says NASA lead test engineer Martin Annett. 'It was amazingly complicated with all the planning, dummies, cameras, instrumentation and collaborators, but it went off without any major hitches.' During the crash, high-speed cameras filming at 500 images per second tracked the black dots painted on the helicopter, allowing scientists to assess the exact deformation of each part of the craft, in a photographic technique called full field photogrammetry. Thirteen instrumented crash test dummies and two un-instrumented manikins stood, sat or reclined for a potentially rough ride. The goal of the drop was to test improved seat belts and seats, to collect crashworthiness data and to check out some new test methods but it was also to serve as a baseline for another scheduled test in 2014. 'It's extraordinarily useful information. I will use this information for the next 20 years,' says Lindley Bark, a crash safety engineer at Naval Air Systems Command on hand for the test. 'Even the passenger airplane seats in there were important to us because we fly large aircraft that have the same type of seating."'
I'm curious to know what a mannekin is, is it like a moccasin? or a mandolin? does it taste good with lemon pepper? can i expect it on my next inflight meal thanks to this research?
I also wonder if we had any mannequins onboard without electronic sensors...but sorry, back to the topic at hand. is there a special fork i should use when eating a mannekin or do i just crack the shell and eat it with my fingers?
Good people go to bed earlier.
They actually do shit with data.
In other news, NASA scientists announced confusion after attempting to crash a helicopter and failing despite repeated tries. The helicopter in question had, in various stages, had its stabilizers, fuel tank and even rotors removed. Despite all this, the helicopter remained aloft. "A failure," one scientist was quoted as saying. "We'll just have to shoot it down and try to crash one next next year after more planning." "A helicopter that cannot crash is a tremendous blow to science," another was heard arguing with another, "How are we supposed to obtain crash data with an infinitely levitating hunk of junk?"
Seems about time they start doing this ... others have been doing similar activities with cars and planes. Helicopters have always seemed like a good idea to me, but generally are outside the financial reach of most of us (I've only been on one 20 minute sightseeing tour in Hawaii and it was $200 or $10/minute/passenger - there were 5 passengers). I wonder how much of my fare was to cover insurance premiums? Perhaps with more data for the actuaries to work with, the flight costs could drop to the point we could see helo transportation rival busses / small planes.
Oh there must have been a huge breakthrough in airbag technology I never heard about...how do these new airbags restrain a person in their seat to stop them being flung out of the vehicle during a crash, like seatbelts are designed to do?
I cant see any mechanism for how this could possibly be possible with airbags.
Can you please enlighten all as to how this all works ?
NASA has been doing these tests for at least 35 years. The way they drop them hasn't changed much. Hell, even using the black dots isn't new for them. But all the media outlets carried this like it was something brand-new
Wow! They probably remote flew a helicopter and then crashed it at a few miles per hour and it went up in a big ball of fire, but not before giving out some exciting new data taken by high-speed cameras placed....
*watches video*
It's a fuselage dropped from a crane not 30 feet from the ground. That was pretty anti-climatic...
They just dropped the fuselage from height.
Yup I mean you can absorb as much energy as you want with deformation and the like, but at the end of the day you are going from velocity v to velocity 0 in very little time indeed. So you can build safety devices all day long and that won't stop your heart from ripping itself off of your aorta, despite the fact you may have no external cuts and bruises...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
... will probably blame it on pile-it error.
In Soviet Russia a beowulf cluster of these things imagines you welcoming your new, neural-network overlords.
Of course to be politically correct they should have had some womannequins as well. ;-)
This has to be one of the most hyped-up titles in recent time, no accident occured, no scientists shooting at flying machines either. Just a basic dummy crash test this time on a helicopter carcass.
Maybe you put the people in the airbags, and they just bounce to safety?
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Drop testing with the same gantry they've used since the 60's and Apollo. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/fs-2007-08-138-larc.html
Now named a National Historic Landmark.
Re: "The way they drop them hasn't changed much."
http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/pdf/chapters/Chapter%2018.pdf
Section 8.31 seems to give a hint at what NASA is trying to help with.
