I once rendered a $40 million MC130-H totally inop but only took a couple of hours to reload the computers to fix it.
I once rendered a $40 million MC130-H totally inop but only took a couple of hours to reload the computers to fix it.
In reply to Ian F :
Full disclosure, AAZCD still leads, I got the overall cost mixed up (think it wound up being $2.4mil) and it wasn't strictly speaking me who broke it, I was just the poor sap in charge of the equipment and therefore responsible for the ensuing inventories, investigations, and paperwork.
Convoy movement in California high desert in August. With lots of really heavy tracked vehicles driving across the same sand, sand turns to what we called "moon dust", like 8" of powdered sugar. The fire investigators traced it back to a backfire in the intake system that ignited moon dust in the filter and suspended in the engine bay. Driver and commander smelled smoke, stopped and *opened the engine hatch* (if they'd discharged the extinguisher system, it might have gone very differently). Fire erupted, driver sustained minor burns and smoke inhalation, gunner and commander and the six guys in back got out unscathed. Vehicle was a total loss, as was 9 guys worth of weapons, radios, navigation equipment, optics, and gear.
That photo was sent to me by the fire marshal on base, at my request. I went in to speak with him several days after the accident and he already had it framed in 18x32 over his desk.
Took me almost 3 years to get all the equipment turned in and the investigations and paperwork completed.
The telling of the whole story requires beverages, but in summary:
I was at Ft Campbell, KY training for a deployment to Somalia which was about to be canceled. In the middle of a group of six aircraft landing to a dirt strip. The aircraft ahead of us kicked up so much dust that combined with our dust we lost sight of everything (pitch black night with no moon). Rather than risk a collision with the aircraft that disappeared just ahead to our left, my co-pilot pulled in full power to climb back out. I came on the controls with him just before we hit the treetops. A friend in the helicopter behind us told me that we almost cleared the trees, then the blades just disintegrated. I still hate that moment. Time slowed almost to a stop. My mind ran through, "This is real. Keep flying it. The controls are doing nothing anymore. This is going to hurt. E36 M3." E36 M3 and impact with the ground coincided.
Another Army unit was camped at the site and we didn't even know it. Two tents were within yards of the crash. Debris scattered all around. A windshield on a truck 200 yards away was busted out by part of a blade.
No serious injuries. I had a couple screws put in my thumb to put the bone back together, but that was the worst. A week later while waiting for x-rays I sat next to Michael Durant, a true hero. I had crashed a perfectly good, almost brand new Blackhawk and he had been shot down and gone through hell. He told me a story about how he had crashed a 'Little Bird' during a training op and that sometimes stuff just happens. 'Get back in the cockpit and be better for it.'
The helicopter came back from the depot about two years later. A nice low hour bird and you had to look hard to see the repairs.
Wow.
I broke my passenger in a car accident. The medical bills were well into the 6 figures. Thankfully he was ok after some surgeries/recover and thankfully I had the maximum liability coverage my insurance company offered.
dculberson said:This is a little different, but back in the 90s when I was doing computer surplus full time, we got in multiple pallets of IBM 5150s, the original 5-slot PC from 1981. In the 90s those were completely worthless. We scrapped them all - took out the mainboards and sold them for electronic scrap, took apart the case and sold the steel scrap, etc. Probably got a $5-$10/ea out of them. The monitors we recycled unless they were EGA in which case we sold them. We probably went through 1000 of them or so. Fast forward to 2019 and a complete running setup is worth $1300 or so. I intentionally tore apart and scrapped over a million dollars worth of computers.
Granted, they wouldn't be worth $1300 if it wasn't for people like me tearing most of them apart. And storing 1000 computers for 25 years would have been a little cost prohibitive. And selling 1000 of them now would take years upon years and probably depress the market due to oversupply. But it still kinda hurts to think about.
Dude. I threw away an original Macintosh II that just needed a power supply, about 4-5 fully functioning Mac IIcis, and a bunch of 13" Apple Trinitron RGB monitors. And then I checked what vintage Macs were going for on eBay. OK, it's not millions, but I binned a few thousand dollars of free money that was just sitting in my basement.
In reply to AAZCD :
I wonder if we ever were JRT together I was in AFSoC 95-97. I didn't go overseas but did a lot of JRT at Benning, Bragg, Hunter, Lewis, and closed down England in LA. I remember signing a 10 year NDA on the little birds and then Black Hawk Down comes out with the opening scene a helicopter I still couldn't talk about.
In reply to Duke :
I wish I still had my old Mac SE from 1988. I lent it (and a Mac laptop I bought a few years later) to my father. Long gone...
Obviously not me but I suspect this dude wins the "most expensive oops".
In reply to AAZCD :
It looks like you hit the trees at about 20' off the deck, and judging by the damage done further down I'm guessing you retained the rotors until the helicopter rolled?
Do you still fly whirlybirds?
Stampie said:In reply to AAZCD :
I wonder if we ever were JRT together I was in AFSoC 95-97. I didn't go overseas but did a lot of JRT at Benning, Bragg, Hunter, Lewis, and closed down England in LA. I remember signing a 10 year NDA on the little birds and then Black Hawk Down comes out with the opening scene a helicopter I still couldn't talk about.
I was in Central America 94-95, then back to Campbell with 5-101. We did a few trips out around Bragg and Polk and some NTCs. I only flew the Hueys and Blackhawks, but always thought that Little Birds were teh sex. Loved to watch them do gun runs at the back side of the reservation at Campbell. Retired from 10th Mtn in 2003.
