tomscott.com - @tomscott - Helicopters in London have a simple rule that means they're safer for everyone in the city. I stand on something a bit too high in order to explain it.
Just a small correction, single engine helicopters are restricted to flying over the thames. Dual engine helicopters (Which are used by Police, Air Ambulance, and other operators) are not restricted to this route as they are able to fly on the remaining engine (with reduced performance).
+AeroMad91 he basically said that he said that emergency/police etc helicopters and fly elsewhere but a camera/filming helicopter would need to ask months in advance
@@vwertix1662 Filming helicopters often have two engines as well. If I'm not mistaken, you are generally not allowed to cross cities in most European countries with only one engine.
@mike A Yes... you can. I work at a helicopter tour operator and I used to fly out of an airfield very close to London. We have what are called the Heli-Lanes. These are set paths that helicopters can go. A single engined helicopter must stay within Autorotation distance of the River Thames. A multi-engine has alot more leeway. Our twin squirrel often took a shortcut over a few london boroughs at the end of a tour!
I remember being told by a helicopter pilot that you can't actually fly a single-engine helicopter over the main part of a city (for obvious reasons), but you can fly a twin-engine one, as if one engine fails, the other can keep the helicopter flying.
+Leannyly well, the only problem with having only one powered rotor left is that you can no longer control jaw and will therefor spin out of controll pretty quickly. (If your surviving engine for some reason powers at least two rotors you should be fine)
Setririon The engines of a multi engine helicopter all supply power via the same gearbox. Engines are connected to the gearbox via a sprag clutch (or similar) so the remaining engines can still power the gearbox which, in turn, is connected to both rotors. This applies whether the aircraft has a tail rotor or 2 main rotors.
I live near between a small airport, an raf Base and another small runway, and there are reasonably heavy restrictions on single wing aircraft in the area, particularly low flying ones such as microlights
I have no idea what Setririon's thinking was there... I think he must assume a twin-engine helicopter has a dedicated engine for the tail rotor and you are ok if that is the one that fails or if he thinks the only helicopters allowed near cities are Chinooks.. 0_O
1:42 As someone who jumps in and out of the back of a truck for a living, I must advise that you lower you center of mass as much as possible before jumping down. Makes the landing softer since you build up less momentum.
+Keg While this is indeed a 747, the A380 and 747 are by no means the only commonly flown airliners in the skies today that have four engines. The A340 does too, and there are still loads of those around. Not that you'd mistake an A340 for a 747 or A380 of course, because the extremely long and comparatively narrow body of an A340 makes it rather easy to spot.
Just spent a few days in London, and wow, never seen so many helicopters in so little time. And as you say, all of them following the riven, even a huge one! I still don't know what it was for, probably military (it was very huge, at least like a bus) Edit: Did my research, it was a Merlin helicopter, RAF
Note: This only applies to single-engine helicopters. Dual-Engine Helicopters are allowed to deviate from the river, but they still have to fly in so called "Heli lanes".
Gary McWilliams actually the cause of that crash was fuel mismanagement. The engines only failed due to lack of fuel, which they had plenty of just wrongly managed by the pilot.
The building is on land so wasn't in the flight path of the helicopter which should've been over the river. There was fog that morning so the reason for the crash was that the pilot flew under pressure from his client & couldn't see the river accurately enough.
Wikipedia says the opposite "Before the pilot had taken off, Caring [the client] called him twice on his mobile phone to suggest either delaying or cancelling the flight."
Water ditching is part of training, a tourist died in a crash in New York a couple of years back because they didn't know how to get out of their harness.
@@Zerbey Water ditching is a big part of the survival training for work in the North Sea (and most other offshore oil locations), but people still die in ditchings.
You're missing something very important: London only has one heliport, so there are really very few helicopters in London to begin with. How many have had to ditch into the Thames?
I'd say, not most, but all pilots are required to be able to do that. Apart from that, brilliant video, I was long intrigued how these massive number of helicopters fit "underneath" the huge plane traffic.
Exactly a decade later, Tom, having conquered his fear of heights (and roller coasters) would publish another video involving a helicopter, and an even longer way down...
Helicopter landing on a water might be pretty dangerous. The helicopters have a huge weight on the top of it so there is a big chance that the helicopter will turn upside down when it hits water. I can see it's still safer than landing into traffic though. So best choise is perhaps to hope that your helicopter doesn't crash.
and what exactly is the issue with flipping upside down? you can still get out of your helicopter and swim to shore. also, flipping over due to a top heavy weight makes the assumption it was trying to float on the water, rather than just sink.
I haven't in all fairness, but its only got a 5000ft runway. My Aircraft recognition isn't great, but it looks like a 747 to me. A 747 won't be landing on 5000ft runway...I believe there are only a handful of small 4 eng aircraft such as the 146 that land there.
