Helicopter Pilots are Different......

[Cacophonix]

I remember reading about the first rather unfortunate piece of "heavy lift" ineptitude in SA sometime ago and sadly I witnessed the aftermath of the latter accident which killed all of the crew as they attempted to deliver an air conditioning unit in the Cape Town CBD. The crew were known now locally as the 'The Incredibles' for the cargo lifting exploits they had successfully undertaken previously.

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr7vJ0L6PG4[/bbvideo]

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx5B_nuz_Jc[/bbvideo]

Caco

[FD2]

I bet your concentration levels were quite high going up to 5000 ft at night C16! No GPS to help either but slightly easier with a little wind I guess? (outside the aircraft!) That must have been quite a lunch with those guys as well - wasn't Harris a bit of a hell-raiser? Roy Kinnear was great - a shame he died young, falling off a horse I think?
I can't recollect many notable flights where anyone famous was involved apart from flying the mysterious Dr Armand Hammer and his wife - he was the boss/owner of Occidental Petroleum - from Aberdeen to Kirkwall. They had the back of an S61 to themselves and couldn't bring themselves to speak to oiks like us. He was like a real life Mr Magoo but I think Mr Magoo would have been more polite!
Next day we flew him and Margaret Thatcher to the Oxy refinery at Flotta. It must have been very difficult for her to sit in the back of a British Airways aircraft as the Conservatives were very busy trying to get the company de-nationalised. She was surrounded by the usual lackeys and hangers-on and as usual they all got to their feet as soon as we stopped taxiing - I'm afraid I didn't have the courage to bollock them as I did when the oilies did that. I guess I could have joined Bristow if I got sacked but didn't want to put it to the test. She did say how nice and clean the aircraft was though - aaah! Hammer made some announcement to the press just before we flew them back, which she jumped on with glee as it was supposed to ensure more Oxy jobs but like most of these things was over-hyped nonsense for publicity.
Hammer was 90 when Piper Alpha went up in flames killing 167 men in 1988 but continued running Occidental until his death about two years later.
After landing on the Piper Alpha one day we were deafened by the sound of seatbelts being unfastened in the back. I waved the HLO away and lifted into the hover for a quick damper check, which means stirring the cyclic very fast a couple of times, before putting it down again and telling them they were now free to undo their seatbelts. Well if looks could kill...but after repeating the same spiel about a hundred times to deaf ears I just had one of those red moments...bad boy!

Armand Hammer

Armand_Hammer_82.jpg (283.09 KiB) Viewed 613 times

[FD2]

A sad event Caco - just a loss of concentration for a moment and it's all over.

The same happened on the Brent Spar loading facility in the Brent Field off Shetland in 1990 when the tail rotor of an S61 struck a crane and the aircraft went over the edge out of control
https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/2-1991- ... -july-1990

For some reason the captain opted to do a cross-cockpit landing himself instead of handing control to the co-pilot. He died along with 5 others of the 13 on board.

The only problem I had was during a replenishment at sea off West Africa when I took out the RFA's ensign staff with an underslung load one New Years day morning. Luckily they didn't bill me for it.

[Cacophonix]

Reverting to your comments about twin engines FD2 and the way that some tourist operations seem to push the safety and operational envelope, the whole Cape Town tourist and charter aviation scene could represent an apt example of what you might have been hinting at.

Notwithstanding the use of a variety of Hueys of dubious provenance that have been sold into the South African market where they are flown within the context of a slack maintenance and operational environment by some unscrupulous operators who push the limits of the law, there are many others, both fixed and rotary operators, who also push the margins of legality in pursuit of the tourist Rand during the summer season...

See here for some examples of this ongoing "Huey" scandal...

https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/chopper ... nd-1828882

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ ... a-20160114

and going back in time...

http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAWCHC/2004/10.pdf

Caco

[CharlieOneSix]

That Cape Town crash was awful but as FD2 says it only takes a moments's loss of concentration. Looking back in my logbooks I see I did two lifts of air conditioning units with a Bolkow 105 to the top of what was then called the IPC Media building in London. It has now been extended from 364ft high to 495ft and has been renamed South Bank Tower. The CAA insisted the lifts took place on a Sunday (21/3/76) and that the building was unoccupied. This photo was taken during the extension work.

