Group plans unmanned Everest rescue helicopter

The non-profit Rescue on Everest Trust has set out to make Mt. Everest a relatively safer place, recently announcing the Rescue on Everest Challenge with the intention of putting an unmanned rescue helicopter on duty to pull stranded mountain climbers to safety. While it's still a ways off from taking flight, the project does seem to have the backing needed to make it happen, with New Zealand-based TGR Helicorp developing and donating the vehicle to the cause. Once completed, the helicopter, dubbed the Alpine Wasp, will be able to be remotely-controlled at altitudes up to 30,000 feet, and be able to lower a lifeline that climbers can latch onto, taking them for a ride only slightly more terrifying than climbing Mt. Everest in the first place. While the few glimpses of the aircraft's progress in the video after the break would seem to suggest that there's still quite a bit of work to be done, TGR Helicorp insists that it'll undergo testing in New Zealand this year, with it being handed over to the Everest team soon thereafter. No word if they'll be offering rides during the off-season.

[Via Robot Gossip]

[LittleJoe @ Feb 5th 2007 9:20PM]

What would happened to a rescued climber who comes down the mountain so dramatically fast though? Don't climbers have to slowly adjust to the altitude as they go up AND down?

Though Im sure having your life saved always weighs out a case of the bends, I was just curious.

[Chris @ Feb 5th 2007 10:51PM]

I can't find any info on "compression sickness". "bends" is caused by rapid decompression, not by rapid compression. in fact, rapid compression is an effective way to treat decompression sickness. apparently the body deals just fine with more pressure, just not less.

[Vince @ Feb 5th 2007 9:25PM]

Oh sweet mother of god! I can't think of anything more terrifying than a flight down from 30,000 feet, dangling from a rope (or more likely a steel cable) attached to an unmanned helicopter. A least let me be unconscious before lift-off.

[john spain @ Mar 29th 2007 6:12PM]

vince are you vince waters from Canada?
What is better an helicopter or being there for ever?
jjb

[brien @ Feb 5th 2007 9:33PM]

leave it to humans. it's like Jerry Seinfeld said - instead of avoiding the activity where you need a helmet altogether, we invent the helmet. Instead of avoiding climbing a dangerous mountain, we invent a rescue helicopter to save people stupid enough to get themselves caught in a situation like that!

[Cam @ Feb 5th 2007 11:45PM]

I agree with you to some extent, although Everest's weather changes very quickly. I still think there are 10,000+ other good causes to create something for instead of a lot of wealthy everest thrill seekers. It costs a few hundred thousand dollars to take part in an expedition if I remember correctly.

[Fat Joe @ Feb 5th 2007 9:56PM]

Im prety sure they'll be safe from the bends as long as they dont go further up the mountain.

[Ted @ Feb 5th 2007 10:36PM]

The main reason for acclimating so long is to get your body used to no oxygen. The pressure difference isn't enough to change states for nitrogen.

When people start getting HACE or HAPE, they get retreated down the mountain as quickly as possible. Descent is not a problem.

What IS a problem though, is the inate inability for people to use reasoning skills when they are low on Oxygen. Would you want to rope into a helicopter by yourself when you are drunk?

As for dangling like a fishing lure from a helicopter, few things are scarier with a hangover.

[LittleJoe @ Feb 5th 2007 10:53PM]

Ah, that makes more sense then. Thanks!

[Directive0 @ Feb 5th 2007 11:17PM]

Which begs the question:

In a worse case scenario is it better to die of frost bite and hypoxia or massive trauma from the crash landing of a defective robo-chopper 5000?

[diem @ Feb 5th 2007 11:20PM]

this is just insane. "Rescue on Everest" is going to be a whole lot more viable by just installing a gondola. what better way to get more people to attempt the summit? this is going o lead to far more deaths.

[4.1 @ Feb 5th 2007 11:21PM]

I for one welcome our "what happens when its gets really windy up there" flying RC overloards.

GO NZ!!!

