NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash 110
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."'
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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 ?
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Maybe you put the people in the airbags, and they just bounce to safety?
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Maybe you put the people in the airbags, and they just bounce to safety?
In Soviet Russia, airbags are put in people...
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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.
Re: What? (Score:3)
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"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 avai
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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> 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 pi
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It's not better if your head is right in the way when it inflates. But in that case, you're an asshole anyway.
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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. [youtube.com]
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The problem with airbags is whiplash ... not impact.
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...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...
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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.
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"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.
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Other guy was going too fast (hooray EDR!) I have a flawless driving record, 400K and still going strong.
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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
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"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, ever
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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" :-(
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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.
Womannequins (Score:1)
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Of course to be politically correct they should have had some womannequins as well. ;-)
Wouldn't that be "womennequin"? ;)
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I believe "womennequitas"
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Do womannequins produce sootikins...?
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I love scientists. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I love scientists. (Score:5, Informative)
If you knew anything about helicopters you'd know that 30mph is VERY relevant. Depending on what you're flying, your load, and weather conditions, 30mph (just over 2600 feet per minute) is approximately the speed you'd hit the ground in an autorotation if you did not flare or try to lessen the rate with only collective (which would not be very effective at all). In some helicopters the vertical descent rate in an auto is much lower but 2600 is a good ballpark number.
Re:I love scientists. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you knew anything about helicopters you'd know that 30mph is VERY relevant.
Indeed. In 1981, I was a young Marine grunt on an exercise in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. We were riding CH-46s into an LZ and the bird right behind mine lost power and auto-gyrated into the ground. I reached the treeline, and turned just in time to see it hit the ground. The helicopter was badly damaged, and the Marines on board were shaken up, but no one was hurt.
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If you knew anything about helicopters you'd know that 30mph is VERY relevant
Let's not forget what's important here. With this data, they will be able to determine the type of paint that will prove most resistant to impact damage from wayward shopping carts.
Re:I love scientists. (Score:5, Insightful)
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A helicopter crash at say mach 1 would be far more entertaining though.
Completely useless and unrealistic, but damn entertaining!
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We must make this happen.
For science.
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Re:I love scientists. (Score:4, Informative)
The vast majority of helicopter crashes happen at 30 mph or less. Takeoff and landing accidents (from hover), loss of tailrotor effectiveness, settling with power, botched autorotations...these all tend to happen with the helicopter travelling at 30 mph or less.
Pity you don't seem to know jack shit about helicopters before unloading on a useful test.
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His previous book is 'To Forgive Design'.
Wonderful progression of titles by Petroski and excellent books.
Paul
NASA Scientists Perplexed After Unsuccessful Crash (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA Scientists Perplexed After Unsuccessful Cr (Score:5, Funny)
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Re: NASA Scientists Perplexed After Unsuccessful C (Score:1)
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There is always boom tomorrow. Boom sooner or later. BOOM!
Re:NASA Scientists Perplexed After Unsuccessful Cr (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org]
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NASA did it first in 1984.
Maybe this will help helos get mainstream (Score:1)
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Helicopters are not very efficient, require tons of maintenance and are hard to fly. Exactly what about this seemed like a good idea to you?
If cost only is in your focus: crash them all, then, and save the costs.
but... just a hunch... maybe there are some benefits as the reason of helicopters still existing today?
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They can land places where other aircraft can't, and other VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing ; the Harrier, essentially) systems are even less efficient.
The "tilt rotor" system ("Osprey"?) seemed for a time to be a potential competitor, but it seems as if the running costs are even higher than for helicopters, or the reliability is still too low. I don't know of any that are in commercial use - i.e. not military, rescue or ri
Re:Maybe this will help helos get mainstream (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/pdf/chapters/Chapter%2018.pdf [defence.gov.au]
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 [defence.gov.au])
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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 [christianscience.com].
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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 th
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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).
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Can you say the same for scientific type of news?
Apparently, all it has in common is the name.
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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, [twitter.com] Drawing a Penis on Mars [youtube.com], Getting cut by the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle's Parallel Parking. [youtube.com], Here's a cute GIF of Zero-G hijinks on the ISS, [iruntheinternet.com] Exploring some social issues of Working with Robonaut [youtube.com], and lots o
Helicopter Crash!! (Score:1)
*watches video*
It's a fuselage dropped from a crane not 30 feet from the ground. That was pretty anti-climatic...
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That was pretty anti-climatic...
I'm sorry you're disappointed. Have this complimentary video to cheer you up: NASA Johnson Style. [youtube.com]
I guess they could have contracted with the guys from that slow-mo show to spice it up a bit, if we increased their funding...
The NTSB report... (Score:1)
... will probably blame it on pile-it error.
NASA Langley (Score:5, Informative)
Now named a National Historic Landmark.
Is it just me? (Score:1)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 .
"It wasn't hard; we told the team it was metric" (Score:4, Funny)
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Gee, wonder what that first A in NASA means........
Certainly doesn't mean Asshole.
They were jubilant... (Score:2)
.... because it's their job to crash helicopters. That it resulted in good data is secondary. :-)
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Re:I'll take autorotation for $1000, Alex ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That all depends on how little "very little time" is. Crashing at 30MPH [gsu.edu] is apparently survivable [wikipedia.org], 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.
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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.
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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 fl
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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.
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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.
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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 ri
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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