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Inbound Aircraft ... DUCK!

Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 9:06 pm
by RickI
Aircraft inbound such as:

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or

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you had better drop your kite down near the water until the aircraft passes...

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Why?

- The pilot may not see your kite. At 150 mph he is traveling 2.5 miles per minute. That isn't a lot of reaction time in some cases.

- If he hits your kite you will go from near zero to 100 to 150 mph or more. You may not survive the impact and whiplash even if your lines break shortly after impact.

- If he hits your kite, be it an airplane or helicopter, even if you escape unharmed the kite may well cause an out of control crash. Toy kites have come close to doing this in the past. There have even been reports that rafts of toy kites were flown over villages in Vietnam to discourage close helicopter manuvers during that conflict. A helicopter sucked a kite into its engine intake in Brazil a while back. This could have resulted in the destruction of the helicopter I have been told. The original thread about this incident appears at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/message/41273

A big thanks to fabinhoj for digging this out of the kitesurf list archives including the photos. He has reproduced some of the text below. I have uploaded the two photos of the chopper below.

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Note kite embedded into base of rotor

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A closer view

For guys that think this is BS, for NEW KITERS, etc. think about something else for a moment. What do think would happen if you dropped your kite down near the ground, in front of a sports car going 50 mph to where it wraps over the front of the speeding car? Remember you are HOOKED IN. What do you think would happen? Also, who would ACTUALLY go out and do something like this?

GUESS you are doing when you leave your kite up and in the path of a moving aircraft? There is a difference. though. There is a good chance that the aircraft will be going two to three times FASTER. Sounds bad, IT IS. So now that we have thought about this obvious hazard lets take steps to avoid it.

- If you hear an aircraft, normally you can 1 to 3 miles away or further, immediately drop your kite down near the water. If this means falling of your board into the water, JUST DO IT. That is good old ANTI-LOFTING technique and if you are lofted in this way it could be a terminal record breaker. DO NOT assume that the pilot has seen you OR will avoid your kite, as happens most of the time. The time that it doesn't would be grim at best.

We need to avoid kite-aircraft involvement at ALL COSTS!

A recent incident involving a kiteboarder and a careless helicopter pilot appeared on the FKA list. The kiteboarder would have been hard pressed to avoid this incident but still it is possible to do so. The consequences of failure are too severe to contemplate. Details of the incident appear at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FKSA/message/1228

Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 9:55 pm
by sq225917
yeh you should have ben at the air show on the east coast in the uk last summer, kiters out, kiters came in, harrier jump jet pilot goes out and bails 60ft over the water....

oops.

Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 9:58 pm
by threetreeptr
I think this old Naish kite is for sale...
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Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 10:10 pm
by RickI
What happened in the UK? The shots that I uploaded were from an airshow as well. No kiteboarders in sight on that day.

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 4:06 pm
by Blow Me
Unreal. Don't they have Regulations Against 'Buzzing' Beaches? I have seen Low Planes before, but not this low.

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 4:52 pm
by threetreeptr
A search for airline related kite accidents pull this page up by a Mr. Charles Benton...
My curiosity fueled by these incidents I searched the National Transportation Safety Board Aviation Accident/Incident Database for references to aircraft "accidents" involving kites. There are none apparent in the 45,015 aviation accidents recorded by NTSB since 1983. I also searched the 114,817 record database of aircraft-related "incidents" reported since 1981. Here I found 8 incidents involving kites. None resulted in accident or injury though a person was charged with malicious mischief for deliberately flying a kite in front of a Pitts (Special?) on landing approach. The Pitts landed without damage. Another incident in 1996 involved a Piper PA-18 towing a banner. A kite severed the banner line and the banner "fell into the sea" near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Of the eight incidents involving kites four were described as causing no damage while the other four caused minor damage. Four of the aircraft involved were single-engine private aircraft, three were executive multi-engine aircraft (two jets), while the remaining case was an Agusta A109 commercial helicopter. Five of the incidents occurred during an aircraft's final runway approach and one immediately after takeoff so there appears to be a causal and intuitive relationship with proximity to airports. The remaining two incidents occurred during low level cruise (the helicopter ferrying passengers from New York to the airport and the banner towing airplane.)

Only two reports mentioned kiteline strength. The helicopter incident had the following description "during cruise aircraft contacted 100 pound test nylon kite cord. Cord entangled in rotors. Safe landing." The helicopter was not damaged. The other kiteline citation mentioned 20 pound fishing line. A third incident was described by the FAA as "Pilot struck a kite that was being flown by a 9 year old girl in his flight path on final approach." Brooks Leffler provided some more details on this March 1988 incident in Mountain View, California. "A little girl was holding 170 lb line to her dad's 11 ft Cloud Pleasers Marshall Delta-Conyne when a flying ambulance came in too low on a seldom-used approach to nearby Palo Alto airport and snagged the line in the prop. Girl was lifted about ten feet and let go when she saw a grove of trees approaching. No damage or injuries, but lotsa adrenalin pumped."
quoted from http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/background/safety.html

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 7:39 pm
by RickI
I found some of the same accident references when I looked into helicopter-kite interactions about 6 months ago in the NTSB database. It is interesting that accidents to date have been more in the way of incidents. I hope the trend continues! I didn't come across the website that you mentioned. Do you still have the URL?