South Bank Tower.jpg (21.5 KiB) Viewed 597 times

I remember the client getting slightly hacked off because of the amount of detail that went into the planning and the number of visits I made to get things straight in my head - it was just me on board with guidance from a marshaller with a VHF radio. There was not enough room to have sight of a marshaller giving hand signals. I picked the loads up at Battersea heliport, flew them up the river to the site and all went well. Another job was in Burton on Trent putting 5 sections of a cooling tower stack on top of one another for Allied Breweries. Once again it had to be done on a Sunday (25/8/74) because of the built up area. On reflection there was no way I could have held on to the load on either job if an engine had quit in the hover. I suppose it would never be allowed nowadays.

Those were great days - such a variety of jobs before getting sucked into the tramlines of offshore oil/gas support flying.

[CharlieOneSix]

FD2/Caco - just re-reading the Brent Spar accident report and in the appendices there is a list of other helicopter 'collisions' with offshore installations. There is a report on 16 February 1978 of a Bolkow 105 incident and the paragraph starts " During an approach for the pilot's 63rd landing that day......."

Makes my 29 look very tame!!

[FD2]

Caco

It's a difficult problem and there are a number of competing problems I think.

The easy tourist money is a tempting proposition.

It's difficult for young people to get a start in the industry with low hours.

If they do get a job, building hours on a tourist or bush operation, they often don't have the experience to see when trouble is brewing or the knowledge to get themselves out of it.

That sort of operation rarely has the resources to provide two pilots - one with experience to coach the beginner.

If the flight goes wrong the CAA will be criticised for not checking up on what was going on.

If things do not go wrong but the CAA take action against breaches of the rules they are also criticised for being heavy handed.

I suspect this is a problem in many parts of the World and the only way I can see of tackling it is for the aviation authorities to be more proactive and keep a closer eye on things. However I have no doubt there will be budgetary constraints on them, the same as any government authority, and they will only get the necessary staff when something has gone badly wrong.

I'm just thankful that I trained in the services - it was a steep learning curve but very closely monitored, and it's very easy to stop someone flying in the forces - 'withdraw them from training' - and they cannot get in an aircraft again as crew.

I just remembered another problem - it's all too easy to exaggerate one's experience and pull the wool over a new employer's eyes. Employers often don't chase up previous employers for confirmation of experience. A pilot in a company I worked for had done just that and his lack of real as opposed to made up experience was scandalous, because his 'nice' new chief pilot hadn't been in touch with his previous one.

CharlieOneSix 63 landings! The guy's head must have been spinning along with his eyeballs!

[CharlieOneSix]

FD2 - it doesn't help when even regulatory authorities don't check up properly when employing Flight Ops Inspectors. I'm sure you are aware of this story from your part of the world....
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/93824772/civil-aviation-authority-inspector-not-as-qualified-as-claimed

[CharlieOneSix]

........ because his 'nice' new chief pilot hadn't been in touch with his previous one.

Not me, I hope! I used to contact my opposite numbers if I didn't know the applicant but on a very rare occasion they were so glad to get rid of them they were, shall we say, economic with the truth. One particular guy from overseas who had been employed for a short while by another operator at ABZ had - if I recall correctly - 2000 hours on paper but it was logged as nearly all instructing. Incredibly during his type conversion he had difficulty flying a visual circuit accurately. I can't remember now whether he was released to the line but he didn't last long before he was SNLR.

[FD2]

Yes CharlieOneSix - I remember it too well.

The ex-AAC liar and fantasist - I think he got quite a pounding on another website somewhere. The trouble he caused meant that the Fords could claim the CAA was in the wrong when I believe that using some old Mk 2 and Mk 5 Wessex for logging was not a sensible idea in the first place and that Jones, despite his other faults, was in the right to stop them.

