Helicopters and fog?

[LDB]

Watching a FB reel. Car driving in fairly heavy fog. A helicopter appears hovering maybe 10-15 feet above the ground as if slowing to flare and land. As the car passes the fog pretty much disappears for a second. Does the helicopter blow away the fog in the cone beneath the rotors?

 

[vavavroom]

Watching a FB reel. Car driving in fairly heavy fog. A helicopter appears hovering maybe 10-15 feet above the ground as if slowing to flare and land. As the car passes the fog pretty much disappears for a second. Does the helicopter blow away the fog in the cone beneath the rotors?

No.

 

[LDB]

No.

I didn't know how it could but if you saw this short clip it's like when the chase plane flies into the eye of the storm, just a clear cone, then on the other side back into it, in this case heavy fog.

 

[vavavroom]

I didn't know how it could but if you saw this short clip it's like when the chase plane flies into the eye of the storm, just a clear cone, then on the other side back into it, in this case heavy fog.

Well, maybe if there's just a swath of fog it could happen.

 

[Ranger83]

Don’t post the reel.

 

[JimPghPA]

Just a wild guess: there are a lot of air-pressure changes going on around a helicopter in flight close to the ground.

If someone says they saw such a thing as fog clearng away around one like that, I would think plausible, but not common. Conditions probably would have to be within a narrow window.

BTW, flying a helicopter in IFR is probably one of the hardest thing to do in avaition. Plenty of them have crashed in the past when the pilot lost sight of the ground.

 

[4WD]

Ask the pilots in Newfoundland - (it won’t) …

 

[y_p_w]

No.

If it's nearly all fog (and I've seen some pretty thick Tule fog) then displacing a little bit of fog certainly isn't going to help with a helicopter's visibility.

 

[LDB]

No, I just thought it was interesting the car seemed to drive through a small cone of clear in the area of the downwash.

 

[Cujet]

Everyone here is correct. When flying through fog, a helicopter's rotors generally will not disburse the fog. However a twin turbine helicopter pours out a lot of heat in a hover, and that heat can clear a small area of fog affected by the engine exhaust.

We landed in an orange grove in our EC135 in IMC. It did clear a spot. Same with hovering over the groves to prevent frost. It can eliminate the fog.

I think this video shows what I mean.

 

[LDB]

That's the video I saw that made me wonder.

 

[Cujet]

That's the video I saw that made me wonder.

On the FL orange groves, we used to see this all the time. When helicopters were contracted to stir up the air and prevent frost. There would be a low fog forming among the orange trees (so not IMC, clear above) and it would clear up with an hour of flying back and forth. Today with citrus canker, I am not at all sure anyone bothers to do anything. The orange groves are not what they used to be.

 

[bullwinkle]

Everyone here is correct. When flying through fog, a helicopter's rotors generally will not disburse the fog. However a twin turbine helicopter pours out a lot of heat in a hover, and that heat can clear a small area of fog affected by the engine exhaust.

We landed in an orange grove in our EC135 in IMC. It did clear a spot. Same with hovering over the groves to prevent frost. It can eliminate the fog.

I think this video shows what I mean.

Chopper was following the road, trying to find a place to land. That's how Kobe Bryant & his daughter died-disoriented pilot flew right into the ground.