Something never seemed right about how that all went down. But why would they kill him? What motive?
Surely someone here has dug into this better than me..?
Something never seemed right about how that all went down. But why would they kill him? What motive?
Surely someone here has dug into this better than me..?
I'm with you fren, ex military helicopter pilot and I believe he went inadvertent IMC and flew into rising ground?
That's exactly what all indications point towards.
It was a VFR flight that quickly became IMC due to bad weather at higher altitudes and when he entered the bad weather there's good indications he became disoriented due to lost reference points.
Also, I did everything I could to become a military helo pilot. I applied for WOFT four times and got back FQ/NS in all four boards. Unfortunately, it turns out that the original MOS I picked was too valuable to let me go fly. I'm happy for you bro, wish I could have been up there with you.
Yes I believe he got suckered into that situation with what we used to call a "suckers gap" in the weather, in the valley he was flying up. Once through the gap of the highway/valley he turned left and the cloud closed in. It seems from the report he was pulling pitch to try and climb to break through VFR on top, IIRC he had only a few hundred feet left to get on top and then call for a PAR/SRE approach.
He likely became very quickly spatially disorientated when he made that left turn, not realising the ground he was turning into was also rising. Very sad.
I enjoyed my rotary flying, it's like being on a magic carpet where you can stop, up down left or right or wherever you want to go, although usually it was 25ft off the ground at 120knts lol. It was a great time to fly.
PS I wasn't in the US military, different country, but hey at least you went and tried mate.