(from http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/chapters.htm)
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Or is NASA really going off topic?
Never mind that 80+% of helicopter crashes are non-fatal, because AC thinks that counts as "rarely survivable."
I have a bit of budget envy. I feel like I could collect a lot of data that would be useful to me for 20 years if I had the kind of budget they must have put into this.
Oh well, I do on occasion use census, federal reserve and BLS data, so I am a beneficiary of govt data collection (no, not that kind). I guess my irritation is I have to make do with what I've got and they get to ask for money for the things they want to do and then have to settle for only getting a portion of it, which is a different kind of problem.
Maybe you put the people in the airbags, and they just bounce to safety?
In Soviet Russia, airbags are put in people...
Maybe you put the people in the airbags, and they just bounce to safety?
In Soviet Russia, airbags are put in people...
In some countries, people are airbags.
NASA has been doing these tests for at least 35 years. The way they drop them hasn't changed much. Hell, even using the black dots isn't new for them. But all the media outlets carried this like it was something brand-new
Wel, it might have been quite new for the Christian Science Monitor.
It's not likely helicopter crashes could be studied based on Bible.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
"and then had them write a safe landing program in FORTRAN."
All's true that is mistrusted
That all depends on how little "very little time" is. Crashing at 30MPH is apparently survivable, but note that the forces involved are greatly diminished by having extra space (and therefore time) to decelerate. That comes from having a helicopter body that deforms properly, so it absorbs kinetic energy rather than transferring it into the occupants.
Ideally, in a vertical crash the humans end up sitting right on the ground, with the whole fuselage under them deformed at a rate that keeps the peak acceleration they experience in survivable levels. No, it certainly wouldn't be fun, but it could mean the difference between death and just having survivable internal damage... and if the rest of the helicopter's deformation has been engineered with as much care, there (also ideally) would be no hazard from debris, fire, or other environmental effects, so the victims are relatively safe just lying there waiting for rescue... Perhaps a crushed spine, but no disconnected vital organs.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
A successful autorotation is a crash. Crash doesn't mean nose-down damage and casualties. It means unintended and less-than-properly-controlled landing. A hard landing in an airplane with no injuries and no damage is a "crash" so long as the forced involved made either likely. A successful autootation with no damage or injuries is also a crash. Though, many involved with such crashes will not treat them as such to keep records clean.
Learn to love Alaska
I guess you've never heard of them before. I consider the CSM currently one of the most reliable and unbiased of US media sources out there.
As I understand it, the short version of Christian Science is that God made everybody perfect, including their intelligence. We're supposed to be able to research, and learn, and improve our ability to use the resources we have. There is no forbidden knowledge, and no praise for ignorance. Most science is pretty universally accepted (and reported in the CSM).
Medicine is a somewhat different matter. Depending on the branch, all illness is either God's punishment or his plan, and that's the idea that leads the fundamentalists to deny medical treatment and let their children die. It should be noted well that many (if not most) Christian Scientists accept modern medicine more, as a tool developed by the aforementioned God-given intelligence. Prayer and other spiritual practices heal the mind and spirit, while doctors can take care of the physical symptoms. Between the two, the body can heal and the mind can guide it for a full recovery.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Why is NASA involved? I though they put stuff in space?
You might be surprised...
"how do these new airbags restrain a person in their seat to stop them being flung out of the vehicle during a crash, like seatbelts are designed to do?"
Same way they have in the past - inflate over every opening and block you from going out. That is one of the few primary functions of wheel and dash airbags - to keep you from flying through the windshield. We have side curtain airbags that deploy and somewhat prevent you from flying out the side windows as well.
I'd imagine better versions of these are available for NASA and the military.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Huh? What kind of bullshit are you talking? A successful autorotation is NOT a crash. It's an emergency landing and by no means a crash. Likewise, a hard landing in an airplane is not a crash either.
A crash is typically a landing, forced or otherwise, that results in significant damage to the aircraft.