Even the logbook doesn't necessarily tell the truth as there were certain pilots who openly wrote flight times in the P1 column every flight, even when they didn't sign for the machine. I'm afraid that's another one to throw at the chief pilot as he should have been inspecting all of our logbooks every month and comparing them to the company statistics and aircraft logs if necessary. The workload of the poor old CP goes up and he'she doesn't want to feel like an inquisitor towards his or her chums in the crewroom.

One liar was caught out because his new prospective employer knew a load of us had changed companies when a contract changed hands and his new chief pilot knew that, so called up people who had been employed by the previous contractor and changed over. It's a small world.

[Cacophonix]

I do wonder when the day will come when all logs i.e. the pilots' and the tech logs as well as training and ratings data are all mandatorily online and that simple database cross checking can be done at club, company and CAA level to stamp out this kind of fraud?

I don't think such is dishonesty rampant throughout the industry although I do know a certain person who is now flying for a 737 for a LoCo whose record of hours logged to unfreeze his ATPL would certainly have read as work of fiction. The fact that he conducts his flying and his passengers safely today says something for the underlying training I guess.

I would no more enter an incorrect fact into my humble log than lie while swearing on my mother's grave. The concept and resonance of a Captain's personal log lies deep in the psyche and in maritime and aviation history with the commander's log going back to sea going days and to me to corrupt the log and system is akin to shooting an Albatross while at sea.

To look at those who willingly corrupted or lied in their logs is look at the history of chaos and madness and we can only pity the poor fools who did so, like this one...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst

Caco

[FD2]

Caco

I agree with you 100%. I know most of the people I worked with would never have contemplated fudging their hours and experience.

It just seems so completely wrong to most people, but human nature means that a few can resist anything except temptation! Not even the thought of future humiliation can deter them, so the system can only be completely foolproof when no one can tamper with it. They said that about chip and pin cards though, didn't they?

FD2

[CharlieOneSix]

FD2 - at least in our RN time and in other services there was some sort of gross error checking. Probably the same still applies. Every month the CO would sign off your monthly summary and every quarter Wings would do the same. Then once a year the Ship's Captain put his signature to your annual total summary. There wasn't much opportunity to fiddle things even if you wanted to as 25 hours a month was considered a good total.

Just had a look in my father's WW2 RAF logbook and the required format of the summaries was identical to mine!

[Ex-Ascot]

Not that it applied to you guys but in the military it was T/O to landing. CAA, chock to chock. I kept two log books. Made a big difference. Never fiddled a single minute. Not cricket and all that. Presented both sets to the interview board at Monarch.

On 10 Sqn the line pilots got about 30 hrs a month. Unfortunately I didn't being desk bound in ops. Some ex-fast jet senior officers have less than 2,000 hrs.

Edit, actually how did you log the hours? Was it rotors turning? In other words a hot turn around on a rig would all be logged.

[CharlieOneSix]

FD2 may have to correct me here as it's 18 years since I took early retirement and I get easily confused! I also think things may have changed since we came under EASA but that's after my time.

With wheeled helicopters - as the majority were on the North Sea - personal logbook time was from the first time you moved with the intention of getting airborne to the time the rotors came to a stop. Therefore a hot turn around on a rig would be included in personal logbook time. I think the basic reason for this is that when the rotors are turning the helicopter is capable of flight. You never had an engineer do a ground run, it was always a pilot for this very reason.

Although rare with modern machines, a helicopter with its rotors in motion is capable of developing ground resonance. There are two ways out of this predicament - shut down and slam the rotor brake on if you catch the event at its onset or else get airborne into the hover. The Chinook pilot in the following video couldn't get airborne as he was doing a ground run and had tie downs securing the helicopter to the ground. If he had been able to get airborne the helicopter could have been saved.....but not if an engineer had done the ground run. No disrespect to engineers - they kept me safe all my career.