Pablo NoEsEspañol I have, In fact I go spotting there. There’s a video on my channel where I video those planes and I can tell you a 747 has no place at EGLC.
Thank you for putting your life on the line to tell us this. I do wonder why I haven't seen more helicopters flying up and down the Thames, though. Also, wouldn't they fly into each other quite often?
The plane at 0:35 ISN'T headed for London City Airport. The only four-engine aircraft allowed to land at London City Airport is the BAe 146, and that in the video looks much too big to be a 146. (Also, much too much wing sweep. Could be a A340, A380 or 747 - hard to tell without careful study. But no way a 146).
Oh, I see a number of people already mentioned that. The perils of jumping in and commenting before reading all the other comments. But the error was just so obvious...
Cadde Let me clarify. What I wanted to do was show how extremist and ridiculous that law is, like forbiding road traffic to reduce car accidents. I can see how it can be misinterpreted
Huesudo, how can you reduce a number that does not exist? There had never been an accident before that law came in to action. And they never forbade flight, they just restricted it to follow the river, in the same way cars are restricted to following roads (or else they would hit treees, cows, farmers and other obstacles) You made absolutely no point there other than to prove how stupid you are. That's why I chose to reply to a three year old comment, that's how astounding your comment is.
There's an alternate timeline not too far from ours where Tom fell off the ledge and we don't have regular TYMNK episodes. I pity those who stuck in the darkest timeline.
Ah so that's why in the London editions of Treasure Hunt Keith always dropped Annie on pontoons on the river and she had to make her way to the actual places by foot, bike or passing car.........
I don’t think this is true. The Thames runs west to east across the city and Helicopters will generally want to cross between north and south. Only following the river would put them in conflict with London city and Heathrow airport. The reason helicopters don’t fly into buildings is because the pilot looks out the window, if it’s foggy, they shouldn’t fly.
Whatever that plane was you saw, it was most certainly not one that could use London City airport as it was far too large. Most probably it was destined for Heathrow.
The police chopper that was over Nag's Head from 3.00 to 3.30 am on Wednesday morning was nowhere near the river. It just woke up thousands of people instead.
A bit wet but fine? My friend and her partner died when their helicopter crashed in the hudson.. so I would say the statement is optimistic... Drowning and hypothermia are real risks.. but having said that it is the lesser evil compared to crashing into a building..
São Paulo is one of the cities with the heaviest helicopter traffic in the world. Yet, accidents there are rare and fatal accidents even rarer. And no restrictions about flying over the main city
Helicopters have no business flying in London unless they are being used for essential emergency service functions or similar. They are noisy, polluting and potentially dangerous and should not be used as short-cuts by the super-rich.
Tom Scott videos are really good at presenting interesting information that is also visually entertaining. There's not too many others doing videos like this.
I don't remember the exact details, but it could be a multitude of reasons. Attitude controls stopped working, too close to the ground, pilot error, wind buffeting... just to name a few. Go check out the official accident report details, it should say in there exactly why it crashed where it did.
Jamie McEwan i think he said "unless you're an emergency services helicopter" They wouldn't have to apply for a permit because, by definition, they're responding to a time sensitive emergency
looking at the the thumbnail, i assumed it was because Tom had become a giant who caught falling helicopters in his hands and gently put them down on the ground, but this works, too.
@@apache1234657 No because the runway is way too short for that to be possible. And the angle of descent too steep. I don't even know if the 747 would fit onto the runway when stationary.
Helicopters visiting the Battersea heliport are often fitted with emergency flotation systems which are deployed in case of an emergency water landing.
"safely, they can do something called an autorotation". Which is very tricky to pull off. My god they are tricky, but once you nail it, you can pull them off all the time. Scaring your instructor is fun :)
If you are in a helicopter landing in the water is a terrible idea, slowly drowning to death while strapped into a helicopter is a terrible way to go. Just look at what happened in NYC recently
Your avatar still amazes me. Where did you get the idea to mix those three? Or at least, where did you find it if you didn't make it yourself? I would really appreciate an answer even if it's just that you don’t remember where you got it from.
Gaehhn thanks a lot! I just thought "hey, the lambda symbol and an aperture are both circles, wonder what it would look like if I layered them on top of each other!" I call it the lamberture, haha, I got the thing in the center from half life 2, incase you were wondering, i got the thing around the lambda from portal, and the pattern around it from the TV series lost, it's the Dharma logo. hope this helps. I'm flattered.
erurevir I've played both Portal and Half Life, so I knew those two. I've never seen Lost, but this logo is also on Marisa's Mini Hakkero from the Touhou Project so that seemed familiar, too.