Hell, by your reasoning I've crashed hundreds of times.
Manikin? Is that what Anakin would have become if he didn't go to the dark side? Mannequin. get me a manager i demand a refund
I guess you've never heard of them before.
Indeed, I didn't.
I consider the CSM currently one of the most reliable and unbiased of US media sources out there.
For media news (social, political and the like), I can believe it.
Can you say the same for scientific type of news? (I'm indeed asking for opinion/references here, as opposed to raising the question to cast a doubt).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Huh? What kind of bullshit are you talking?
I gave the definition of an "aviation incident", which is often called a crash. Crash is not a technical term. "Aviation accident" is what you are stating "crash" is. There is no technical definition of "crash" defined by ICAO. So why are you so insistent the definition is "accident" and not "incident"?
Hell, by your reasoning I've crashed hundreds of times.
If every landing you perform is a hard landing, you may want to take up a new hobby.
Learn to love Alaska
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There is always boom tomorrow. Boom sooner or later. BOOM!
In other news, NASA scientists announced confusion after attempting to crash a helicopter and failing despite repeated tries.
You joke...but this is the sort of thing that never gets funding.
Adam savage tells a tale of how a guy called him after they did the firing bullets inside aircraft episode. He said they'd been trying to get funding to do that experiment for decades.
It also took discovery channel to crash a 'plane and see what happens. There's no way a government could do this...right? (somebody might lose their campaign funding if the results made Boeing look bad!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experiment
No sig today...
I was under the impression that using airbags without seatbelts would actually cause injuries, mainly due to passengers being bounced around uncontrollably. In a car crash, the head and neck are flung forward by the collision and then back by the airbag rebound, potentially causing whiplash injuries.
If you're wearing a seatbelt, however, it will keep your body stable while the airbag slows your head's travel forward.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong but the two seem to complement each other quite well.
Can you say the same for scientific type of news?
Apparently, all it has in common is the name.
. . . And then they drown. Don't you remember your first 10 helicopter underwater escape training sessions? I remember mine, and am due for re-certification in under a year.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
NASA has been doing these tests for at least 35 years. The way they drop them hasn't changed much. Hell, even using the black dots isn't new for them. But all the media outlets carried this like it was something brand-new
Hey, know what? NASA folks are way smarter than you. I mean, they know they have to make a big noise to be heard above the screaming Miley fans and Twerk Team videos. They're actually doing a pretty good job in social media, if you ask me. We've got Curiosity's Adorable Twitter account, Drawing a Penis on Mars, Getting cut by the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle's Parallel Parking., Here's a cute GIF of Zero-G hijinks on the ISS, Exploring some social issues of Working with Robonaut, and lots of other engaging and fun stuff. Search it up, this is awesomely fun stuff, even if (especially if) a bit corny.
Getting out there and getting the common folks interested in NASA is crucial to funding more missions. You think we would have gone to the moon in '69 if the whole thing was kept low-key? Hell no. IMHO, they didn't make a big enough deal about the Helicopter Crash. They should have had it televised on NASA TV, maybe invited the guys from those Slow Mo shows to run their own cams from a safe distance. It should have been on my Evening News. Look, the science is great, don't get me wrong, but you have to deal with the public on their terms... Terms like "Successful Helicopter Crash!"
I would have said, "CGI in movies is so last century. Here at NASA we crash helicopters without even needing the excuse of an action movie plot."
::Safety glasses descend to cover speaker's eyes::
::OSD rises from bottom of frame:: "Deal with it."
::Record Screech:: [Cut To actual scientists discussing setup for THIS crash.]
Greenscreen Helicopter crashes with cheap CGI explosion overlay behind them.
[Cut to montage of crashes and 1sec of dubstep]
Have scientist quickly run down the importance of the crash intermixed with the shots of the crash several times in different angles AND SPEEDS to keep the easily distracted from changing the channel, only THEN drone on a bit with the "boring" details of how the data will be used for decades, etc. for the nerds. Including links to other crash test videos.
