Helicopter Breaks Record By Landing On Mt Everest

[Starsailor]

Originally Posted by Dan CFI/CFII:
It'll take an act of God for someone to even hope to break that record!....

Dan

Originally Posted by SiuDude:
Think about what you just wrote for a second.

Through the miracle of plate tectonics, Everest continues to grow at a rate of 2.4in/6.1cm per year. Call it an act of God or whatever you like, but it happens, and provably so. The Chinese government sent out another expedition just this year to resurvey Everest (Qomolangma to them) again. The trick will be to find out when the trend starts to reverse itself, and go land there that day. But that may not be for another several hundred thousand years, by which time Daniel Delsalle and the engineers at Eurocopter won't care much anyway that their record was broken.

And ultrarunner is right on about the garbage. The Nepalese government pays an incentive to Sherpas that bring back discarded oxygen bottles. I guess the whole 'garbage in, garbage out' philosophy isn't followed so well when you're dying (and I mean literally dying) to summit.

Regards,
Starsailor

 

[ultrarunner]

Yeah, I don't consider any of those folks that climb Everest to be true mountaineers. Leaving garbage behind is simply unacceptable.

Only Reinhold Messner has climbed the way is should be done.

Simple as that. Opps...thread getting side-tracked...sorry.

 

[EagleRJ]

I'm saying he didn't hover at all.

The video clip they showed on TV showed the skids settling into the snow from a camera on the tailboom. It wasn't clear if the video was from the summit or landing at a lower base camp, but the news said he stayed there for two minutes. Not clear if that means he was sitting on the summit for two minutes, or if he was at 29,000' dragging his skids through the snow for two minutes.
It makes sense that even an overpowered helo would have trouble entering a true hover at 29,000'.

 

[mattpilot]

The video clip they showed on TV showed the skids settling into the snow from a camera on the tailboom. It wasn't clear if the video was from the summit or landing at a lower base camp, but the news said he stayed there for two minutes. Not clear if that means he was sitting on the summit for two minutes, or if he was at 29,000' dragging his skids through the snow for two minutes.
It makes sense that even an overpowered helo would have trouble entering a true hover at 29,000'.

I suppose its possible - They modified a lynx helicopter to go 217mph (max theoretical speed of a rotorcraft is 218mph), so i guess they could modify a eurocopter to have lots of power at high altitude. Special blades, variable rotor rpm, extra light, ... all that stuff should help in accomplishing the feat.

 

[Starsailor]

Amen to all that, ultrarunner.

 

[SiuDude]

Through the miracle of plate tectonics, Everest continues to grow at a rate of 2.4in/6.1cm per year. Call it an act of God or whatever you like, but it happens, and provably so. The Chinese government sent out another expedition just this year to resurvey Everest (Qomolangma to them) again. The trick will be to find out when the trend starts to reverse itself, and go land there that day. But that may not be for another several hundred thousand years, by which time Daniel Delsalle and the engineers at Eurocopter won't care much anyway that their record was broken.

And ultrarunner is right on about the garbage. The Nepalese government pays an incentive to Sherpas that bring back discarded oxygen bottles. I guess the whole 'garbage in, garbage out' philosophy isn't followed so well when you're dying (and I mean literally dying) to summit.

Regards,
Starsailor

I learn something new every day!

 

[User546]

(max theoretical speed of a rotorcraft is 218mph)

Do explain, I'm interested...

 

[Dan CFI/CFII]

"Yeah, I don't consider any of those folks that climb Everest to be true mountaineers. Leaving garbage behind is simply unacceptable.

Only Reinhold Messner has climbed the way is should be done."

Yeah, Messner was the only one who has ever done Everest straight Alpine style.... (and for the record, I love Messner's style)

C'mon man, times change. Hillary and Norgay were definately true mountaineers, but working within the limits of the technology and climbing ethics of the day. I agree that today, to leave a bottle is absolutely awful, but in '53?

Maestri was once thought to be merely a jerk, rather than the utter mountain-terrorist he is considered to be today. And some people even defended him at the time!

The number of bottles up there is steadily decreasing, and I forsee that the Maoists might drive so much more tourism away that there will be some "Sherpas" getting bottles for purely economic reasons.

Helicopter's taking tourists up there? I don't see it happening. The weather is bad far, far too often, there's nobody that will wait in Lukla for the weather to improve (Lukla is interesting for about a day, perhaps two, but then you've got to get up to Namche or down towards Jiri). That, and far too many people would die doing that. There are enough people who need the Gamov's by the time they get above Namche...

OK, back to your regularly scheduled thread...

Dan

 

[LAZYB]

Haven't done much thinking about helicopters and aerodynamics lately, but the primary issue would probably be "retreating blade stall".

 

[mattpilot]

Do explain, I'm interested...

As LAZYB said, its primarily do to retreating blade stall - either that, or the rotorblade tip reaching a supersonic speed.

Engineers came up with the theoretical max speed and some british people took a lynx helicopter and modified it heavily with special high lift blades & variable RPM.

The fastest production helicopter is the MI-8 with a top speed of 198mph (if i remember correctly).

Now thats all Indicated. TAS will vary with altitude, of course.

Do a search on google if you want more detail on the subject.