h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi.

Noooooo, I'm not planning sabotage, nor am I from some sort of terrorist group; but an author, who needs a (fictional)Puma helicopter to suffer a catastrophic engine failure about twenty minutes into the flight.

I occures that removing some lubricant, or adding something will gum up the works quite well, but I need the method to be detectable forensically.

Do helicopter transmissions work in a similar way to car ones?
Would the transmission ceasing cause the engine to disintegrate (Yes,please ), or would it just stop.

Thanks in advance,
Dirigini

This all depends on how catastrophic you want the crash to be. Some mechanical failures will allow the pilot to retain sufficient control to get the aircraft to auto-rotate to the ground(unpowered landing).I've been a passenger in one of these and it's bloody scary. Other failures may literaly rip the chopper to pieces. Engine or transmission siezure due to the failure of a main oil seal may, possibly,allow the pilot to auto-rotate. The loss of a main or tail rotor blade would in all probability cause the aircraft to become totally uncontrolable, this can be caused something as simple as a retaining bolt not being lock-wired in place.
So there are just a couple of scenarios
I hope they help with your book

If your fictional Puma helicopyer is related to the real Puma helicopter then the best way to make it crash is to allow the RAF to outsource its maintenance without sufficient checks and ballances - it has worked a couple of times so far.
On the other hand you could make the fly by wire software fail, as in the case of the Boeing Chinook that crashed about five years ago with the bulk of the UKs best anti-terrorist staff. You could then describe the code forensics involved in finding that the software failed...although I want royalties if you use the word "e-topsy" .

Have the MOD actually admitted it *was* due to the software yet, or are they still trying to put the blame on the deceased crew?
Why they'd want to discredit their own people in order to defend a piece of rubbish they bought from someone else, I find hard to understand.

I don't think the MOD have admitted it was a software failure and I don't knoiw why they'd blame the crew - a pretty despicable verdict which should only be used when there is _no reasonable doubt_ that it was pilot error. Have they no consideration at all for the pilots' families?

If you have a hankering for conspiracy theories then it gets even more interesting - what were they all doing on the same helicopter? This is contrary to common sense as well as military practice.
(Unfortunately I haven't got my Computer Weekly very often since leaving the UK, so I'm not up to date on the enquiry)

..but from the point of view of the fictional crash, I would be interested in a software cause as whilst a mechanical failure would be quite easy to diagnose and attribute; tracking down a software failure would be much more involved...and there's no fingerprints or clever chemical forensics which could prove who wrote the offending code.

If you REALLY want to crash anything install windows 98. It crashed my computer so bad I've lost everthing

*sympathy*
As a programmer I am lucky if I don't get one "re-install everything" crash a month - but...you have only lost what wasn't saved. Everything else _is_ there somewhere and something like Norton Utilities can find it.

[unsolicided advice]
If you can, get a copy of NT4...it is sooo much more stable than the 9x family.

Hi Rocket Rod,

Wow! Thanks for your help.

I'm sorry, but I didn't make it clear that I'm talking saboage here; so I need a method, which can be perpetrated, yet detectable as sabotage forensically.

It has to be catastrophic, because I need to put my protagonist out of action, so the badies can set up their scam.

I've included a short excerpt, so you have some idea what I'm looking for.

"...I suppose Pete’s careless comment earlier must’ve rattled me a bit, because I was locked in my thoughts and didn’t notice the vibration, until he stepped past me. Like the other uninjured people, the captain had sat at the back furthest from the doors; but now he headed forward, to where Chris Boyd was looking really ill.
The shaking could be felt through the seat frame and was quite a jarring sensation; I checked down the line to make sure no one else was suffering.
Pete held his head close to the medic, who was trying to give Chris some relief. The man looked quite agitated as he spoke and Pete looked furious when they’d finished. He turned to the crewman and whatever the captain said, hadn’t needed repeating.
As the crewman spoke to the pilot though the intercom, Pete knelt, undid the straps around Boyd’s legs and cradled his ankle in his arm to help insulate it. Chris seemed to get some benefit and looked up at the captain, who smiled back, before looking back to the crewman, expectantly.
It was when the pilot throttled down that all hell broke loose. There was a dreadful metallic cacophony above, then pieces of metal burst through the roof and exited through the floor.
Pete screamed in agony and collapsed on to his legs, in a way that should’ve have been impossible. Beside me, Tony reeled from whatever piece of shrapnel had gone straight through him. Then there was shocked silence and we all watched the captain rise gracefully into the air.
Chris had the presence of mind to grab the Pete’s jacket and we watched in horror as he unfolded, with one foot waving in a sickening way. The captain drifted up as far as Boyd’s reach would allow, then kicked the roof with his heels. Blood trickled from a wound halfway up his shin and spattered along the ceiling.
Jeffries shouted:
“Oh my god, Peter! I’m sorry!”
Then Pete, the medic and the crewman slammed forward into the bulkhead.
There was an almighty concussion, which felt like someone had slammed padded bricks over my ears and we were all thrown toward the front of the aircraft, which meant being pitched sideways.
With just a lap belt to keep me in place, all my limbs lifted and shot left. I had no more control than a rag doll, as my weight turned me in my chair and my helmet pitched into the frame of Tony’s seat; leaving my dizzy.
Just as suddenly, I was thrown the other way and subsided, feeling like I’d been cut in two. The harness had ridden up and now cut into me just below my arms, while the back of the seat bent my head painfully forward, with my chin digging into my chest.
The weight of the engine rolled the puma on to its back, leaving me with my lower back and legs dangling stupidly in the air.
Then came the water. I heard the gasps as each man nearer the front was touched by the maelstrom..."

