Why do people universally duck when walking under a helicopter?

April 03, 2018, 08:32 PM

tatortodd

quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
Two reasons.

One. Because the Helitack crewmember that does the safety briefing tells you to crouch down approaching the helo.

Two. The reptilian part of your brain concerned with self-preservation screams, “Duck, dammit!”

When I took HUET (Helicopter Underwater Egress Training) to go offshore, they showed an extremely graphic video of a family exiting a tourist helicopter, and the husband excitedly extended his arms in the air as he walked away. As other posters have pointed out, the blades can dip several feet from the center to tip and he lost his arms with his family watching as other tourists filmed.

Pretty disgusting and it definitely drove home the point. I've been on a bunch of helicopters for work (Gulf of Mexico and Alaska) and a couple on vacation I've never once had the urge to walk upright away from a helicopter or raise my arms.

April 03, 2018, 08:53 PM

dwright1951

Way back when I was a kid every time that I saw a person walking up to a helicopter they ducked so it was ingrained in our memories a long time ago.

April 03, 2018, 09:17 PM

RHINOWSO

The Navy has a prominent safety program to keep people from walking through props on E-2/C-2 aircraft and rotors on helos - because too many people would walk into them on the flight deck. It stuck with me and I’ll always say the best way to never get hit by a prop / rotor is to never walk through the arc.

April 03, 2018, 09:38 PM

Sig209

quote:
Originally posted by hrcjon:

You have no idea of rotor height, droop, terrain. And I have no idea the actual rotor height to begin with as the model involved may not be the same and it might be nighttime, foggy, wet as well. What is the downside (none), what is the risk (big). So take the precaution.

this

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April 03, 2018, 09:41 PM

StayFrosty

Better to be seen than viewed.

April 03, 2018, 09:46 PM

reloader-1

quote:
Originally posted by tatortodd:
quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
Two reasons.

One. Because the Helitack crewmember that does the safety briefing tells you to crouch down approaching the helo.

Two. The reptilian part of your brain concerned with self-preservation screams, “Duck, dammit!”
When I took HUET (Helicopter Underwater Egress Training) to go offshore, they showed an extremely graphic video of a family exiting a tourist helicopter, and the husband excitedly extended his arms in the air as he walked away. As other posters have pointed out, the blades can dip several feet from the center to tip and he lost his arms with his family watching as other tourists filmed.

Pretty disgusting and it definitely drove home the point. I've been on a bunch of helicopters for work (Gulf of Mexico and Alaska) and a couple on vacation I've never once had the urge to walk upright away from a helicopter or raise my arms.

I’ve seen that video, it’s definitely a training video as that part is clearly fake. Hope that helps your memories!

April 03, 2018, 09:50 PM

synthplayer

April 03, 2018, 09:55 PM

cparktd

Boring for you guys that have been around them a lot but it fascinated me at the time.

I have only been near a running Helicopter once. This would have been in the 70's probably. I think it was called a Jolly Green Giant. Two story looking thing with the cockpit way up high on top, not on the nose, very smooth rounded body with sliding doors on the bottom level.
It came to town to set some antenna parts on a microwave tower. First thing it did was land in a church parking lot and offload several drums of fuel. It must have been lifting near it's capacity. It made 4 or 5 lifts that took about 10 minuets each but I only saw the last one. After every lift, and before they left for the day they would shut it down and add some more fuel via a hand cranked pump in the barrel. The blades on that thing drooped a lot. When leaving for the final time one crew stayed outside and he raised his arms in unison with the blades as they throttled up / spun up on restart. Once the blades were level with the ground the guy ran and jumped in and shut the door and they took off.

I was about 250 feet away leaning up against my buddies pickup truck when they left. I thought it was going to turn his pickup over! He was parked broadsided to the chopper and the wind was almost bouncing his tires off the ground. Damn impressive to me and made me wonder why they didn't rope off a larger area!

If I had to get in that thing while running I don't think I would duck... more likely crawl!

April 03, 2018, 11:22 PM

snwghst

quote:
Originally posted by TMats:

One. Because the Helitack crewmember that does the safety briefing tells you to crouch down approaching the helo.

