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Science Technology

Helicopter Lands top Mount Everest 47

Posted by Hemos from the new-methods-of-flying dept.
FlyByPC writes "The Eurcopter team has succeeded in landing a helicopter on Everest and returning safely to base, setting another ultimate aviation milestone -- for highest-altitude takeoff and landing. Interesting pictures of Lukla airfield, as well -- essentially a runway carved out of a mountainside."
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Helicopter Lands top Mount Everest More

Helicopter Lands top Mount Everest

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  • oh good, now all you need to do is to setup a bungee cord and have someone jump off, grab a few oxygen tanks and return to base.

    • Dead bodies too? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spineboy ( 22918 )
      Apparently Everest is littered with all of the people who've died up there. Roughly 25% of the people who atttempt to climb it have died somewhere along the route.

      • Did you make up this statistic? (Score:5, Informative)

        by BraceletWinner ( 845950 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @10:59AM (#12736188) Homepage
        From http://www.mounteverest.net/story/MountEverestKill erMountainsAnExplorersWebSeriesOct292003.shtml/ [mounteverest.net] (a link from 2003):

        To date, there have been 1,924 ascents of Mount Everest (more than 1,300 different climbers), and 179 people have died. The overall fatality rate is thus about 9% (fatality rate is defined as successful summits compared to fatalities). However, since 1990 there has been an explosion of summiteers and fatality statistics have changed. Up to 1990, the Everest fatality rate is a whopping 37%, with 106 deaths and only 284 summits. Yet from 1990 until today, the rate has dropped to 4.4%; 73 people have died, and 1,640 have summited. Thus, the rate decreased to about eight times less than the pre-1990 fatality rate!

        The fatality rate from attempts is even less since more people attempt it each year than actually summit. Look something up before you spout off stats that sound good.

  • Interesting "landing" (Score:5, Informative)

    by volsung ( 378 ) <stan@mtrr.org> on Monday June 06, 2005 @07:55AM (#12734493)
    For those who haven't watched the video, they "landed" the helicopter not in the way you think.

    From the pictures it looks like the top of Everest isn't flat enough to actually touch down and turn off your engines. Instead, they lowered until one of the landing gear ("feet"? not sure what you call those things on a helicopter) sunk into the snow, but kept the engines running the whole time to keep them balanced. The video makes it appear that they just hovered that way, partially airborne, partially touching the surface, until the 2 minute time requirement was achieved. Then they powered back to full engines and took off again.

    Not that I fault them.... :) This is probably the best you can do given the area.

  • *ducks*

    Sorry, couldn't help myself. *g*
  • essentially a runway carved out of a mountainside

    Wait. If it's a helicopter, why does it need a runway? I thought, you know, they land on helipads. Would planes really be flying here because of the mountains are everywhere, and going nearly 700 mi/h makes flying a plane suicide. Please help clarify this one.

    • Re:Hold up (Score:2, Informative)

      by Paul Rose ( 771894 )
      essentially a runway carved out of a mountainside
      That was describing the base camp...
      They didn't build a runway atop Everest!
      • Nope, not base camp.

        Lukla is the nearest (still used for planes - there is one now only used for helicoptors nearer, and a small Japanese owned hotel (Everest View Hotel) has a helipad at a slightly higher altitude I believe) runway to Everest base camp.

        It is at a high of approx 2840 m and is indeed a runway cut into the mountain (it even slopes to speed slow down when landing, and speed up when taking off). It is approximately 1 weeks walk (at least) from there to Everest Base Camp. Everest Base Camp is
    • <MrObvious>You do know that there are planes made that are able to fly at significantly less than 700 mph, right?</MrObvious>
    • Would planes really be flying here because of the mountains are everywhere

      Yes. [calgaryflyingclub.com]
    • Lukla (ICAO code VNLK) is an airport with a runway, designed for small planes. It can also, of course, support helicopters, and made a convenient base. It's one of the highest airports in the world, although it's not *the* highest.

      Fun airport to fly in to, in Flight Simulator. Not all that challenging in the right plane, but in larger aircraft that would never go there in reality (say, a 737), it's fun to drop off the end of the cliff, as the plane picks up enough speed to fly while dropping towards the v

    • Re:Hold up (Score:5, Informative)

      by hedronist ( 233240 ) * on Monday June 06, 2005 @10:28AM (#12735827)
      Short version: Yes, helicopters use runways.

      Long version: Most people assume helicopters just jump off the ground and are suddenly flying. The reality is a good deal more complex than that. (Which is a true statement about almost everything to do with helicopters.)

      1. When a helicopter first lifts off the ground it is inside its 'ground effect envelope', where part of its lift is coming from pushing air against the ground. Once it is above a certain height (varies by aircraft -- anywhere from 10 feet to 80 feet), the ground effect falls away and it is now fully airborne.

      2. Pure hovering (outside of the ground effect) takes an amazing amount of energy. It also has the danger, if maintained in one place on a still day, of creating a torroid of moving air: first pushed down by the blades, then sucked up and over the top to be pushed down again. This means the copter now has to push harder and faster to make up for the fact that the air it is pushing against is already moving down at some speed.

      3. Most fly time in a helictopter is spent moving forward in the air. The disc created by the spinning blade generates lift as it moves forward through the air. In fact, helicopters are called 'rotary-wing aricraft'.

      4. During takeoff, a heavily loaded helicopter -- or one operating at high alititude -- will want to stay inside its ground effect envelope while building up forward speed. Once it's going fast enough to generate lift forward motion, then they can start to gain altitude and move out of the ground effect.

      One page with more info: http://www.helicopterpage.com/ [helicopterpage.com]
      Peter
      284th AVN Co, ATC, 8th Army
      • Is that why they use taxiways and runways? I was watching Army helicopters operate at an Air Force base and it seemed odd that they would hover and follow the taxiways just like a fixed wing aircraft. I had assumed that they would just get a clearance and go straight up.
      • Did you know that helecopters can't really fly?

        They are just so ugly that the ground repels them.
    • Wait. If it's a helicopter, why does it need a runway? I thought, you know, they land on helipads.

      Yes, they land on helipads. But I'd imagine takeoff would be a problem there, due to high altitude/low pressure, so they might need a runway to hover, pick up speed and make sure they don't get a rejected takeoff. I'm not so sure about helicopters but planes would definitelly need longer runways there.

      Would planes really be flying here because of the mountains are everywhere, and going nearly 700 mi/h mak

    • Re:Hold up (Score:3, Informative)

      by fname ( 199759 )
      I flew into Lukla once, so I can assure you it's used all the time for plane arrivals and departures. There were a few planes pushed off the end of the runway, for the times when a plane couldn't stop fast enough and crashed. It's probably too hard to retrieve the plane or fix it, since there's no driveable roads to Lukla and not much in the way of airplane facilities. The airstrip gets shut quite often due to clouds, since if you can't see the runway you can't land.
    • You should go to the Denver airport sometime. It's really amazing to watch all of those planes landing at 700 mph and dodging mountains the whole time.
  • Oh My God! They didn't have the guts to fly the helicopter themselves so they paid some local children [eurocopter.com] to fly it instead!!

    This is a new low for the international avaition community.
  • ...that this record will never be broken. At least not on Earth (let's see them try it on Olympus Mons).
  • *highest-altitude takeoff and landing*

    You mean highest-altitude landing and takeoff, of course. :D

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