Shot this from my balcony on Sunday. They used it to place the window washing basket and rigging on a tower that's still under construction. Surprised they did this with 18 mph winds gusting to 33 mph.

No idea what happened at the 1 minute mark but the whole condo started vibrating. (I'm on the 19th floor, this was shot with the sliding glass door closed.)

I'm guessing the pilot goosed it to compensate for the wind gust? This was the only time out of a dozen picks that the chopper went up and then came back down. My work truck is the one on the top left at the beginning of the video. I was a little nervous.

https://vimeo.com/223081849

[This message has been edited by WBailey1041 (edited 06-26-2017).]

Cool video. Good job with it too.

I see those around here pretty often usually lifting AC units up to rooftops of skyscrapers and factories.

Most likely an Erickson AirCrane helicopter. Sikorsky sold all rights and type certificate to the aircraft to Erickson in the 90s and they are building them at their plant in Oregon and have made a lot of design changes.

The only helicopter I know of that has an additional pilot's seat....that faces aft.

Cool video!

quote Originally posted by maryjane: Most likely an Erickson AirCrane helicopter. Sikorsky sold all rights and type certificate to the aircraft to Erickson in the 90s and they are building them at their plant in Oregon and have made a lot of design changes. The only helicopter I know of that has an additional pilot's seat....that faces aft.

Correct you are. Huge decals on each side

Very cool!

I remember being on the roof at the GM plant I worked at and they were using one of these helicopters to lift and place a heating cooling unit. It was really neat to watch since I was somewhat level with the rotor blades. As they picked up the load the blades would curve to look like a bowl with the shaft much lower in the middle. Those rotor blades must be pretty flexible and they do flex a lot when the pick up the load.

Mark, if you ever watch a helo make a tight break (turn) at high speed, you will hear a 'pop-pop-pop'.
That's the blade ends moving up and down and slapping the air below them as they return to the 'neutral' plane.
And yes, heavy lift birds have very flexible blades, that sag a lot when static, but will sure enough bowl their blades under power, especially when doing a full power & load test where the helo is tied down to the tarmac.



They will also, under certain flight configurations on some helicopters, bend downward and have been known to chop parts of the forward upper fuselage off.

An officer in my squadron, was knocked out cold, when a mortar round exploded as it came thru the hangar roof. Freak occurrence, (jus dumb bad luck) but the pressure wave of the explosion forced the end of a CH53 blade violently down just as he was passing under it, and it smacked him right in the top of the head. He survived.