Flying in the North Sea...

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TheGreenGoblin
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Flying in the North Sea...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:32 am

I was reprising the Flying Scotsmen Documentary that the BBC produced back in the 70's and that also featured Captain Alan Whitfield, the author of Island Pilot. There is a very good segment on helicopter operations in the North Sea in the documentary. I commend it to the house or to those here that flew up in that part of the world.

Scots1.JPG
Scots2.JPG
Scots3.JPG
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#2 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:31 am

Far rather fly over than in.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#3 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:10 am

Ah, the days of BEA Helicopters on the North Sea! Flying in uniform jackets, sometimes in shirtsleeve order, lifejackets not worn but stowed somewhere, Decca Mk 8 as shown in the S61 panel...and I think I see a whole bunch of decometers there. BEAH soon learned that shirtsleeve order and a sea temperature of around 10C or less did not mix well.

Night ditching of S61 G-ASNM on 15 November 1970

Those were the days when AAIB reports still named the crew. Dave is still with us at the age of 85 but Keith passed away some while back.
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 28, 2021 12:37 pm

I had a look at the AAIB report and noted how many ditching incidents there were in S61's around the British coast during the 70's and early 80's, including this sad one off the Scilly Isles...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Brit ... S-61_crash
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#5 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:39 pm

The Scillies accident prompted the development and installation of AVAD - Automatic Voice Activated Device - on offshore tasked helicopters. Using radio altitude information it had a crew selected warning altitude plus an unalterable voice warning of ‘100 feet’ altitude.

The crew selected altitude on the Radio Altimeter - always greater than 100 feet - was usually set to MDA for an offshore NDB or Radar approach and transgression of that height resulted in a voice ‘Check Height’ warning. When landing on an offshore destination the 100 foot warning was deselected on very late visual finals. This was to avoid a spurious voice warning as you crossed the deck edge.

Edit: Maybe FD2 can help here. Am getting old but something at the back of my mind says that modifications were later made so the 100 feet warning as you crossed the deck edge did not activate as AVAD sensed the equivalent of a rate of descent above 5000 ft/min. Quite acceptable to have that automatic suspension as nothing is going to save you if you were actually going down at 5000 ft/min at 100 feet altitude!
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#6 Post by FD2 » Fri Oct 29, 2021 10:18 am

C16 - I'm sure you are right about the automatic inhibition of AVAD. Also I think I remember there being an inhibit switch/push button on finals to prevent the lady's advice to 'Check height', after both bugs had been wound down. I'll try and find my Ground School notes. I'm sure DL would have stopped the downward slow descent if an AVAD had been fitted to G-BEON. It was a standard North Sea machine acting as a summer backup for the Penzance based S61NM so fortunately or unfortunately only had seats for 26 passengers. They would of course be dressed in summer clothes and not briefed on the finer points of a ditching, let alone a crash into the sea at high speed.

That tragedy marked the end of a death free period for BAH since BEAH had started. I can't recall whether it was BEAH or Bristow which put the aircraft into North Sea service first. The S61N had been in North Sea service from the late 1960s until about 10 years or so ago and on the North Sea had an exceptionally low fatality rate, discounting the Scillies accident. At one point the two companies had over 20 machines each based at Sumburgh, Aberdeen and the Norfolk bases all racking up impressive flying hours. The Brent Spar crash of G-BEWL, caused by the pilot hitting a crane with the tail rotor, claimed 6 lives. KLMH lost PH-NZC when it crashed after MRB failure, also with 6 lives lost. I'll try and put together a few more statistics. But not tonight as it's time for bed.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#7 Post by FD2 » Fri Oct 29, 2021 10:05 pm

After a delaying skirmish with trying to sort of Windows 10.

Trying to be dispassionate about the subject, I think that's not a bad record for that length of service and high airframe hours. I'm sure I will have missed some S61 accidents off the list but none spring to mind with a high fatality figure.

