Gyro Rollover

[RickE]

I unfortunately witnessed a gyro rollover yesterday and as a result want people to be aware of the potential danger of wearing a life jacket. For some reason that I cant explain both the pilot and myself believe the life jacket deployed during the initial stage of the takeoff roll restricting the cyclic from being pulled fully back. This then unfortunately started a chain of events that led to the machine rolling over. The most serious aspect of this was that it took me close to ten minutes to pull the pilot out of the machine as the fully inflated life vest had gotten tangled up with the seat belt.
I realise that life jackets are compulsory for flying over water. However after yesterdays experience I will be looking at a different style of life vest, one more suitable for an aircraft.

[mad max]

Wow. I never thought of that Rick! I have two nice life jackets with the little co2 bottles. Thanks for the report. If I ever use mine I'll prob. remove the little bottles and rely on good old lung pressure and manually blow it up. Some seat belts are very difficult to pop open when they are under pressure. I've also found that filing an incident report on the 'New IRIS' is impossible. (Or maybe I'm a computor dumb-ass) Hope the pilots OK.

[MadMuz]

Probably a good idea to have a popper of some description on the jacket, so if it goes off when it shouldn't, you can quickly grab the thing and pop it? I never thought of that happening.... glad the pilot is ok... how bad is the machine damaged? Might be better just to use basic vests, not C02 type.... what do the regs say?

[RickE]

I haven't had to file a report yet Max, so I'm no help I'm afraid. I will definitely be changing the style of life vest I wear and as Muz says carry a knife of sorts to both deflate the vest as well as cut the seat belts.
This is the second rollover I have witnessed and both times it was difficult to get the pilot out. Thank god there was no fire.

[mad max]

Come to think of it I always keep a knife by my seat. Just my luck during the haste to stab the vest I would of driven it through my heart. Rescuers would asume I had committed Hari-Kari!

[bones]

Let me guess the machine type was one of" rotate to 3000 rpm then gun it" type machines? The sooner people get back to understanding the principles of autorotation the better the pilots will become. wheres my rock?

[tonydenton]

your rock is gone . get out there bones again. I was thinking the new forum has stopped all inquires regarding such things , as safety and rotor management like it used to be on the origanial forum . but obviously it can't and must still be needed , what a shame. there was sooo much free learning there for anybody that wanted to just simply ask the question.
ok where is my rock.

[mad max]

Yes Bones and Tony. The handbook for the Caladus I trained the owner in said to pre-rotate to 220rpm, stick hard back and full throttle. I refused to conform exactly to those specs. during the training. (My years of learning would not allow me to do it) The owner later conformed to the instructions and got away with it until he was one day a little slow in getting the stick back and all hell broke loose.