Breakdown of technical issues related to the crash of Kobe Bryant's helicopter | Hacker News Reader

Breakdown of technical issues related to the crash of Kobe Bryant's helicopter

nymag.com

29 pointsbsanr210 comments

An additional AskHN: Is there an issue with discussing Kobe Bryant's passing on this forum, and if so, what might that be? HN discusses the recent passing of non-tech individuals regularly. It would be understandable if users simply didn't desire to participate in such a conversation; instead, it seems that most attempts at submission are being flagged by a minority of users. In the comments of one or two tangentially-related submissions, others have expressed distress that they're unable to discuss this tragic event in a venue in which they otherwise feel comfortable. That seems unfair.

I have no knowledge about previous stories being flagged.

I do have experience in aviation safety and know the article linked to is irresponsibly speculative. I also have first hand experience in unexpectedly losing a loved one, and know how painful such baseless speculation can be.

your guess is as good as mine. you don't have to give a reason for flagging stuff, you just do it.

a wide range of topics gets posted here, and for each one, there are at least a couple die hard haters who will immediately downvote/flag anything related.

I actually read the article and I'm a commercially-rated pilot with experience in similar terrain and airspace.

First of all, most helicopters are not flown IFR. Following roads in bad weather is common. But ... flying under 500' is not safe these days because of wires, towers and heliostats.

The journalist is likely speculating on what the flight path was and the weather conditions, but overall it feels pretty accurate.

That's why you don't fly in helicopters, and in bad weather. You fly scheduled airlines, in good-enough weather.

Not that I care, but Kobe should have had better personal security advice.

> First of all, most helicopters are not flown IFR.

I hadn't realized you can be a commercial helicopter pilot without an instrument rating. It's very different to fixed-wing.

And most helicopters aren't even capable of IFR, as I understand it. LAPD's choppers were grounded, not because the pilots aren't IFR certified, but because the helicopters aren't.

This helicopter was capable of IFR, but usually with two pilots, not one. The US is an outlier in allowing single-pilot IFR on these if they've had an avionics upgrade -- Canada wouldn't allow it.

Along with the delays due to clearance and rerouting if they'd filed IFR, they would also have been frustrated by not being able to go where they wanted to go: there's no instrument approach to Kobe's Mamba Sports Academy, they'd have to divert to find an airport to land at.

> That's why you don't fly in helicopters, and in bad weather. You fly scheduled airlines, in good-enough weather.

From what I gathered, said bad weather was extremely localized. Someone who had just arrived at the location (by car) around the time of the accident noted that the sky was clear just a few miles away.

That doesn't sound right -- I mean, it might be true that there was a clear spot nearby, but it's not a good summary of the weather that morning. It was a blanket coastal fog that grounded the LAPD choppers and canceled many flights. I live in San Diego, 120 miles away, and it was pure white fog outside my bedroom window when I woke up too.

It was not in any sense a fair weather morning for flying.

I beats me why all aircraft would not have forward downward facing radar to give a readout of approaching terrain.

Cost is a big factor. Costs to buy the avionics. Costs to get the avionics fit into your probably already full instrument cluster. Costs to troubleshoot during your annuals...

Then there’s the I don’t need it because I use foreflight. Or because they regularly fly a jumbo jet that has TCAS already installed.

TCAS doesn't help with terrain it's designed to avoid collisions with other planes. GPWS or its equivalents does this.

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