Of course, nothing's final so if any ideas don't fit, I can atler things accordingly; but it needs to be violent.

Thanks again,

Dirigini

Hi Duncan and thanks for your ideas. You sound like someone in the know.

The crash (see the excerpt in my reply to Rocket Rod) is a case of sabotage, but needs to be easily detectable to an investigator. Really, it's just a device to get my protagonist out the way, so I'm looking for something that would drop the Puma pretty fast, but from low(ish) altitude.

If you know the Puma so well, perhaps can you confirm that there's a walkway between the cabin and the flight deck? You'd be amazed at how hard it is to confirm such ordinary facts and I'm fed up with taking a magnifying glass to the photos.

Thanks again and sorry about the royalties

Dirigini

PS: I will of course, credit anyone who helps.

Hi again Duncan and I heartily agree with you about the Chinook crash. I feel it was despicable of the MOD to blame the crew the way they did.

If there were a conspiracy, it doesn't have to be very wild; the American government could bring a lot of pressure to bear to protect one of their premier helicopter manufacturers and I don't for a moment consider it unlikely that the MOD would cover up the truth just to save face.

In my researches, I've found out one or two things about the SA80 rifle and the LSW: the magazines drop out and the foregrip falls apart, which is why so many photograps show soldiers with rubber bands around them. These weapons have been in use years now and these problems haven't been solved.

When I find out things like this, MY BLOOD BOILS!!!!

As far as my story goes, I'd like to keep it simple because it isn't either a thriller or (straight)adventure story. I'm even going to work in some Plato.

Thanks,

Dirigini

Hey, if your looking for something that will shake the helicopter and cause metal to burst from the roof, you could try garvel or chunks of tarmac dumped into the roter- maybe a tray or box with a loose lynch pin? You might have to get the preflight crews in on the plan, or drunk, or considerably below par mentally.

Hey thanks Deadalus,

I was talking about this with someone at work and he suggested grinding paste. The idea being that the heat of the engine would liquify the paste, which would then be taken up with the oil. I take it helicopters have a dry sump, so the 'whatever' would have to be put in some sort of oil reservoir.

Thanks for reading the excerpt and if I get pulbished with this one, you've all got a free copy.

Tahnks again

Ok its not very original - but why not copy a real puma crash:
http://www.open.gov.uk/aaib/aug98htm/gbwmg.htm
has the details.

Hi Duncan and thanks for your link.

Although not suitable for my story, this was a big favour, because when I 'quote' from the Duty of Care (for that is my working title) crash report, I'll know exactly what sort of language to use.

I've found with research that you learn all sorts of things, which aren't on the face of it relevant, but then find their way into the story anyway; even if only as implicit details.

So I appear to owe Rocket Rod, Duncan Jones, Potholer and Deadalus(sorry to hear about your son by thet way ) a copy of DofC. Stay on H2G2, so I can get in touch, but don't hold your breath.

If anyone can add anything, don't be backward in coming forward.

Thanks everyone,

Dirigini

In a turbine-driven machine, grinding paste in the correct bearings, or some judicious cracks an a fan blade or two might give the situation you're after - if bits of fan blade start flying around, they can pretty much take out whoever you want them to. If the pilot was injured, but the blades could still autorotate, you could easily set up as hard a landing as you wanted.

I actually just remembered another excellent sabotage method, though I think it's probably more applicable to long-haul aircraft, as I don't think the time-to-failure is going to be particularly predictable, and isn't particularly dependent on whether the aircraft is operational at the time. Presumably, it's not much use if the aircraft falls to pieces while it's sitting on the ground. It'd be very easy to work out what had happened in post-crash forensics, but hard to pin blame on the guilty party. I suppose in a piston-engined helicopter, this method might get you somewhere near your engine blow-up situation, but I'm not sure it'd work the same in a turbine-driven one.

Also, it's so frighteningly simple that publicising it in a book may run the risk of giving the idea to the wrong sort of person. I suppose it's probably obscure enough here on h2g2 to be fairly safe(*hides in nearby pothole to avoid flames*), but if you don't already know what I'm talking about, and you're interested, perhaps a more discreet method of letting you know might be better.

Hi Potholer, you can email me privately at [email protected]. Don't tell anyone my address

Dirigini

PS: My real name's Ian.

James Bond in A View to a Kill made one crash by firing a distress flare through the open door. Any help?

Thanks for your suggestion, Demon, but part of the point is that the perpetraitor will think he's got away with it. However, he will be caught, because he (like most criminals) isn't as smart as he thinks.

I've pretty much settled on the grinding paste idea, though I've also decided that my protagonist isn't going to break his pelvis after all, because he'd probably be discharged from the army and won't be able to solve the crime!

Thanks again,

Dirigini

It's okay I think I'm taking my bond persona a little too far at times.

I'm doin' Aerospace engineering and I have found out that a very frequent failure is for one of the teeth in the gearbox to to crack or come off.
Good night Irene.