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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."'
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?"
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.
It's just you:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research .
"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.
I wonder how much of my fare was to cover insurance premiums?
Given 5 passengers, I'll assume it to be a turbine helicopter. The absolute cheapest turbine (for operating costs) is about $600 per hour, or about $10 per minute. A mid-cost one will run you twice that, or more. So I'd say that half of the cost was aircraft maintenance. The pilot was likely nearly free. Many starting commercial pilots would pay to fly that trip. Insurance isn't that much, as flight-seeing trips are about as much in areas where insurance is essentially free.
The problem with flight actuaries is that there are so few crashes, and no easy way to differentiate between them. Almost all small craft crashes are pilot error, the most common being loading/power issues (just about all celebrities that went down were a pilot making an error to fly with an overloaded craft or into unacceptable weather.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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)