It’s a matter of time before it happens to all of them. Helicopters require a ton of periodic maintenance, adjustments and upkeep. The Taliban don’t have the culture, knowledge or access to parts to keep those air worthy.
Parts inside of the transmission alone, which have manufacturing tolerances in the thousandths and up, are only good for a couple thousand hours of run time at most.
Some parts for these machines are made, at least in the US, on machines that could be one of less than 3 in existence. They’re that specialized of parts, costing upwards of $750k+ per part. I’m sure they’ll be able to source knock offs from other countries (China I’m sure has the means and probably blueprints), but they won’t be within the tolerances, and idk how long the Taliban can shell out almost a million dollars per part for each helicopter.
Source: have family in the industry of machining helicopter parts for the government.
And those helicopters could probably mow a quarter acre of lawn in only a couple seconds. 1000 helicopter hours is like 500,000 acres of mowed lawns or something, which seems like way more mowing than Afghanistan needs.
Yeah I get that, someone else linked a Blackhawk helicopter used for sale in this thread for a couple of million dollars, and it had only 3,600 hours on it, it was built in 1996.
The taliban took over a lot of American equipment when the pull out happened.
When the Military abandons equipment, they often sabotage it in some way so that it’s not useful to the enemy force.
Likely this helicopter had its tail rotor fucked with. It would have started and taken off okay in calm weather, but the moment the pilot attempted any kind of rotation, or got hit by a strong gust of wind, he was doomed.
This may have been the best pilot in the world, but once you’re in an out of control helicopter, there’s very little even the best pilot can do. It’s like if the stabilizer fell off a plane, there’s just not much you can do.
If the tail rotor was fucked with they wouldn’t have gotten that far off the ground. They would have started to spin as soon as their weight started to come off the ground, you have to be actively on the pedals at all times, not just when turning.
I know this is a joke, but helicopters don’t have ejection seats. If they did, they would just eject the pilot into the rotors and turn them into confetti.
The Kamov Ka-50, which entered limited service with Russian forces in 1995, was the first production helicopter with an ejection seat. The system is similar to that of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft; however the main rotors are equipped with explosive bolts to jettison the blades moments before the seat is fired.
Crazy! I had no idea these existed. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
I just remember an old airforce pilot telling me that he thought helicopter pilots had more balls than jet pilots, because if something goes wrong, helicopter pilots gotta go down with the ship. So, I figured that they didn’t exist at all.
True, they were probably better off selling these to China or Iran. Liquid assets and some degree of goodwill from regional powers will go a lot farther than whatever this was.
It’s a matter of time before it happens to all of them. Helicopters require a ton of periodic maintenance, adjustments and upkeep. The Taliban don’t have the culture, knowledge or access to parts to keep those air worthy.
Parts inside of the transmission alone, which have manufacturing tolerances in the thousandths and up, are only good for a couple thousand hours of run time at most.
Some parts for these machines are made, at least in the US, on machines that could be one of less than 3 in existence. They’re that specialized of parts, costing upwards of $750k+ per part. I’m sure they’ll be able to source knock offs from other countries (China I’m sure has the means and probably blueprints), but they won’t be within the tolerances, and idk how long the Taliban can shell out almost a million dollars per part for each helicopter.
Source: have family in the industry of machining helicopter parts for the government.
china russia and others are able to manufacture and maintain military helicopters.
just dont see why they would ever do business with the taliban?
1,000s of hours seems like a lot to me. I’ve had my riding mower for a couple of years and it’s only got like 37 hours on it.
And those helicopters could probably mow a quarter acre of lawn in only a couple seconds. 1000 helicopter hours is like 500,000 acres of mowed lawns or something, which seems like way more mowing than Afghanistan needs.
Yeah I get that, someone else linked a Blackhawk helicopter used for sale in this thread for a couple of million dollars, and it had only 3,600 hours on it, it was built in 1996.
Flying one also requires a ton of training, which this “pilot” obviously didn’t have.
The taliban took over a lot of American equipment when the pull out happened.
When the Military abandons equipment, they often sabotage it in some way so that it’s not useful to the enemy force.
Likely this helicopter had its tail rotor fucked with. It would have started and taken off okay in calm weather, but the moment the pilot attempted any kind of rotation, or got hit by a strong gust of wind, he was doomed.
This may have been the best pilot in the world, but once you’re in an out of control helicopter, there’s very little even the best pilot can do. It’s like if the stabilizer fell off a plane, there’s just not much you can do.
If the tail rotor was fucked with they wouldn’t have gotten that far off the ground. They would have started to spin as soon as their weight started to come off the ground, you have to be actively on the pedals at all times, not just when turning.
This was pilot error all the way.
Just a little more training and he could have found the ejection seat in time.
I know this is a joke, but helicopters don’t have ejection seats. If they did, they would just eject the pilot into the rotors and turn them into confetti.
They exist…just uncommon.
Crazy! I had no idea these existed. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
I just remember an old airforce pilot telling me that he thought helicopter pilots had more balls than jet pilots, because if something goes wrong, helicopter pilots gotta go down with the ship. So, I figured that they didn’t exist at all.
Yeah I saw your reply above and was like wait I know there is at least one insane person whose made one of these.
That’s the joke…
Not necessarily.
True, they were probably better off selling these to China or Iran. Liquid assets and some degree of goodwill from regional powers will go a lot farther than whatever this was.