Military Flight Safety

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Surya
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Surya »

was it a night flight?

suggests new tactics .

sad - and ignorant morons everywhere on news sites- making ill considered comments

sometimes I feel half the population thats posts on these sites needs to be summarily shot

not to mention the morons hired by TOI who makes statement like "we are made to believe".
:evil:
shiv
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/285 ... opper.html
A Chetak helicopter of the Indian Navy crashed on Monday while landing at Dabolim airport in Goa killing all the three personnel on board.

The chopper was flying from Mumbai to Bangalore on a routine sortie with a scheduled stop for refuelling in Goa. It crashed at 10 am while landing.

This is the first fatal crash of a naval helicopter in seven years. The last such accident occurred in 2005, said a navy officer. The Navy currently has about 60 helicopters in its fleet.

The personnel who died in the crash were: Lt Cdr D Singh, Lt Rahul Tiwari and Chief Artificer (air) Hareesh Krishnan, a qualified sailor.

Preliminary findings suggest mechanical failure to be the cause of the accident. An enquiry has been ordered. Sailor Hareesh Krishnan, from Haripad in Alappuzha district in Kerala, will be cremated with full military honours on Tuesday.

Hareesh last visited Kerala two months ago on Onam and was to retire this year.
vasu raya
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

For safe close formation flying of choppers, LEDs on the main rotor blade tips can be used for signaling, an universal encoding mechanism is what we see in traffic lights, the emission spectrum of the LEDs can be in the invisible zone and weather penetrating and the NVGs will do the shifting into the visible zone so the pilots can see it, this signaling cannot be seen by the naked eye and the emission frequencies themselves are secret or preferably software controlled
Kannan
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Kannan »

vasu raya wrote:For safe close formation flying of choppers, LEDs on the main rotor blade tips can be used for signaling, an universal encoding mechanism is what we see in traffic lights, the emission spectrum of the LEDs can be in the invisible zone and weather penetrating and the NVGs will do the shifting into the visible zone so the pilots can see it, this signaling cannot be seen by the naked eye and the emission frequencies themselves are secret or preferably software controlled
Lots of enthusiastic interpretation here ;)

LEDs have very predictable wavelengths, there's no way you can keep it a "secret", the most practical output would be IR and that's not that hard to detect. This isn't an RF encrypted transmission and IR sets aren't tuned to one frequency like a radio is.

That said, by the time they get to formation flying they have a very good sense of aircraft position and don't need encrypted super secret signals visible from their headsets to navigate. I'm sure special purpose craft have IR position lights next to the regular ones but it isn't quite so fancy.

IR doesn't perform remarkably better than visible for weather penetration.
vasu raya
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

^^^

There was an accident last month where two Mi-17 choppers of TACDE crossed each other's path with the blades of one hitting the fuselage of the other and that was in day time. Anyways, along with a visual of the lead chopper and the rate of turn or climb are all pre-meditated by the pilots probably over radio, assisting that is these LEDs as a secondary mechanism and you need colors to encode them

ok, if LEDs aren't useful and for this purpose they needn't be in the visible spectrum, would short range but all weather radio frequencies do? again these emitters on the tips of the rotating blades can be made to produce patterns which are then made visible with suitable frequency shifting. Each specific frequency is tied to a distinct color on the NVG end. if 3 colors are sufficient to encode all your maneuvers, 3 frequencies and always at the same relative position to each other can be used.

Earlier TCAS wasn't considered viable due to the close distances of formation flying
A Sharma
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by A Sharma »

rohitvats
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

A Sharma wrote:To fly, again
Thanks, great article.
anand_sankar
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by anand_sankar »

Ground resonance is one of the freakiest phenomena. Check out what it does. You could get chopped up by your own rotors.

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogalle ... e_View.mpg
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogalle ... r_View.mpg
http://airflightdisaster.com/?p=19669
Nikhil T
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Nikhil T »

Another F-22 crash. Other reports claim that it might've been a pilot error though.

F22 crashes in FL
member_20067
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_20067 »

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/mig-2 ... afe-296640

A MIG 21 Bison air craft of the Indian Air Force has crashed near the Naliya air base in Gujarat.

The pilot safely ejected before the crash. He is a Wing Commander rank officer, reports suggest.

There have been no injuries on the ground.

The last MIG to crash was in December last year.

This is the second air craft post April 2012.
member_23677
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_23677 »

Nikhil T wrote:Another F-22 crash. Other reports claim that it might've been a pilot error though.

