MD500E Flying - Part 3 Start-up and Night Flight 

Thanks for the comment - glad you enjoyed the flight !!

Fantastic reply!

The 500 (or any aircraft with dampers on the skids) ‘flatters’ the pilots as it makes the touch down seem slightly smoother than ‘rigid’ skids. But thanks anyway - we will take the compliment!

Thanks for the feedback !

I am from Indonesia..

Thank you for the feedback!

Thanks Eamon, appreciate the feedback - we have some more 500 content to be uploaded this week! Hope you will enjoy!

Thank you !! It was a great flight in a very tidy helicopter!

Thanks! Glad that I could share the ride with you all!

Thank you

Good spot

The view is spectacular at night

Thank you ! Doing some night flying in a Robinson today- not a turbine I am afraid - but will try and get some pictures

Or footage

Thanks !

Thank you ! Happy new year too

Thanks!

The real life buzzard is the MH-6 Little Bird, Although there have been many variations of the "M" series of helicopters, civilian ones usually have doors, less powerful engines and so on.

Dark Flight thanks for the update😊

Hi there - thanks for the comments and the encouragement! Don’t worry, lots of flying still going on and a new video to launch very soon! In the mean time, take care and I look forward to your feedback on the next video shortly !

Where did you fly?

@@ABHelicoptersover the valleys

Merci!

Glad you liked the video either way!

Don’t worry, with your back ground, you will have no issues picking it up

It can be very relaxing flying at night , the air is cooler and there is usually less aircraft traffic !

Sure thing sir ! Next video will have ATC

Thought it was rather quiet this evening- a quick routing through Brize Norton airspace - Fairford overhead - to avoid an A400M and Chinook doing radar approaches - then straight over to Denham. Benson was shut so after some blind calls and checking in with Farnborough radar - it was onto a Denham Radio (130.725mhz) for join instructions at Maple Cross- only one R44 in the circuit doing night training and a light aircraft taxing out

With atc! MD500E Start Up sequence, take off and autorotation Flight ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QjH-SB6s-VE.html

Hi Dylan, currently we offer flight instruction on the R22/44/66 and the MD500

Thanks for the support! Let me know if there is anything you would like us to cover in our next video

Real RC helicopters are hard to fly, not the fixed pitch coaxial ones they sell at the mall. Collective pitch RC helicopters are real helicopters, just a lot smaller. They have all the same flight controls and the same steep learning curve. They can also kill you. My largest has a 5 foot rotor disk spinning carbon fiber blades at 2200 rpm. If it hits you in the head, you will die.

@@Monjar3 I've tried to fly one i crashed it i need someone to teach me my dad said he would The helicopter was ok it was a little scratched

There is a deployable pilot controlled landing light - that is moved via a control on the pilot side collective

Never mind....... the head lamp had me fooled there for a while

Don’t worry - the lights come on with the nav lights but first need to check everything whilst the battery is off!

Hi Bernard The aircraft has a turbine temperature limitation - if it is looking like this limit will be exceeded -927 degrees Celsius for example - the pilot has to roll off the throttle to cut fuel supply whilst continuing to motor the starter motor to reduce the temperature by blowing cold air through the engine

and I thought it was black magic! Learn something new every day

@Sam Thanks. I just enjoy helping people understand things

Afraid not- only hold an instructor rating and instrument rating - not an instrument instructor rating

Very good question- so there are some airports that do not have a ‘control tower’ - and there is a general advisory frequency where pilots can make calls to one another advising what they are doing, however, for any controlled airport - there may be a number of frequencies a pilot has to listen and speak on- starting from the ‘ATIS’ - automated terminal information service- where details on the weather , runway and other pertinent info is broadcast, then a ‘ground’ frequency , where taxi instructions and flight clearance is provided, moving onto a ‘tower’ frequency - for take off and manoeuvres in the immediate vicinity , before going to an information, radar or departure frequency for onwards clearance. In the video, I may have omitted to include the audio on this occasion, but certainly there was a radio conversation occurring!

The departure is a private site in the west of the UK- near Kemble . The airfield is Denham - north west of London

Hello Etienne, Thanks for your note- flying at night takes a little more planning for the navigation- the same principles as the day can be used, but you look for large scale towns or roads that are illuminated. Other navigation aids can be used to supplement this - VOR radio aids , or as you mentioned , the GPS moving map too. The fall back position is ‘dead reckoning’, where you fly a certain speed for a certain time and you should be at a certain place

@@ABHelicopters Ah ok makes sense. Thanks for the reply!

Pleasure - please feel free to ask away on any questions - for this video or any of our others !

The Vne - or maximum speed of this aircraft is 152 kts- in the D model it is 156kts

To save fuel

You have to be very careful when landing ‘off airfield’ for all the reasons you just described!

