Saw a trailer for the conversion of Court TV to a "realities" channel on January 1.
In the trailer, they appeared to show what looked like a -65 dolphin swinging wildly, as if it had no "whatever you call that rear propeller thing". About five feet off the ground.
Was that one of ours? When did it happen, and most importantly, did everyone get out?
I saw that too. It was a Dauphin like ours but it wasn't one of ours. It just had a red stripe and no Coast Guard painted on it. Also the ones that were painted white like that one also had some small areas of blue on them as well. It did look like a nasty yard sale though...
If it the clip I think it was, that was a taiwanese AS 365 Dauphin. The civil version of our dolphin.
They were doing a demo, put the Fenestron (the rear propeller thing) in the water, sheared the drive shaft and lost all pedal authority. They spun around a few times, and crashed into the water. As I recall everyone survived even the guy in the back who fell out as it was crashing.
If I recall, they were in the middle of a hoist, and the "swimmer" (or their equivalent) was dangling there on the cable as the helo spun down into the water.