F22 crashes in FL
Pilot error helps in deviating technical problems of the aircraft. For a plane that expensive, it is stupid and quite embarrassing for US. It hasn't been used in a war either, after some 7 years of it's induction. Maybe the secret F-22 is kept secret because of it's technical problems and not because it is some magical plane.
shiv
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

IAF's MiG-21 Bison crashes in Gujarat, no casualties
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 348013.cms
AHMEDABAD: An upgraded MiG-21'Bison' aircraft of the Indian Air Force crashed after taking off from Naliya Airbase in Gujarat at 11.30 am on Saturday.

The pilot of the aircraft ejected safely, sources said, adding that it was on a routine training sortie.
krishnan
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by krishnan »

IAF jag crashes...pilot safe
member_20453
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_20453 »

No mention of the Jag crash any where! I hope you are not correct
Nihat
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Nihat »

Unfotunatly the news is true , the jaguar aircraft crashed in sikkim near the border area with china , no news of any casualty and praying to god tht there is none .




http://m.ibnlive.com/news/sikkim-air-fo ... 201-3.html
anand_sankar
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by anand_sankar »

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/air-f ... herstories

The article says they are still trying to evac the seriously injured pilot.
keshavchandra
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by keshavchandra »

Very sad news. Hope Pilot (flight Lieutenant Yogesh Yadav) will get recover from this, physically and mentally.
Shubham
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Shubham »

Update from local news - pilot is safe and sound, a few fractures though.
member_20067
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_20067 »

damn .. seriously this "curse" of 3 crashes need to stop.. OT...
keshavchandra
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by keshavchandra »

IAF aircraft MiG-27 crashes in Rajasthan’s Barmer district, pilot safe.
A MiG-27 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed near Uttarlai in Rajasthan this afternoon, but the pilot managed to eject safely.

An official statement said the mishap occurred at about 1548 hours today, soon after the aircraft took off from the Uttarlai airbase in Barmer district on a routine flying training sortie.
“Immediately after the take-off, the aircraft developed a technical snag in the engine forcing the pilot to eject at a critical height. The pilot ejected safely,” it said.
There is no reported damage to any civil property or life, the statement said.
A Court of Inquiry has been ordered to investigate the accident. This is the fourth Cat I accident of this financial year, the statement added.
http://idrw.org/?p=18525

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mig- ... 49964.html
nelson
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by nelson »

Bad news coming in...

IAF Sukhoi Su-30MKI crashes at Chandan range in Rajasthan. Practicing for Ex Iron Fist.
keshavchandra
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by keshavchandra »

IAF's Sukhoi 30 crashes in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer, pilots safe
: A Sukhoi 30 aircraft of the Indian Air Force today crashed in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer district but both the pilots bailed out safely.


There was no loss of life or damage to property on the ground, defence spokesman S D Goswami said.

The aircraft was to participate in IAF's day-night exercise 'Iron Fist' on February 22, he said.

Both the pilots bailed out safely, Goswami said.
What a f... ? first the mig series and now the su 30. :cry:
SaiK
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by SaiK »

there is no point in wtf-ing if we can collect data regarding failure. see, this is where we learn, and not just blaming and finger pointing. Even teens of amrika land crashes regularly.. these are safety critical systems of the highest degree because safety for any ways to be in air is extremely critical. there are 1 million combinations which would not have followed or done or practiced or even designed for it in the first place.

empirical data is quite evident about quality. so, why complain when you have chosen per your needs?
SagarAg
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by SagarAg »

X-Post:
As per Tarmak:
SOURCES: The Su-30 MKI which crashed couldn't recover after firing weapons at Iorn Fist. It was part of HAL's Phase-1 production line.
Thank GOD that pilots ejected safely.

The interesting thing is that if it was performing as a part of Iron Fist exercise and the crash happened after releasing bombs then there must be a UAV above it recording all the events. So they might actually have a video graphic evidence of the crash sequence.
shiv
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

SagarAg wrote:
The interesting thing is that if it was performing as a part of Iron Fist exercise and the crash happened after releasing bombs then there must be a UAV above it recording all the events. So they might actually have a video graphic evidence of the crash sequence.
Defective fuzes have been blamed for past accidents during live fire. But we must wait..
shiv
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

This happened some days ago
http://newindianexpress.com/states/andh ... 490081.ece
Navy chopper crashes into sea, two feared dead

Two navy personnel are feared dead while two others have survived after a Chetak helicopter of the Indian Navy crashed into the sea about 18 km off Visakhapatnam coast on Tuesday afternoon.

The two survivors have been picked up at sea and brought to the naval hospital at INHS Kalyani. The exact reasons for the helicopter crash are yet to be ascertained.