Ask yourself. Who the hell is NASA supposed to be for? The Future, right? KIDS! What kid DIDN'T want to be an Astronaut back when we were still going to the moon? Pandering to crusty science minded folks is easy, it's time to interact with the common folk and get them interested in space, "Not because it's easy, but because it is Hard."
TL;DR: They're doing their damn job, fool.
Perhaps a crushed spine, but no disconnected vital organs.
Provided they wouldn't be likely to kill me before surgeons could fix things up, I think I'd rather go with a few disconnected vital organs. It's a lot harder to heal spinal cord/nerve damage enough to avoid at least part of the body being in serious pain long-term, and that kind of pain is a real bitch to get under control.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
NASA did it first in 1984.
This crash was intended and controlled. According to your definition, it was not a crash.
If you're not in the harnesses then you are unlikely to hit the bag at the proper time and place, but hitting an airbag while bouncing around a cabin is still better than hitting something harder.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This answers the question of, 'How many NASA scientists does it take to discover gravity?'
NASA has some really bright people working there these days. Err, do we call non-carbon lifeforms 'people'?
Dixit Wikipedia:
"To provide crash protection for occupants not wearing seat belts, U.S. airbag designs trigger much more forcefully than airbags designed to the international ECE standards used in most other countries. "
When you are not wearing a seatbelt, the airbag will get there earlier to compensate. Maybe you were thinking about children, which represent more than half the airbag deaths.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
.... because it's their job to crash helicopters. That it resulted in good data is secondary. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
> but hitting an airbag while bouncing around a cabin is still better than hitting something harder.
Are you certain about that? Yes the airbag is softer than most other parts of the interior, but if you're not slowed by a seatbelt then you will hit it while it's still in it's early inflation phase, and moving *very* much faster than anything else, up to 200mph. If you were traveling at 60mph and hit something immobile without seatbelts restraining you then that airbag will be a slap in the face by a pillow traveling at 260mph. Easily enough to snap your neck. Seatbelts restrain you enough so that the airbag has time to reach near-total inflation before you collide with it, which combined with it's slowing effect on you can bring the bag impact speed down to closer to the initial car impact speed, and a 60mph impact involves almost 19x less kinetic energy than a 260mph one.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That's only true in Europe where they are a true secondary restraint system unlike in the United States where although classified as a secondary restraint, the specifications ensure that current airbags are actually a primary restraint system.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
The problem with airbags is whiplash ... not impact.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"If you're wearing a seatbelt, however, it will keep your body stable while the airbag slows your head's travel forward. "
Out of every accident I've been in where airbags deployed, the seatbelt did NOTHING to lock down and keep me in place. If the airbags had not been there, I'd be a smear on the road right now.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I was under the impression that using airbags without seatbelts would actually cause injuries, mainly due to passengers being bounced around uncontrollably.
It's not so much that you bounce around uncontrollably; it's that with the airbag in front of your upper body, and nothing around your waist, all your forward momentum results in your sliding under the airbag into the floor space in front of your seat, where by "sliding" I mean "in a high-speed crash, being crumpled and crushed" :-(
...but hitting an airbag while bouncing around a cabin is still better than hitting something harder...
It is not better if you slide under it...
If people don't die in helicopter crashes, how will musicians become famous?
Government hires Mythbusters.
Well, either you were driving exceptionally fast, or the other guy was. Regardless, I'm happy you're here to vouch for them.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
And exactly how many accidents have there been that involve a person going through the windshield or side window when wearing a seat belt, even without airbags? I've been around a few serious accidents before airbags were common, and while the steering column can do nasty things to your arms and head, people were still contained within the car from seatbelts. Statistics for air bag safety mostly common down to head injuries, not ejection.
It's not better if your head is right in the way when it inflates. But in that case, you're an asshole anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Negative.
A search reveals that even when a dummy is not wearing their seatbelt, the airbag is able to deploy fully (albeit, barely) before the dummy hits it.
