Dang

[misterx]

Don't know what's going on here today, but we've had three helicopters come in fast at maybe two telephone poles off the ground or less. Setting off car alarms and everything. I'm used to the one for the hospital, but these are different. They fly much lower, and have been landing over at TVA. (distance of about 75 yards from my desk). No, they're not black. But they do have dandy powerline cutters on them.



If they keep this up I'm going to spin the webcam around and rename it the Helicopter Cam.

Comments

[ceruleanfire.livejournal.com]

that must be something to watch ..

[notjohndavid.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see it


what's the wsps system?

[misterx.livejournal.com]

See the diagram above.

[notjohndavid.livejournal.com]

i mean what does it STAND FOR

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Wire Strike Protection System

"On the front of most U.S. Army and many civil helicopters you may notice a knife like fixture on the top of the cockpit, and one on the bottom of the aircraft near the chin bubbles. These are not antennae for radios like most people believe. They are part of the Wire Strike Protection System (WSPS). The WSPS is made up of several components to protect the helicopter from high wire strikes. It was developed because of the increased risk of wire strikes while flying at NOE altitudes. If a helicopter hits a power line (Telephone line, electrical line, guy wire for a tower, or any other wire obstacle), the rotor system may become entangled with the wire, and catastrophic failure of the rotor system could lead to total destruction of the aircraft. The WSPS was developed to reduce the severity of a wire obstacle collision by diverting the wire into the cutter blade assemblies. The cutter blades affixed to the top and bottom of the frontal area of the aircraft will usually cut the wire and eliminate the hazard. On UH - 1 Huey helicopters, a set of bars will carry the wire over external parts of the windshield wipers. On OH-58 helicopters, the center section of the windshield has an abrasive cutting strip (Built into the windshield deflector) to score the wire and weaken it before it comes in contact with the WSPS cutters. The WSPS system protects 90% of the frontal area of the helicopter, and reduces the hazard from most wire strikes. With the WSPS, the pilot has a 95% chance of surviving a single wire strike. The odds of survival decrease as the number of wires increases. 2 wires will reduce the chances to 75%, 3 wires to 50%, and 4 wires to about 25%. Although the WSPS system is quite effective, care must still be used to avoid all wire obstacles. Apache, Cobra, and Blackhawk helicopters all have a smaller, less noticeable WSPS system on them. They can usually be seen just above the cockpit, and near landing gear struts. Chinooks do not have WSPS systems."

[notjohndavid.livejournal.com]

i was thinking it was something TVA designed to cut power wires really quickly

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Flying a helicopter into them probably would.

[notjohndavid.livejournal.com]

apparently it gets rid of helicopters quickly too

[darthgeek.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're ferrying Nextel people in and out? TVA and Nextel recently struck a huge deal

[misterx.livejournal.com]

Probably importing anethnatized homeless people to serve as breeder hosts for our soon-to-be alien overlords. Whom I welcome, by the way.

The things I imagine to make my day more exciting...

[evilbeth.livejournal.com]

Those helicopters are loud. I have noticed them a couple of times. Since I work at the hospital, I get used to what WINGS sounds like but those that land at TVA are very, very loud and quite noticeable. I didn't even know until recently that they had any sort of landing pad over there.