In a statement released here, the Navy authorities confirmed the accident and said that the Chetak 440 took off from INS Dega at about 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon on a routine mission for an aerial excercise in the area with four crew members onboard. It moved seaward for about 18 km off the Visakhapatnam coast when it reportedly collapsed into the sea.

The Air Traffic Control (ATC) lost contact with the helicopter at about 3.30 pm. After it failed to return to the base as per the schedule, the ATC informed the Navy authorities who in turn sent a search and rescue team.

Two survivors, whose identity was not revealed by the Navy, were picked up from near the crash site.
shiv
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=19950
NEW DELHI: In the last three years, the Indian Air Force has lost 29 fighter planes including 12 MiG-21s in crashes in which six pilots lost their lives, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

The aircraft lost in the crashes were 12 MiG-21s, 8 MiG-27s, 4 Su-30MKis, 2 Jaguars, 2 Mirage-2000s and 1 MiG-29, defence minister AK Antony said in reply to a written question.

"In these accidents, a total of six pilots and six civilians have lost their lives. Apart from loss of lives, 39 civilian properties were damaged
Austin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Austin »

Indian Air Force Improves Poor Safety Record
The Indian Air Force (IAF) recorded its lowest accident rate in 36 years in the year ending March 31. The introduction of upgraded Western aircraft; quality audits of maintenance practices; increased use of simulators; and voluntary reporting of unsafe acts have contributed to the improved record, a senior official said at a recent media briefing.

Of the five aircraft that crashed in the last 12 months, three of the losses were attributed to equipment malfunctions: a bomb fuse misfired on an Su-30; a fan blade failed in the recently overhauled engine of a MiG-27; and a MiG-21 suffered a pump failure. Human error caused the crash of a Jaguar fighter and a Chetak (Alouette III) helicopter.

Over the previous four years, 45 aircraft crashed. According to statistics released to the Indian parliament on March 21, the service was losing 16 to 18 aircraft–the equivalent of one fighter squadron–every two years.

The IAF operates 27 different types of aircraft, including eight types of helicopter, six fighter models, 10 transport and three trainer types, all with specific maintenance features and with differing degrees of redundancy. In 2011 a safety committee reported that the high accident rate was caused mainly by technical defects pertaining to old technology and a lack of genuine spare parts.

Prompt delivery of parts has been a major issue with the legacy Russian fighters, leading to the cannibalization of aircraft for parts. The defense minister recently released a note to Hindustan Aeronautics to speed up processing for tenders for spares, a senior air force official told AIN. A recent ruling ensures that all new requests for proposals will include life-cycle costs and a clause for post-delivery maintenance. The first contract in which this clause has been incorporated is the one for 75 PilatusPC-7 Mk II basic trainers.
Shubham
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Shubham »

Regarding recent Navy Chetak crash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjnEzxvQSWY

Why would a Chetak pitch up and roll to the left before plunging into the sea ?? Bird Hit ? Any news on the investigation reports ?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

For the record,

Indian Army chopper crashes at Siachen; both pilots safe

btw, from the Mig-29k walk around video posted in the Naval thread, the pilot had this to say,

"Have a solution for close formation night flying with lights on the sides towards the cockpit", there were similar looking lights on the rear vertical stabilizer,

this feature is in contrast to two Mi-17s that were in a formation flight and collided during daytime around Oct 2012
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by krishnan »

10:36 MiG-21 crashes, pilot ejects safely: A MiG-21 aircraft of IAF today crashed in Rajasthan's Barmer district, with the pilot ejecting safely. The plane crashed near Sodiyar village at 9 AM and the pilot ejected safely, Defence Spokesperson S D Goswami told PTI. He said the aircraft took off from the Uttarlai Airbase in the western sector and was on a routine sortie. It crashed 40 km off Barmer, he said. A rescue mission was immediately launched from Jodhpur airbase, he said.
keshavchandra
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by keshavchandra »

krishnan wrote:
10:36 MiG-21 crashes, pilot ejects safely: A MiG-21 aircraft of IAF today crashed in Rajasthan's Barmer district, with the pilot ejecting safely. The plane crashed near Sodiyar village at 9 AM and the pilot ejected safely, Defence Spokesperson S D Goswami told PTI. He said the aircraft took off from the Uttarlai Airbase in the western sector and was on a routine sortie. It crashed 40 km off Barmer, he said. A rescue mission was immediately launched from Jodhpur airbase, he said.
It is the biscon this time. Thank god pilot is safe.
member_26965
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_26965 »

Indian Air Force Mi-17 V5 helicopter crashes during rescue mission

http://frontierindia.net/indian-air-for ... ue-mission
Manish_Sharma
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Manish_Sharma »

^ Some channels are reporting all the 8 people are dead, while some are not sure about status of Pilots.

