Kobe Bryant and daughter killed in helicopter crash

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

Back in the early 90’s we took a family trip to D.C. and one day we stumbled across this military... I don’t know what to call it exactly, exhibition for lack of a better word. “Fan fest” maybe. We played tic tac toe with a Navy SEAL who was in a water tank to give you an idea. Anyway, there was a Blackhawk parked there and people would stand in line to sit in the co-pilot seat and have the pilot give you some info on it and answer any questions you might have. One of my questions as I was looking around was, “Where are the parachutes?” I was informed there weren’t any because helicopters were designed to magically (not his words) land safely in case of a failure. Even at the naive young age of roughly 10-11 years old I wasn’t sure how much I believed that or trusted the system in place.

Originally Posted by Frazod

If you have trouble on a plane it might be able to land safely. But if the rotors stop on a chopper it just turns into a falling rock.

I talked to my Dad about this today and how much more comfortable I'd be in a plane than copter on engine failure. He told me he had the same conversation with the FAA guy that certified grandpa's planes. The FAA guy said, "no, the blades are an airfoil. As air moves across it, they'll turn. You're going down, but you'll have control. I gave Dad this super skeptical kind of look, but WTF do I know, he may be right.