My layman's assessment is they whited each other out in that dry light powder and lost ground reference.

Sounds like no injuries. Anyone know any of the guardsmen?

Zzz wrote:My layman's assessment is they whited each other out in that dry light powder and lost ground reference.

Sounds like no injuries. Anyone know any of the guardsmen?

The news media outlet had a video of a CO Guard representative announcing and explaining the accident. He stated that the first helo impacted and parts of it's rotor system impacted the second helo, bringing it down. If you look at the after accident photos, the second helo is pretty much intact, while the first obviously suffered a rotor strike.

The representative also noted that the Guard has authorization to operate there from the US Forest Service. He was questioned by the media about how close they were to the lifts and skiers.

Could have been a LOT messier.

A friend in the MT Guard flies the newest generation of CH-47, and he said that helo does a beautiful job of operating in those conditions with the autopilot. He said it does an amazing job of flying the helicopter.

MTV

mtv wrote:
A friend in the MT Guard flies the newest generation of CH-47, and he said that helo does a beautiful job of operating in those conditions with the autopilot. He said it does an amazing job of flying the helicopter.

MTV

Did not realize an autopilot could provide hover in those conditions. That's really cool.

The CH-47F has a pretty decent AFCS.

The H-60M is the only Blackhawk that has “coupled modes,” but they’re cobbled on. Not as good.

They reference things like radar altitude and EGI position and work in degraded visual environments.

I don't claim to be much of an avionics expert, and even less so in Swingwings. However many years ago at the annual Reading, PA airshow one of the autopilot manufacturers was displaying their "latest & greatest". The representitive was "challanging" willing participants to attempt to hold the blackbox "brain" of their AP system perfectly still in their hands. Try as I might I couldn't hold the "brain" still enough to stop the linear actators from being continously "active" in it's efforts to stabilize my "imputs", very impressive.

The crews rode down the mountain on the chair lift.

More photos and a news conference here
https://fireaviation.com/2022/02/22/two ... -ski-area/

Years ago, in Kotzebue, Alaska, I watched two Army CH-47s (this was years ago, so very primitive systems compared to today) fire up in winter conditions there for a training mission. They were on a crosswind strip, which hadn't been plowed. Both helicopters lifted off at about the same time, pulled up into a hover, and everything around them went instant white out.

Then they hovered there for a couple minutes, before finally departing.

That afternoon I asked one of the pilots what they were doing in the first few minutes of their flight. His response was "Hover checks". I noted that since I couldn't see them (and they're big and OD green) they were probably blind also. His comment was basically "That's what we do, pretty much every takeoff and landing in winter up here.".

Sure looked spooky to me, though.

MTV

Crazy. Why not just fly the damn thing away.

mtv wrote: "That's what we do, pretty much every takeoff and landing in winter up here.".

Sure looked spooky to me, though.

MTV

Maybe that was the purpose of this exercise, to practice whiteout landings?

This next thing I say not to poke fun at those guardsmen, but just because of made me chuckle. I had the chute of my snowblower pointed upwind a couple days ago, goggles on but no beaver fur hat like my well-to-do neighbor Ross, the powder indeed a whiteout directly into my freezing face, and at the end of my pass I was starting into the road blind and deaf to the free Troy Bilt's purr. I paused and disengaged the auger as the air cleared and visibility returned. Sure enough, there was the UPS truck ready to flatten me.

No goggles for me, just beaver fur and an IPA before going after it. Been plowing in my heated cab Polaris ranger til now. Only place left to put the snow, is up.

Ross4289 wrote:Crazy. Why not just fly the damn thing away.

Because it’s a training event. Easier to gain the experience and skills needed to safely deal with degraded visual environments when nobody is shooting at you.

Ross4289 wrote:No goggles for me, just beaver fur and an IPA before going after it. Been plowing in my heated cab Polaris ranger til now. Only place left to put the snow, is up.

The family all loved this pic BTW. We're wondering where your mining claim is.

CamTom12 wrote:

Ross4289 wrote:Crazy. Why not just fly the damn thing away.

Because it’s a training event. Easier to gain the experience and skills needed to safely deal with degraded visual environments when nobody is shooting at you.

Amen! We ask these folks to do insanely difficult tasks in a combat environment, and as Cam notes, that requires training in a non combat environment. Which equals risk.

Consider the current cluster going on in/around Ukraine. Does anyone doubt that at some point we COULD be asking troops to land in snow covered terrain?

And the days of the Guard outfits being a safe haven from actual combat are long gone. Guard units nowadays serve front line combat tours like our full time troops.

It’s a tough job, and requires training. Sometimes shit happens. Good on these guys for not killing anyone.

MTV

Way back in Hueys with no autopilot we approached slowly and just lowered the collective when brown or white out. That was on level ground.

I would sack anyone remotely connected to their training program. Planning and authorizing a training missions that wipes out 50 million in assets is incompetence and stupidity beyond comprehension. Every heliski experienced pilot that has looked at that video knew the result within the first couple seconds.