I wonder how close they actually got to the ground.
It says it engaged at a few thousand feet but at fighter plane speed that could have been seconds until hitting the ground.
It says it engaged at a few thousand feet but at fighter plane speed that could have been seconds until hitting the ground.
Just to say, HNs had a comment yesterday with a terrifying video illustrating ‘the one big safety problem’ with autogyros - rotor disk unloading followed by “bunt over” (I think).
I hope you don’t mind me saying ... please don’t skip any safety training, particularly if you come from conventional aircraft.
I'd be curious to see the video, but modern gyros are less susceptible to it and it's simple to avoid as a pilot (far easier than stalls and spins).
I find it alarming the degree to which US pilots can fly gyros with minimal specific training - they're very different to planes.
“Gyrocopter low g power push over crash”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfjBzrSDrV0
Warning: From the description: “This is a pretty sobering piece of film and its pretty obvious the pilot didn’t walk away. So if this is likely to upset you please don’t watch.”
(To expand on that: A barometric altimeter works via air pressure, and thus shows height above sea level; a radar altimeter measures the time taken for microwaves to go from it to the ground and back, and thus shows height above ground. I wouldn't be surprised to find both types in a fighter, but I would be very surprised to find that a radar altimeter wasn't the default, because it's going to be the one that provides the most accurate information and thus the most useful to a pilot who needs to worry about avoiding CFIT during complex maneuvers.)
The radar altitude is shown further down the right side (the box with the "R" next to it). It bottoms at 2970 as I saw it at with the tape showing 4370MSL.
The right side of the tape is MSL.
If you watch that box through the video, you can see why you don't use the radar altimeter for everything. Any time you don't have clear line of sight to the ground with the belly of the aircraft, the radar altimeter blanks out completely. If you're in a roll, it will give incorrect information as it's not pointed directly at the ground.