Mechanical problems

G-ASNM Loss of MGB oil Zero fatalities.
G-BEID 1st Loss of MGB cooling Zero fatalities.
G-BEID 2nd Failure of #5 bearing seal and subsequent fire Zero fatalities.
G-ASNL MGB failure Zero fatalities
LN-OQS MRB failure Norwegian sector 18 fatalities
PH-NZC MRB failure Dutch sector 6 fatalities
G-BBHN MRB failure Zero fatalities

Pilot error

G-BEON Un-noticed descent into sea, lack of AVAD 20 fatalities
G-BEWL Cross cockpit landing resulted in tail rotor hitting crane 6 fatalities.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#8 Post by CharlieOneSix » Fri Oct 29, 2021 10:56 pm

Re the G-BEWL accident, as FD2 will remember, the Brent Spar had a horrible unnatural deck movement. Same with the Beryl Spar which can be seen in this 1980's era video at 8:20. That video brings back memories, we used to spend two weeks at a time on the Beryl with a Bell 214ST doing morning and evening shuttles.
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#9 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 30, 2021 3:21 am

In the Flying Scotsmen documentary there are passenger shots, as in that interesting documentary posted by C16. In the latter case there are much more formal security checks, and critically, all the passengers don survival suits. Did the rig employees have to undergo helicopter water egress and survival training. If so, did that pertain in the 70's?
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#10 Post by FD2 » Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:24 am

C16 I only landed on it occasionally as the Brent Field Shell platforms were serviced from Sumburgh. I remember being astonished at the size of the northern platforms after those further south which were serviced from Aberdeen - I think it was the Brent Delta which had a vent mast next to the drilling derrick which was over 500ft high. Its topside removal: https://www.shell.co.uk/sustainability/ ... -lift.html

The Spar had an uncomfortable movement as you say - in bad weather the tanker would be pulling, sometimes against the natural but awkward movement of the Spar itself. Quite sickening at times.

GG - The passengers were always in suits and I remember there was a good dunker facility at Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology (RGIT) in Aberdeen but that didn't open until the late 1970s and I don't remember what they did for dunker training before that - I didn't start with BAH in Aberdeen until 1977. The oil companies sensibly insisted that the aircraft crews were also in suits, I guess after contract renegotiations, but their very reasonable point of view was that they wanted the crews to be able to look after their passengers after ditching rather than succumbing to hypothermia.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:29 am

FD2 wrote:
Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:24 am

GG - The passengers were always in suits and I remember there was a good dunker facility at Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology (RGIT) in Aberdeen but that didn't open until the late 1970s and I don't remember what they did for dunker training before that - I didn't start with BAH in Aberdeen until 1977. The oil companies sensibly insisted that the aircraft crews were also in suits, I guess after contract renegotiations, but their very reasonable point of view was that they wanted the crews to be able to look after their passengers after ditching rather than succumbing to hypothermia.
They must have staged the scenes in the aircraft with the passengers sitting in their seats in the Flying Scotsmen documentary then, as nary a survival suit in sight.

Thanks for the gen. FD2.
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#12 Post by FD2 » Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:38 am

Badly phrased GG - I remember them as always in suits - from over 40 years or more back!

Also not infrequently drunk before the oil companies got strict with them and they were sacked if they were turned down for a flight.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#13 Post by Undried Plum » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:08 am

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Sat Oct 30, 2021 3:21 am
Did the rig employees have to undergo helicopter water egress and survival training. If so, did that pertain in the 70's?
No.

In the early/mid '70s there were no suits. The pilots did wear a "Floater" jacket which was a zip up neoprene jacket with a 'beaver tail' which was normally stowed up the back of the jacket but could be drawn between your legs and press-studded into place to keep you 'nads a bit warm. It also had a neoprene collar which could optionally be fastened; and a hood to keep the rain off your bonce while you drowned or succumbed to cold shock and/or hypothermia.

The pilots' Floater was blue; the ones given to a few high status passengers was orange. Very very few pax had one. I happen to know that Oxy awarded one to the helicopter controller of the North Central North Sea (Bredford Traffic 122.45) for his own personal use :ymblushing: , but I never travelled with any other passenger who had one. It was the standard jeans and Levi shirt and that was about it.

For the "bears" there was elementary life-raft boarding training in a swimming pool, but no dunker.

Before RGIT opened their lavish training facility there was no non-military dunker so far as a I know. I did my first course at Portobello open air swimming pool in Edinburgh. Realistically cold in March, I can tell you, but we wore nothing but swimming trunks and orange cotton overalls and plimsolls. To make things a bit sporty, we had to step off the 10m high diving board.

