Helicopter landing on water

[HowardKennitby]

There does not seem to be a section for aviation so will put this here.

Watched P. William(and others) in Canada landing helicopter on water. Every clip showed that craft had forward motion at touchdown. Is there a reason for this method as opposed to just settling on the water?

Howie

[ChuckFickens]

There are two main reasons why a helicopter would do a running take off or landing, either because they are too heavily loaded to be able to hover safely (or altitude means the air isn't dense enough to sustain a hover. but this isn't going to be an issue at sea level). If this is the case they need the extra lift generated by forward movement. The other reason would be to minimise down wash from the blades, so it could have been for either reason. A suitably equipped heli that can safely hover with the load it has can certainly do VTOL's from water if the pilot chooses to though.

[HowardKennitby]

ChuckFickens

Thank you for answering

I don't know if you have seen the TV footage but the forward velocity was not great and I can't think it contributed much to lift. Your idea about the effect of down-draft on the water surface may be more important. Forward motion would cause the craft to move into calmer water more quickly after touchdown.

Howie

[Hopkirk]

I could do that

[Hopkirk]

Well his father crashed a BAe 146

[tank1960]

made me laugh that Hopkirk and Trimeresurus.

[ChuckFickens]

I didn't see the program, was it an autorotation, or just a normal landing?

Autorotations will pretty much always be done with forward motion above land or water and then the pilot would choose whether to come in hot for a running landing or to flair just before touchdown depending on surface and space.

[Hopkirk]

Oh, I forgot.

They blamed someone else for it.

http://www.independen...es-crash-1592247.html

[ChuckFickens]

True, but There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ;-)