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LFLV47VAbI[/bbvideo]

When you landed offshore one pilot always got out to supervise refuelling, baggage loading and passenger disembarkation and embarkation. It could be argued he shouldn't have counted the time he was out of the machine but of course that distinction was never made! Perhaps 50% of the time it was the Captain that got out to do the supervision on deck. So you now had a helicopter capable of flight with only the co-pilot on board, maybe the baggage hold full, no passengers, and possibly out of aft CofG for flight. Now put in a deck moving at the Ops Manual movement limits of 5 degrees pitch and roll and 5 metres heave, a 50 knot wind which suddenly gusts from the side and you have all the holes lining up for an accident....which is why I left everything to the Helicopter Landing Officer and kept both pilots on board in those situations....just in case!

The time that went in the Technical Log was weight off wheels to weight on wheels so the time spent taxying onshore and the time during a hot turn around offshore did not count towards component life. There are those who will argue that this is wrong.

An anecdote about engineers doing helicopter ground runs....Back in 1968 when I was doing my 8 week CPL crammer groundschool at Kidlington, an engineer was carrying out a ground run on a customer's Brantly B2 helicopter. His eyes were firmly inside the cockpit as he did a mag check and took a note of the RPM drop. When he looked up he was about 30ft in the air and climbing. He survived but the customer's Brantly did not!

[Cacophonix]

One thing that has always struck me about these helicopter videos is that these machines are always essentially attempting to beat themselves to pieces most of the time and that such disasters can happen in nanoseconds once the basics of essential equilibrium have been lost or the pilot loses his mind or control or both...

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeXjhUEXlc[/bbvideo]

Caco

[CharlieOneSix]

I don't know why but that reminds me of the classic video by the late John Clarke in Australia about an oil tanker - "The front fell off"

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM[/bbvideo]

Caco - the only way a helicopter ever gets airborne is by thrashing the air into submission......

[Cacophonix]

John Clarke, a man with a dry wit. RIP.

Caco

[Cacophonix]

It is an absolutely beautiful afternoon here in the South East with that golden late autumnal sky that beckons a man into the air for the sheer exuberant pleasure of flying. Sadly the recent predations of the tax man mean that such simple aviation related pleasures will have wait until next month and if, the truth be told, to early next year before the real, going places for one's self, flying recommences again.

Still I have spent a happy hour reading this month's issue of Pilot magazine instead and have been tarrying longer than is my wont over the helicopter section while I linger on the For Sale section and then blanche at the cost of a simple 1969 Hughes 369E (for example) which is a mere snip at £360,000 + VAT. Here on the other page I see a civilianised Airbus EC135 (they don't even mention the price on the basis, I guess, that if you have to ask you can't afford it) but its ancestry talks to the MBB Bo 108 and it is, it seems, closely related to the Bo 105 mentioned by the heli sages here on this thread that so handsomely share their time with interesting anecdotes and useful tips and insights garnered from their experience flying such exotic types so I look into its provenance and note that even if, in another universe, I could afford it, it is really a utility helicopter occasionally used as executive transport but is very good in niche roles such as police and ambulance work and then I see the type's one very noteworthy accident was in just such a commercial role

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... G-SPAO.pdf

and therefore I read the AAIB report and then start wondering, how the hell could this have happened?

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ec135-shows-strong-safety-record-393847/

Caco

[CharlieOneSix]

Caco – it was the most difficult accident to comprehend. So many things wrong. Not enough fuel to land at base with the minimum required intact; two “Land within ten minute” warnings acknowledged but not acted upon; fuel transfer pumps switched off but unnecessarily the two adjacent prime pumps were selected on.

If I remember correctly, when both engines stopped he lost his Rad Alt and his landing light. I don’t think there is any doubt that he entered autorotation but he possibly misjudged the flare without those two items, and that would account for the almost zero RRPM when he hit the Clutha….. but why was he anywhere near the Clutha? The relatively open area of Glasgow Green was nearby, although probably very dark and even the river would have been slightly better than hitting a building.

We shall never know the thought processes that went through the pilot’s head that night.