You can autorotate or dead stick for practice. That's nothing. Unplanned loss of power is always something. Even if it's only one of two.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Other guy was going too fast (hooray EDR!) I have a flawless driving record, 400K and still going strong.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"And exactly how many accidents have there been that involve a person going through the windshield or side window when wearing a seat belt, even without airbags? "
USA alone or worldwide? I can name several celebrities that have been in auto accidents where they got ejected while wearing a seatbelt. The drummer for Def Leppard, for example, had his arm torn off by the seatbelt as he got ejected.
Exact numbers can't be had as there's someone likely getting ejected from their car, while wearing a seatbelt, every hour.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How many crashes have you been in where airbags have deployed?
And how many crashes in total?
In my 20 years of driving ... actually almost 25 years ... I've had (1) drive-away-able (my inexperience, came into contact with the kerb, very hard, while still a learner) ; (2) drive-away-able (both stopped out of contact, but came together on the bounce in the springs) ; (3) walk-away, no airbag deployed (pothole, then icy corner, then stone in verge destroyed wheel ; wrote off car). Only one of those cars actually had airbags, but I still don't know what level of impact is necessary to trigger them. And I don't particularly want to find out, from personal experience.
Oh, sorry ; forgot one crash, if you can call it that. (4) I was reversing to get to one parking bay, when someone else started reversing out of a different parking bay and we came together ; again, no airbag deployment.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Which is why you don't do that. In addition to it being illegal to drive without a seatbelt, it's also completely fucking stupid.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Bull.
Shit.
I know several people who've survived helicopter crashes. (I've come very close to being in one myself, but they managed to re-start the second engine before we hit the sea.)
From my observations of 25 years of North Sea helicopter crashes, about 3/4 of people survive. "Crash", of course, does cover a multitude of sins, from a controlled landing on the water (salt water ; the aircraft will be a total re-build, and may be a write-off for an older airframe) up to the rotors falling off at 5000 ft and the aircraft hitting the water at terminal velocity. Even in the latter case, of two incidents I'm aware of (lighting strike led to one rotor failing, which then tore the drive system apart ; gearbox seized) with about 35 people involved, one person survived to this day, and several drowned after managing to exit the airframe as it sank. So you're still looking at nearly 10% potential survivals in a worst case scenario.
I know it's Slashdot, but I do wish that people who know fuck all about a subject would keep their ignorance to themselves, even as ACs.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The main reason for helicopters existing (as opposed to being used by tourists for joy rides) is to get people and equipment to places that they can't get to otherwise. Since helicopters are expensive to operate, then it is almost always cheaper to build a road or use (multiple) all terrain vehicles. Except at sea.
I don't have any precise numbers to hand, but in 26 years of flying several thousands of miles a year in helicopters, only about 5-10% of that distance has been over land. And most of that has been the stretch between the main airport and the coast.
Otherwise, I've got to work by car, by 4-wheel drive, by truck, by 42-seat bus, once on a converted nuclear missile launcher and by boat. But the very large majority has been in helicopters flying over water.
Most people who die in helicopter crashes actually die of drowning ; few are killed by their injuries before they have time to drown.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
we can go back to afghanistan?
We have laws that make sure you wear seatbelts and road death tolls have dropped significantly.
I have had them save my life. I don't understand where the seatbelt kills come from, but I am guessing its the same who deny climate change and thinks that having lots of guns is not going to lead to gun crime.
"An aviation incident is defined as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operations."
Practicing an autorotation in a controlled situation isn't an incident, but having to use it (to prevent a crash) is. Many pilots (fixed wing, not helicopter) practice loss of power on every landing (at least while training), for when they'll need to do it for real. It's not as uncommon as people think. In smaller planes in the right weather (common conditions), forgetting to set carb heat on descent is often enough to trigger it as a real event. When you've practiced it a lot, the first time you actually screw up, it's not that big of a deal.
Learn to love Alaska
By my definition, it was not an avaitation incident or aviation accident (the two technical terms usually interchanged with "crash").
Learn to love Alaska
Good for you :)
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.