Jesus. I managed to disable a "many millions of dollars" manufacturing production line inop by hitting the CR (enter) key about a half a second too quickly. Luckily it was only a few hours to get it back up and running and I did not have to explain myself (much).
Man, glad you walked away from that. Not many people can say they've done the same.
I tell this story occasionally. I was party to the issue but fortunately not operating the aircraft.
We were doing some testing on a different version of a DEEC for the Pred B's TPE-331, which are about a million bucks a piece. There was an Air Force captain in the box running the thing for it's first flight test for reference.
When you take the TPE-331's propeller off the start locks, you put the engine in reverse for a brief moment (reverse the pitch of the prop which heavily loads up the engine.) Hold it too long in reverse too long and the engine over temps, which requires the motor be removed, torn down and inspected. Well the pilot did exactly that.
So the Air Force, DCMA, engineering department and maintenance controller all freak out that the testing needs to be done on some sort of time line and we need to swap the engine and re-rig it by the next morning. This is a 12-16 hour job for group of experienced mechanics. I end up doing a lot of the work on second shift with one other mechanic then turned the job over to third shift to finish the rigging, fuel up the aircraft and pre-flight it. Not too bad.
The same Air Force captain comes in the next day, runs through the pre-flight checklist, starts the motor, and.... over temps the newly hung zero hour engine again. Mind you when the mechanics rig these things, we ground run the engine and take the propeller off the start locks 4 to 5 times at a minimum. We never had an issue with it.
I hung a third motor on the aircraft that night.
All said and done we were a $2-$3 million into the Air Force by the end of just that testing phase. The cool thing about unmanned was that when we crashed something was that I went to get coffee while someone else blew-up the remainder of the aircraft. Lowers the risk a bit.
In reply to pheller :
We cut off some 4 to 5 foot logs on the way down. I think the blades were pretty much gone where the trees are topped. Initially it rolled to the right in the trees, then left on the ground. I've been flying air ambulance helicopters since 2005 and plan to stay at it as long as they let me. I can't imagine ever working a real job.
You definitely get the Bob Hoover award.
"When faced with a forced landing, fly as far into the crash as possible."
Looks like you didn't quit till the last peice stopped moving.
Sierra Hotel.
While I can't top that, I did break a helicopter once. I was in corporate video at the time and shooting a training video for the local Life Flight company. I was shooting the pilot (on the ground) in the cockpit at night. I had a light outside shining through the windshield to illuminate the scene. I had hired a freelancer for the evening and didn't notice that they laid the 1000w light directly on the composite windshield. The next morning I get the call that the light had burned a big black mark into the windsheld and it obstructed the pilot's vision and the helicopter would be grounded until replaced. One panel cost $15K in early 1990s dollars. Thank goodness for insurance!
What kind of terrain awareness/warning system was in the MH-60 at the time of your crash? If you can't go into details, understood; I'm a former Sikorsky avionics/electrical engineer but from much more recent times and I worked on the S-92, not the S-70.
In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :
I wasn't special ops. It was just a UH-60L. For terrain awareness it had a radar altimeter. Period. The next advancement we had a couple years later was the ANVIS HUD. I loved flying with the HUD and almost felt handicapped during the day, not having all the info available in my view.
This looks like the cockpit we flew then. The radar altimeter is in the top right of the pilot's scan, 4 digit readout and a needle.
Now I fly with a Garmin G1000 system. It has a synthetic terrain display and obstacle database. I hear that that's even a bit outdated now.
I currently work at Garmin as an avionics program coordinator, so I'm basically a secretary to programmers, but yeah; G1000 has a lot of ability over a simple federated cockpit with just a rad-alt for "terrain awareness". For the last year I've been helping get a G3000 flight deck into some red air trainer Northrop F-5's. Talk about a night and day difference. S-92 has a Honeywell "Enhanced Ground Prox Warning System" but I don't know how great it is. Probably the coolest thing for avoiding flying into trees uses FLIR cameras and display abilities to show the crew what is in front of them, dust or night be damned.
HUDs and HMCS both are getting more popular on the civil side. I have very little experience with them.
What birds are you flying these days that have G1000 installed? AW109 or 119?
I came in here to make a condom joke but I think helicopters edge out kids slightly in the price department. Not by much though
Grizz said:I came in here to make a condom joke but I think helicopters edge out kids slightly in the price department. Not by much though
"not by much though"
Q 2x FT
Grizz said:I came in here to make a condom joke but I think helicopters edge out kids slightly in the price department. Not by much though
Depends if you have twins.
In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :
I fly a Bell 407GXp now, similar to this layout:
When I first retired from the Army, I had no interest in flying as a civilian. I though that anything except fire fighting would be boring and I didn't meet the requirements for that. A friend convinced me to give Helicopter EMS a try. I started out by learning to finesse an AS350 BA at max gross weight rather than ripping the air apart with a Blackhawk. I still miss the raw power and terrain flight, but I really enjoy what I do.
I wish I had known this contest would exist when I used to occasionally get to play with satellite parts.
On a different note- I know a guy who flew on the Space Shuttle, and he absolutely will not fly in a helicopter if that tells you anything. 
It wasn't my fault, but a team I was working on found it.
In college I did a 8 month internship with a Contractor at Johnson Space Center working on spaceflight Hardware for the ISS.
We were building a replacement for a device on the space station. We ordered an ingot of aluminum for a housing and it was supposed to be forged aluminum and they sent us cast aluminum. We called the supplier and they informed us that it was the exact same material they had sent us last time.....When we built the first one... that was flying on the ISS at that time.
A multi million dollar piece of one off hardware was flying in space with semi-critical parts made of the wrong material.
Paperwork started flying like crazy and a resolution was found and our project was modified.
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