[tim @ Feb 6th 2007 12:05AM]

Most mountaineers consider Everest a farce. The only people who climb that rock are rich dilletantes and the people taking their money. The mountain is a pigsty and the local economy is hopelessly twisted from the rivers of cash coming in from climber-tourists.
Not to denigrate the physical challenge of climbing Everest, but the real magic of climbing isn't represented by the current Everest scene. And this gizmo is just further proof that morons run the universe.

[JD @ Feb 6th 2007 10:02AM]

Have to agree with you Tim. Instead of using this to rescue wealthy idiots, how about using it to clean up the trash dump that's accumulated at the top of the mountain?

[Colin @ Feb 6th 2007 12:27AM]

To those people talking about hanging on a rope: Don't you think they would at least use a hanging 'bag' or something more safe, in which they would just get in and be lifted up. I doubt they are stupid enough to force people to climb a rope at 20k+ feet, due to the climber's lack of sufficient oxygen, etc.

[Erik Walthinsen @ Feb 6th 2007 2:51AM]

It was pretty clear from the story that the dropped "rope" will have a loop on the end, which the climber simply clips into as they would clip onto any other climbing rope. No climbing or holding onto the rope involved. Same system every other similar rescue apparatus uses, including baskets. Anyone who isn't already harnessed up (or can't easily be made so by their climbing partners) in such a fashion shouldn't have even been given enough brain cells to think about climbing in the first place.

[Carl M @ Feb 6th 2007 3:16AM]

The article doesn't mention WHY this helicopter will work at 30K feet (when most others have a ceiling of 14K feet). What's the secret? (Or, as well, why do other helicopters have a lower ceiling?)

[B1indspot @ Feb 6th 2007 12:31PM]

They mentioned that it has the ability to fly higher compared to other heli's due to the fact that it uses a diesel engine instead of a normal.
The diesel engine allows it to fly without the use of oxygen, which is very low at those altitudes.

[Ben Swain @ Feb 6th 2007 7:45AM]

Yeah, you have issues with the air being too thin for the helicopter to maintain altitude. Also, any video you see of Everest shows some absolutely wicked cross winds up there. How do they expect to keep the helicopter stable?

while climbing Everest isn't as big of a deal as it used to be, it's still a very dangerous undertaking. Mad respect to the sherpas, without them no one could make it up there.

[Cameron @ Feb 6th 2007 9:29AM]

The record for helo rescue on Everest is 19,800 ft. by Colonel Madan K.C., from the Nepal Army Air Force, there are some conflicting evidence about a landing/hover at the summit by a Eurcopter experimental chopper (Ecureuil/AStar AS350 B3?).

They're going to have to attach them into a screamer suit or something, or the hypothermia from the built in wind chill of forward movement will kill them, making the rescue more a recovery.

[Cameron Campbell @ Feb 6th 2007 10:04AM]

Or use it exclusively for Sherpa.

[Lonnie McClure @ Feb 6th 2007 1:39PM]

B1indspot:

If a "diesel engine allows it to fly without the use of oxygen", does that mean those huge air filters on diesel trucks are just for show? :)

Seriously, diesel engines combust fuel using oxygen, just as gasoline engines do. The difference is in that they initiate combustion using compression rather than a spark.

[Ted @ Feb 6th 2007 11:32PM]

I think the real problem is lift. I believe the reports that Eurocopter made it to the peak. Just not sure that they hovered, landed, and took off.

iirc, from the reports on Madan's trips (one each for Weathers and Gau) he had to use ground effect to basically skate up the mountain, up to camp 1. He then spun the helicopter 180 and dropped. They'd load one guy on, Madan would get the weight off of the skids and basically ski down the mountain until he had enough lift to get truely airborn. Very dicey work, and a nice job to save 2 lives.

As far as roping in. Even the simple task of clipping onto a carabiner can be challenging at altitude. Discovery's series had some interesting footage of how hard of a time people were having trying to attach their grigris, even on oxygen.


Climbing is dangerous. Heck, check out the later editions of Krakauers book, and see how many of the professional climbers are dead. It can happen at the top, getting to the summit too late(Scott Fisher), or at the bottom, trying to take a picture of the mountain (Babu Chiri). At the end of the day, the helicopter is going to have little effect in most peoples decision making process on whether to go up.