So a chopper can reach and surpass a 747 on air
What a monumental piece of crap!!!
A waste of time. Not believable, cheesy and horribly directed, not to mention every "actor" sucked in it!
Actually...no offense but you don't know much about the helicopter used.
It is a variant of the Sikorsky CH53..
This Jet copter is FULLY capable of achieving a top speed of near 200 MPH...which was faster then the speed the 747 was flying. TECHNICALLY it's plausible...but would be very challenging for even the best of pilots.
However in the movie...the one actually used...was an MH-53 Jolly Green Giant...which it's top speed may or may not be as high, depending on the exact variant...Haven't tracked down the exact variant used in the film. But still technically within the air-frame's capability. :)
I agree with what the OP said (though the movie is so bad it's good and thus had to be a major inspiration for the "Airplane!" spoof) but I too think a fast helicopter (they used a Sikorsky HH-53 in the movie) could conceivably keep up with a 747 flying above its stall speed (roughly 125 mph?) and no faster than approx 175mph. The "stall speed" of any aircraft isn't a set figure and there are many variables to consider that I won't get in to. In the movie I think ground control had stewardess Karen Black flying the plane slow enough to reduce the buffeting the open cockpit was taking and to be able to do that highly unlikely helicopter transfer. The Sikorsky HH-53 has a max speed of 196mph, cruising speed of 173mph and a service ceiling of 16,000'.
The helicopter/747 rescue scenario was the least of this movie's problems! I flew on a 747 back in 1970 to Hawaii (my only time in first class too) just a year or two after they first came into service and it was an exciting thing at the time but no way did it have the Love Boat cruise ship vibe that this movie's plane had in the beginning! LOL
Maybe I missed something. Wasn't the original movie, with George Kennedy playing the same character set in Chicago. And Karen Black is seeing Charlton Heston and they were both in Washington D.C when the flight took off. How can Heston and Kennedy get to Salt Lake city faster than the airplane, unless the plane was circling for many hours. And after the pilot is inserted Kennedy is able to fly way ahead of the plane and land. Why didn't he fly parralell to the plane and tell him if his wheels were down. I know that it is only a movie.
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Yes, you missed quite a bit. Kennedy's character is now VP of Operations and us based in LA. In the beginning of the movie Heston's character takes a much earlier flight out to LA from Dulles (flight 409 is the red-eye flight) and is at LAX awaiting the arrival of 409. If you remember, Kennedy's character pages Heston's in the VIP lounge of the LAX (where both were at the time).
As to whether they could get from LA to Salt Lake in time - I couldn't really say.
I agree with the scepticism of how Kennedy and Heston were able to reach the 747 in time to help. At the time of the accident the flight deck was en route to Salt Lake and was 20 minutes from landing when the collision took place. The collision did not take the 747 off course much. How was a corporate jet able to fly from LAX to Salt Lake, gather together in the tower to discuss the best plan to save everyone, wait for a Airforce Helicopter to be delivered, have their pre-rescue brief and still make it in time safe the 747 in mid-air. You'd figure at that point the 747 would have flown over Salt lake and passed it. Heston should have had to turn the 747 around to fly back to Salt Lake.
shareOh, hell yeah. I thought the same thing. That thing would have either been flying over the Pacific or smashed against the side of the Rockies.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I just watched it again. If you watch the part when when Al Murdoch and Patroni first get off Exec.1 in Salt Lake, the rep at Salt Lake Tower greets them as the leave the jet and said "What a rondevous point, have the 747 do a 180 and come back."
Apparently the film does acknowledge the jet flow past Salt Lake. This makes more sense now....
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Good questions I'm not sure either, but.... reading thru wikipedia article on stalls it seems to me that the airspeed doesn't usually have anything to do with it. Well, as long as the plane is flying faster than its designed stall speed and the plane wing's angle of attack is within certain parameters (the "angle" isn't too low or too high at any speed) the plane shouldn't begin dropping/losing altitude. In the movie there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the engine power or flaps etc so the attendant/pilot wasn't operating with limitations there anyway. I assume if you slow down to above stall speed but fast enough that a fast helicopter of 1975 could stay with you (military copters of that era like the UH-1 HueyCobra had a max speed of 200+ mph, but their operational ceiling was 11,000') and kept the angle of attack within the right range using the flaps etc you'd be fine. I'm sure I totally missed something critical (LOL) in this explanation so don't try this in your own 747 without proper verification. (-:
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