Some misfortune can be anticipated, imagined and perhaps avoided in response. The frequent need to be convinced or compelled to a certain precaution by actual accident casualties is a poor human trait. I hope we never have an accident involving an aircraft and a kiteboarding kite.

Keep alert guys and keep 'em low when needed!

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 8:19 pm
by Badwind
This is slightly off topic, but about 4 years ago I had a USNavy F18 pass within 200ft below my feet while paragliding in the Cascades mountains, east of Seattle. I don't think the pilot even saw me but his REO probably sprained his neck as they went by. I made direct eye contact with him for an instant. They were doing several hundred knots.They came around the corner of the mountain and then disappeared over a ridge, 3 miles away in what seems like about 5 seconds. Thank god for that 200ft. It was purely chance.
I've often pondered the consequences (for all of us) if that jet had snagged my on my lines. Paragliders are certified to 8 Gs. Accelerating from 15mph to 400mph almost instantly would have nearly the same affect on my body as running into a wall at 400mph. I'd be strained through my harness, at best. I doubt it would have had any more desirable an effect on the jet either.

Dan

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 8:32 pm
by fabinhoj
In Ilhabela brazil, it hapens once.
the helicopter was veeery very damage, the kiter could release the kite just before it hits the helicoter.
I am always aware of it, people here fly helicopters like bikes NO RULES AT ALL
cheers

fabio

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 8:53 pm
by fabinhoj
thats whats happened !
yahoogroups/kitesurf msg#41273

Ever wondered what happens when you throw a 11.5 AR5 Naish kite into the
main rotor of a Bell helicopter ? what if you were to do that over a
crowded beach ? what are the chances that NOT 1 person gets injured ?

this all happened before my very eyes yesterday...

there is one spot at Ilhabela (near Sao Paulo, Brazil) that is good for
southwinds. There is a rarely used heliport (not approved by the local
equivalent of the FAA apparently) that is right on the beach. Its a
tight island so they just plopped the heliport in between a beach and a
house.

Yesterday there were about 30 kites (a lot for our standards in brazil)
sailing at this spot. the wind was ranging from 10-15 knots and people
were really enjoying the day... the wind dropped to about 8 knots so
most kitesurfers headed back in to the small beach and landed their
kites... The whole beach has about 30 meters in length (measured with
kite lines !) so it was quite impressive that we could sail that many
kites and have no near misses. There were only two kites up in the
air... Our friend Kiko that owns a hotel on that beach (intermediate)
and myself on my kitelongboard (which rocks in 8 kntos with an arc1120).

Suddenly the bell executive helicopter (owned by a commuter company)
swooped in VERY fast into the heliport. The pilot seemed to be doing
some aerobatics to land as quickly and as "vietnam movie style" as
possible. I was about 30 meters upwind with my arc and i started to get
really worried about the helicopter knocking my kite down so i brought
it down to the side. Kiko was right next to the heliport - about 15
meters to the side. The Helicopter has almost landed (about 10 meters in
the air) when Kikos kite started getting sucked to the side of the
helicopter. he was trying desperately to steer it the other way but the
kite did not respond. He (luckily) unhooked and released the wrist
leash. The kite came over the top of the helicopter (at 10 meters in the
air) and INTO the main rotor it went...

The kite disintegrated in less than a second, it was like an explosion
of ripstop. The lines got reeled into the rotor... and the helicopter
landed in the nexyt few seconds. as it slowed the rotor down the bar got
reeled into the blades until it got sucked into the gear and as the
rotors slowed to a halt the naish bar went into the gears, the blades
twisted to a halt.

Total damage
1 kite
1 helicopter
NO human damage whatsoever !

There were about 60 people on the beach and many more spread around the
heliport.

If the kitesurfer hadnt unhooked he might have been pulled into the
blades or at least be thrown a considerable distance.
If the helicopter hadnt landed safely they might have crashed on people
or worse exploded and killed almost a hundred people.

Lesson learned. keep FAR away from helicopters.

The most impressive was seeing the kite get ripped into powdered
ripstop. the fact that no one got hurt allowed us to make some jokes
about the durability of naish kites to Dudu (naish software designer)
who was on the beach as well.
stefano rosso
yahoogroups/kitesurf msg#41273

some photos:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... rolado.jpg
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... ro%201.jpg