In the early days the '61 carried 19 pax and had no flight attendant. Pax had no training whatsoever and the lifejacket arrangement was the same as in modern airliners: somewhere under the seat. Deploying the liferaft was to be done by the pilots, as mentioned in the above AAIB Report, and was consequently likely to be a bit of a **** if trying to get 19 pax plus themselves into the raft.

There were were no seastate limitations for flying over water in those days. The '61 flew in up to 55kts wind state to my personal experience. The principal limitation was shutting down the rotors above that windspeed. I recall one occasion when they had to taxi into the hangar at Sumburgh in order to be able to shut down.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#14 Post by FD2 » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:50 am

That was the UVic Thermofloat jacket. (University of Victoria, BC, Canada) It was pretty good for a cold wet day's fishing on the Don as well.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#15 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 30, 2021 10:13 am

Flying back from the Scilly Isles this September, I forgot to don my life jacket before taxying out for the return flight, and in retrospect, I should have aborted the flight, backtracked and put the jacket on, but I didn't. It isn't a long crossing, but sod's law says that your engine will fail in the "unglidable zone of doom". Whether a jacket, without a survival suit, even in the comparatively warmer seas in the South West, when compared with the North Sea would guarantee survival, having safely egressed from the aircraft, in September, is a moot one! At the very least a jacket would be more likely to provide a corpse which would facilitate identification, and expedite the insurance claims, burial, lessen the burden of grief of one's loved ones, and delight one's enemies in the ocular proof of one's demise.
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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#16 Post by Undried Plum » Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:00 pm

FD2 wrote:
Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:50 am
That was the UVic Thermofloat jacket. (University of Victoria, BC, Canada) It was pretty good for a cold wet day's fishing on the Don as well.


Yup. That's the one.

Image
Daks slacks and cotton shirt optional.

When dry bags became compulsory I gave my Floater to a down&out in Edinburgh as his need was so great and I had no need of it any more. I thought it was a much better thing to do than giving him money which I suspect would have gone on booze 'n fags and worse. For about a year, I used to see him in Princes Street sitting cross legged with his begging cup in front of him and looking miserable and still wearing 'my' Oxy Floater. It still had the Oxy logo on it! That always made me giggle. I hasten to say that this was many years before that dreadful night when Piper became famous.

The more I think about it, the more aghast I am that we used to routinely fly to Thistle in winter gales wearing little more than I'm wearing in my study right now with an ambient air temp of 23°C. What the hell were we thinking of?

My guess is that the solid feel of the '61 gave one a false sense of security. I worried about the MGB grinding to halt about as much as I worry about the main spar snapping in a modern airliner.

Now the freaky little Bo105 was a whole 'nuther creel o' fush....

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#17 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:19 pm

In the kipper fleet we had life jackets and that was that. It was believed ditching was not possible and if you did you would not survive it.

There followed two ditching by Breguet Atlantic with the crews all getting out in goon suits and sitting on the wing. Then there was a successful ditching of a Nimrod.

After much arguing 'once only' suits were provided and stowed on board.

I had two rig trips in the 70s. The first was a RNoAF Sea King and we had our own goon suits. The second was a Bristow flight but just ordinary uniform.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#18 Post by Undried Plum » Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:46 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:19 pm
It was believed ditching was not possible and if you did you would not survive it.

My first survival course in the corporate Nawf Sea Industry in the proximate mid70s, all of one day of being taught, involved a very stern-faced RAF winchman of much experience from the old Whirlwind days, who told us that he'd winched up 20 live survivors out of cold water. We studes started to cheer, but he stopped us all by saying that every single one of them was dead on arrival at hospital.

The phenomenon of hydraulic shock hadn't, until his days, been identified and rectified.

Never lift them vertically in a vertical arrangement of the liftee.

The modern arrangements lift the survivor in a more or less horizontal arrangement. Then, they live, usually. Previously they died, usually.

Big difference.

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#19 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Oct 30, 2021 5:08 pm

In training, the lift was always bloody freezing.
The RAF never liked the Sproule net said it was only good for scooping up bodies.
Was it a question of not invented here?

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Re: Flying in the North Sea...

#20 Post by Undried Plum » Sat Oct 30, 2021 5:16 pm

Best not to scoop up the least warm bods.

****, instead.

At the going doing at the sun, etc.

So much messier.

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