@@ABHelicopters Are powerlines and high strung wires in UK required to have that scintilated coating on them that appears extremely bright in IR and low light amplification night vision? It's common in California as well as rubber ball weights on wires. There are also strict no flight below 300 and high caution below 500 feet AGL standing NOTAMs . Despite the rules and enforcement, California airspace still is most dangerous to Robinsons. Cali, Oregon, Washington State, and Canadian British Columbia are Robinsons Graveyard. California is just naturally rough mountainenous terrain. From Northern Cascades to Southern California Santa Barbara range. With Pacific cold air mixing with hot air from High Desert , both VFR fixed wings and rotors find themselves in inadvertent IMC. Yet FAA and CaLDOT does not require private , light charter, and commercial light helicopter license to be instrument qualified. Only to be trained in recognizing and avoiding entry into IMC, and self grounding on IMC days.. Most days in Sourhern and Central Coast are VFR days. But when IMC monster strikes, the ceiling is pretty low and thick.

Truth's Knight_0777 The instruments have backlights, but you have to find the power switch - no interior light when you open the door ;-) Another reason for the head torch is in case of panel lighting failure.

What about night flying during the day?

Would love to be able to offer free rides, but alas, I haven’t flown this particular helicopter for a while !

Hi Mike- the hourly rate we charge is £850

AB Helicopters Ltd wow, I thought they would be about 2K I’ve just had a 90 minute lesson in a R44 in the USA cost $1020 I love those Md 500’s my first ever passenger ride was about 30 years ago in a 500D loved it!

Depends on doing what and what terrain !

@@ABHelicopters Idaho/Montana.

Mountain flying - take the 500- if you want passengers in the back - 206

Hi David - that’s correct but the 500 is set up (in the civil version at least ) for the pilot to sit on the left - to do with the optional 3 seats up front

Sorry your a great pilot God bless the 500 mean it

The 500 is set up to fly left seat - though there are some military ones with right hand captain

to do with it being set up with a bench seat - 3 up front - collective had to be on the left

AB Helicopters Ltd i heard in some helis it had something to do with the direction of the rotors?

Good tip- it doesn’t come out so well on the film but it is a red light

Agree about strapping it on! Yes space is a premium, certainly in the south east of the U.K. , so spots can be quite tight. But even medevac helicopters need 2 x the rotor diameter for day time emergency landings , and 4 x for night !

@@ABHelicopters How many hours can your MD500 live, regardless of maintenance, before airframe is retired? Are you bound by 500 hour tailboom life? Or has that increased? For that matter what do you do with lifed out airframe? Is it sold to British version of AMARC? Sold piecemeal? Turbine there, gearbox to France, hub to Italy? Does MD Helicopters buy back at salvage cost the whole? EC has or had this civilian program where they would buy back hard landing airframes, or aged out airframes, that could no longer be certified, for study. They would rebuild the airframes then use them for destruction testing. Building their models for predicting airframe aging.

@@ABHelicopters Check out that mishap with BSO EC135. Developed engine bay fire. Tried to make it back, instead of autorot immediately. Fire ate through tailboom join bulkhead and boom separated. Turns out the airframe was aged out, but they still flew it. My guess is that vibration unseated engine or gearbox mounts, severing fuel lines. Engine and gearbox were overhauled 6 months ago, but undisclosed how many hours that was.

It’s a horrible accident, looking at the ground trace, they had so little time to react to the fire, especially as they thought it was initially an engine failure. Whilst no doubt the cause will be revealed in the NTSB investigation, but it is a timely reminder to crews to revise procedures such as engine fire, cabin fire, electrical fire, battery overtemp, and generator overheat, any of which could have caused the issue - (there are other videos that show the fire intensity greatest around the battery bay too)

@@ABHelicopters There was one fatality among crew. But pilot and Co pilot survived with minor injuries, and another medical crewman was injured. A person in apartment also perished. That's a miracle . That spin into building looked fatal for all. The ground track looked like the crew diagnosed emergency and tried to make it back to field. I know the area. It's densely urban with many roads and parking lots. But also lots of cars , antennas, and powerlines everywhere. So crew may have had little option. The emergency appears to have developed during initial climb out from field. Weather was hot and humid. Crew was two flight deck and two EMS. I am guessing max performance take off to 300 feet AGL , then turn to course to response location. The fire broke out during max performance climb. Pilot turned around to return to field. Obviously, with hindsight, he should have autoroted into a parking lot. But he may not have wanted to hazard people and property on ground. So he opted for return. But fire damaged his airframe to point offailure, leading to in-flight separation of tailboom. Emergency procedure for EC135 engine bay fire is to shut down engine, activate fire suppresion,and land immediately. Not land when convenient , or even ASAP. Immediately. That means autorotation . Even into a lot full of cars. If a few powerlines get clipped , oh well. EMS EC135 have wirestrike kits on em.

Sorry, not sure I understand ?

Plan ahead!