I saw this video on Reddit and was struck by the dangerous maneuver needed to disembark a doctor at an accident crisis without actually landing in Melvatnet in Snillfjord, Norway.
This pilot’s skill is only equalled by his courage. While we also have mountain rescues, I have never heard of such a maneuver in the states.
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nick
if it’s lutefisk or starving then i’m losing weight. lefse is pretty good though.
what was the line in the arlo guthrie song “luckly i didn’t go into the mountain, i went over the cliff”.
Do whatever it takes. That is the creed.
The pilot says that it wasn’t that difficult. It was landing on the guardrail which stabilized the craft while the dr. left it. I’m still impressed.
Bron,
There was the Lockheed XV-4 Hummingbird, which was still in the experimental stage when the project was halted. That was back in the early 1960s, and the Hummingbird was being developed at a VTOL (Vertical TakeOff and Landing) fighter. Two were built. Both of them were destroyed during testing. In the first crash, the test pilot was killed. When the second prototype malfunctioned, the pilot ejected safely, but of course the plane crashed.
More currently, the Boeing (A160T) Hummingbird is an unmanned rotorcraft still under development. It first flew in 2002 with a piston engine as the A160. When they switched to turbine power, the designation became the A160T.
Want to see truly ultimate helicopter flying skill? Sent this to my son, who is a former USCG officer and he was impressed. He says he only knew one other pilot who could fly like this.
Skilled and brave Norwegians. Too bad their food sucks!
Nice story but how about a report on how Connecticut Justice is victimizing black men by way of incarceration for nothing???
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It was an amazing job of flying.
hummingbirds do this type of thing all the time. I watch them sip nectar from a flower, they move in three dimensions with ease. And are accurate enough to stick their bill in a flower and remain stationary.
When a hummingbird says that is good flying I will believe it. đŸ™‚
Which brings up a question, how come there are no fighter planes called Hummingbirds?
It’s good flying, but I would not get all excited about it. It’s what helicopter pilots do. Lifting heavy loads is much more dangerous, and a Coast Guard rescue mission in heavy weather is more dangerous yet.
I once saw a picture of a Chinook, the huge “bananna” with two big rotors, hovering in a canyon backed up to a building with its back door open and the tailgate resting on the building’s roof while people were going back and forth between the roof and the interior of the helicopter..
In the clip above, the pilot could see the target of his hover. In the case of the Chinook and in rescues at sea, the pilot cannot see. He is being coached by someone aft who is telling him, “Down one foot, back three inches…”
I was impressed that the pilot had so much control that the helicopter did not move when the doctor jumped off, thus making the load lighter. It helped that there was little or no wind.
OS:
Absolute maximum vehicle width in Norway is 2.6 meters. Standard maximum is 2.55 meters. I would guess the lane widths are about the same as ours.
Excellent…… Skilled….
That is excellent flying. The doctor was in no danger, because dropping off a passenger while in low hover is a common practice. It is hard to tell how much clearance the rotor blades have from that rock embankment, so that is the hard part. The pilot is good. In mountainous terrain, rescue helicopter pilots have to perform similar maneuvers on a regular basis.
Here is the back story and some explanation by the pilot, Lars Amdal.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/02/spectacular-helicopter-landing-shows-it-balancing-on-a-highway-guardrail/
Wow … both the doctor and the pilot … most impressive