:(
vina
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vina »

Sad to hear about the MI-17 crash and loss of lives. However , the consolation (if any) was that it was a MI-17. If it was Dhruv that had crashed, all the Natashas and Rodina Lovers and TV Wankers (oops Anchors) such as Shiv Aroor would be out in full force doing R&D (Rhona & Dhona) on the Dhruv and running blaring stories (like what happened in the crash in South America) and there would have been a media circus.

With an MI-17 crash, it would be confined to the 9th page in a two line story and be dead and buried in one day.
vasu raya
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

There was a Mi-17 crash in Arunachal due to bad weather last year and they figured that the Mi-17v5 is all weather capable, but with the current crash looks like that certification is bunkum.

Here is a video of the Mi-17 rotors, watch at 10secs, it shows how flexible the blades are, wonder if they could provide balanced lift during strong turbulence to give a steady flight?

vasu raya
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

From Livefist:
Bangalore: “There’s a famous joke that goes around among helicopter pilots all over the world – which says — When you fly helicopters, one thing is sure to go missing. Either the helicopter, the clouds or the mountains! Flying choppers is an extremely challenging task if the weather is against you. I salute all the pilots who are on various life-saving missions in Uttarakhand and other regions hit by floods,” Air Chief Marshal (retd) F H Major, took off in his inimitable style, while speaking to Express, on Tuesday.
He was responding to queries on the challenges being faced by pilots while undertaking rescue missions under extreme conditions. “I know the area very well and I have flown there extensively. One moment the sky appears and next moment it is gone. All-weather helicopters are fine for flying in the plains, but it is a different story when it comes to terrains that are very hostile during unpredictable weather,”
Major, who was the first helicopter pilot to become the IAF boss, said. He was all praise for the pilots who were determined to save the lives of people, stuck at Char Dham. “I have flown in these terrains on Mi-8s, Mi-17s, Cheetahs and the like. You need to be extremely careful about the weather. When you are doing rescue operations, your job becomes more difficult. As a pilot you will have to take some calculated risks. You can't really predict what will be going through the minds of a pilot. This is undoubtedly the largest rescue operation undertaken by the Indian Air Force (IAF)," Major said.
Echoing his sentiments was Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Ajit Lamba, Bangalore's most popular Test pilot. "These are war-like conditions and the pilots from the IAF and the Army are doing an outstanding job. The weather is so bad and every time you will have to launch calculated missions. We have never seen rescue missions of this scale in the recent past and the pilots are the heroes, considering the risk they undertake," Lamba said.
The national media has also hailed the role played by Bangalore-bred Dhruv copters, which finally has got its due recognition. “It's heartwarming to see that the Dhruvs are on life-saving missions in large numbers. I am delighted that the capabilities of Dhruv under extreme unfriendly conditions have proven yet again. This is great news for all those who believed in the capabilities of Dhruv,” says Wg Cdr (retd) C D Upadhyay, another chopper pilot from city and former Chief Test Pilot (CTP) of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
Group Capt (retd) Baljit Singh Chhokar, who was the CTP of HAL for 20 years (1982-2002), said that with marginal weather, the pilots have to take split-second decisions. “I have undertaken similar missions. Under hostile conditions, the copter will be at its limits of performance. It's unfortunate that a we had a fatal accident (Mi-17 V5 crash). I am proud of all the pilots," said Chokkar.
while everyone states weather is an issue for Choppers, Dhruv as a platform is praised for operating under difficult conditions. where can we draw the line between extreme weather and the capability of a chopper?

btw we haven't seen the final report on the last Dhruv crash in whiteout conditions close to Siachen.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by nachiket »

MiG-21 crashes in Rajasthan, pilot killed
JODHPUR: A MiG-21 Bison fighter aircraft of IAF crashed on Monday while landing at Uttarlai Airbase in western Rajasthan, leaving the pilot dead.

The aircraft was on a routine sortie when it crashed at 9.30am at Uttarlai, defence spokesperson SD Goswami said.

The pilot was killed in the mishap. A court of inquiry has been constituted to ascertain the cause of the incident, the spokesman said.
All the 21's that have crashed recently seem to be the Bison versions. Not a good sign. I have no idea how many of the 125 which were upgraded are left. Quite a few have crashed in the past few years from what I remember.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by member_20453 »

:( RIP, time for LCA to be inducted in large numbers, both in MK-1 and 2 versions, I think we need 500+ of these birds asap in blocks. I think it can inducted asap with continuos testing with BVR and other missiles coming in a bit later in a couple of years.
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