This exactly why I did, there were many times we were dropped off with a single skid on the hillside. we made sure to remind all the team members to go downhill FIRST

April 03, 2018, 11:29 PM

cslinger

Because Helo Blades can droop and everybody universally wants to keep their head attached to their body.

It’s just natural to want to stay as far away from the idustrial strength weed whacker as possible. Same reason everybody pulls their arms down when the roller coaster goes in the tunnel.

April 04, 2018, 12:46 AM

RNshooter

Rotor blades droop and flap several feet, especially when slowing down.
Also, a stiff gust of wind can deflect them quite a bit. If that deflection heads in your general direction, you can go from all clear to half as tall, just like that.

Bruce

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April 04, 2018, 01:05 AM

bobtheelf

While researching family history I came across this story:

quote:
Bill relates that the Troop had just returned to Phan Thiet from the day's operations. Eric flew that
day in the left seat of Bill's UH-1C. The right side minigun was jammed, so Bill had radioed for the
line sergeant to meet him at the revetment to work on the gun. At that time, the revets at Phan Thiet
were simply "L" shaped mounts of sand that had been pushed up by the engineers' bulldozers. Bill
put the ship in the revet, shut down the engine, and got out to work with the crew chief and line
sergeant who had pushed the barrel of the minigun down to point into the ground. They opened up
the gun to start clearing it. Eric had taken off his flight helmet, gathered his things, left the aircraft
and walked around the front to the ship to the right side where everyone was working on the gun.
Eric said that since they had all the help they needed he was going back to the hooches and started
walking up the side of the revetment ... the direct path to the hooches. The rotor system was still
milling down and Bill yelled: "The Blade! The Blade!" Rob had parked another Gun in a revet
immediately behind Bill's ship and was working on that ship. Rob says: "I think everyone on that
part of the flight line must have heard Bill yell. I certainly did and looked up to see what was going
on." Apparently Eric did not hear or wasn't paying attention because a blade hit him in the back of
his head about half way up his skull and knocked him over the other side of the revet with
considerable force. Bill and the people with him ran over to Eric and saw that he was seriously
injured. Someone ran to get a blanket so they could carry Eric. Bill remembered there was a
stripped down UH-1C near by, so he yelled for his crewchief to go untie it's blade. Within seconds
Bill had this other UH-1C running and Rob and several others loaded Eric into the back. Bill flew a
closed pattern around the POL to the medical pad near the main Phan Thiet stripe. He remembers
everyone jumped out and abandoned the running UH-1C while they carried Eric into the medical
facility. (Someone from the 192 AHC was kind enough to shut the ship down for them.) They were
in there some time while the medical team worked on Eric. After treating him as best they could,
they arranged for a Dustoff to take him to Bien Hoa. B Troop learned that Eric died that evening.
Bill says he can still remember his feelings at that time. "We'd been flying all day out in the AO,
taking our chances against the enemy. Then to return home and have Eric died that way ... what a
waste! What a waste of a good human being!!"

April 04, 2018, 02:34 AM

Jager

Air Cav. UH-1's, OH-58's, MH-6's, UH-60's, CH-47's, AH-1S's, AH-64's.

You duck, for all the reasons previously mentioned.

Further, I was told a sudden downdraft of wind could cause a blade or blades to dip and nip you.

Many times the circumstances were multiple rotary-wing aircraft coming in and departing and wind was violent and everywhere as we assed or unassed.

The tail rotor gets most. Seen a few of those.

April 04, 2018, 06:35 AM

tacfoley

quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
I spent a lot of years in, on and around running jets, recips, and choppers. I ducked, dodged and avoided the chompy crushy things and probably looked silly doing so at times.

But I was trained that way.

Same here with the Westland Lynx - well-known rotor-disc drooper...and sailor flight-line/landing pad killer.

Only with the VERY tall Wessex was there any degree of certainty that unless you were over seven feet tall you were going to be fine - the Crew Chief/Loadie shuts 'DUCK!' you duck.

tac