15th May 2022 - Tour de Hongrie - featuring HA-HBY - AS 355F2
This year, the camera helicopter for the Tour de Hongrie was supplied by the 'FLY FOR LESS' company from Budaörs Airfield, Budapest. The type used was an Aerospatiale AS.355F2 Ecureuil 2 (Squirrel, or 'Mokus' in Hungarian). It's previous registrations were: F-WYMA and OE-BXW.
High above, at about 27,000 feet was the usual Beech 200 King Air F-HFRF, owned by the French company, AERO-SOTRAVIA. which is based at Melun-Villaroche Aerodrome, south-east of Paris. The aircraft has equipment on-board to beam the TV images from the helicopter (and also, presumably, the camera motorcycles) back to the TV companies. Once the race broadcast ended, F-HFRF departed from the Mátra area, where it had been circling all day, and headed back to its home base in France.
The camera helicopter required three refueling stops at Pipis-hegy airfield .... two for the race, and a third for the return trip to its base. The first two were 'hot refueling' - meaning that the engines (and rotors) are kept running whilst fuel is added. This enables the camera-copter to quickly return to its position over the bicycle riders, without the delay of a cold re-start.
1st refueling touchdown at 1131. Take-off at 1139.
2nd refueling touchdown at 1322. Take-off at 1328.
3rd refueling touchdown, after the race, at 1457, but the 'new' larger fuel bowser only arrived at 1536. Final take-off for the Budaörs base at 1550.
Ground crewman/refueler Marcel ('Marci') collected the larger fuel bowser vehicle for the final refueling stop. As this vehicle was taller than the first one, the main rotor blades had to be moved round slightly by hand to allow him to park as close to the helicopter as possible. A good observation by Marci, as this could have been an expensive collision! The smaller bowser tank could hold 900 litres of A1 Jet Fuel.
A very slick operation by this team. They had been in action from early morning, and had to grab some food and drink when they had a little 'down time'.
Whilst all this frantic activity was taking place, the Flying Club of Gyöngyös was conducting glider flights, using their tractor winch. There was no aerial conflict as the helicopter operated from a recently-mown patch near to the green hangar and it approached the airfield at quite a low level.
High above, at about 27,000 feet was the usual Beech 200 King Air F-HFRF, owned by the French company, AERO-SOTRAVIA. which is based at Melun-Villaroche Aerodrome, south-east of Paris. The aircraft has equipment on-board to beam the TV images from the helicopter (and also, presumably, the camera motorcycles) back to the TV companies. Once the race broadcast ended, F-HFRF departed from the Mátra area, where it had been circling all day, and headed back to its home base in France.
The camera helicopter required three refueling stops at Pipis-hegy airfield .... two for the race, and a third for the return trip to its base. The first two were 'hot refueling' - meaning that the engines (and rotors) are kept running whilst fuel is added. This enables the camera-copter to quickly return to its position over the bicycle riders, without the delay of a cold re-start.
1st refueling touchdown at 1131. Take-off at 1139.
2nd refueling touchdown at 1322. Take-off at 1328.
3rd refueling touchdown, after the race, at 1457, but the 'new' larger fuel bowser only arrived at 1536. Final take-off for the Budaörs base at 1550.
Ground crewman/refueler Marcel ('Marci') collected the larger fuel bowser vehicle for the final refueling stop. As this vehicle was taller than the first one, the main rotor blades had to be moved round slightly by hand to allow him to park as close to the helicopter as possible. A good observation by Marci, as this could have been an expensive collision! The smaller bowser tank could hold 900 litres of A1 Jet Fuel.
A very slick operation by this team. They had been in action from early morning, and had to grab some food and drink when they had a little 'down time'.
Whilst all this frantic activity was taking place, the Flying Club of Gyöngyös was conducting glider flights, using their tractor winch. There was no aerial conflict as the helicopter operated from a recently-mown patch near to the green hangar and it approached the airfield at quite a low level.