Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

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Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#1 Post by FD2 » Sat Jul 30, 2022 3:51 am

In an item 'borrowed' from another forum, a severe thunderstorm blew through the US Navy Air Station at Norfolk, Virginia and caused some damage to parked helicopters. I'm not very knowledgable about the CH53, which is the aircraft lying on its back in the photo, but it would probably weigh up to about 30,000 lbs depending on which Mark (probably MH53E 'Sea Dragon' minesweeping variant according to one report) and fuel state. The one next to it looks to have a main rotor blade rotated some 90 degrees by the wind. That will be a big damages bill.

https://news.usni.org/2022/07/27/10-nav ... folk-storm

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... storm.html
CH53 upended.png
CH53 upended.png (326.41 KiB) Viewed 200 times

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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#2 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:32 pm

I would guess that a microburst or a brief local tornado hit those aircraft.

A brief EF1 strength tornado hit the south side of Stapleford airfield in September last year wrecking a least one helicopter, damaging at least three others and writing off a 2 or 3 fixed wing aircraft as well.

I enclose a link to security camera footage of the edge of the tornado and its effect on some of the helicopters parked there...


https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqMFEPhPNIC3gq8A0lE ... g?e=yFEkBq

stapleford tornado.JPG

The biggest ever potential loss of US aviation military assets occurred when this tornado just missed a number of parked B1 bombers....



At 6:24 p.m. CDT (23:24 UTC), the violent tornado struck the McConnell Air Force Base, where it narrowly missed a lineup of 10 B1-B bombers each worth $280 million and 2 of which were equipped with nuclear warheads. Nine major facilities on the base were destroyed, including the officer's club, base hospital, library, and elementary school. In addition, 102 housing units were demolished. No fatalities were recorded there, though 16 people were injured and total losses reached $62 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andover_t ... %20bombers.
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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#3 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Jul 31, 2022 4:19 am

I guess inquiries are ongoing as to why the aircraft were not tied down and whether or not the MET folks gave the relevant officers early enough warning of the approach of potentially strong storms.

At the risk of being a severe weather bore (which I am) the US military, in the form of the USAF, were at the forefront of the prediction of severe storms and the issue of warnings thereof!
The first official tornado forecast—and tornado warning—was made by United States Air Force Capt. (later Col.) Robert C. Miller and Major Ernest Fawbush, on March 25, 1948. The first such forecast came after the events that occurred five days earlier on March 20, 1948; Miller – a California native who became stationed at Tinker Air Force Base three weeks earlier – was assigned to work the late shift as a forecaster for the base's Air Weather Service office that evening, analyzing U.S. Weather Bureau surface maps and upper-air charts that failed to note atmospheric instability and moisture content present over Oklahoma that would be suitable for producing thunderstorm activity, erroneously forecasting dry conditions for that night. Thunderstorms soon developed southwest of Oklahoma City, and at 9:30 p.m., forecasters from Will Rogers Airport sent a warning to Tinker that the storm encroaching the city was producing wind gusts of 92 miles per hour (148 km/h) and a "Tornado South on Ground Moving NE!" Base personnel received an alert written by the staff sergeant on duty with Miller, minutes before the twister struck Tinker several minutes later around 10:00 p.m., damaging several military aircraft (with total damage estimated at $10 million) that could not be secured in time before it crossed the base grounds.

USAFForecast1.JPG

Following an inquiry, the next day before a tribunal of five generals who traveled to Tinker from Washington, D.C., who ruled that the March 20 tornado was an "act of God ... not forecastable given the present state of the art", base commander Gen. Fred Borum tasked Miller and Fawbush to follow up on the board's suggestion to consider methods of forecasting tornadic thunderstorms. Over the next three days, Miller and Fawbush studied reports and charts from previous tornado events to determine the atmospheric conditions favorable for the development of tornadic activity, in an effort to predict such events with some degree of accuracy. At the time, there had not been studies on how tornadoes formed; however, military radars were being adapted for forecasting use, allowing forecasters to see the outlines of storms but not their internal attributes such as rotation. Miller and Fawbush's findings on atmospheric phenomenon present in past outbreaks would aid in their initial forecast, as the day's surface and upper-air analysis charts determined the same conditions present on March 20 were present on the 25th, concluded that central Oklahoma would have the highest risk for tornadoes during the late-afternoon and evening.

Borum, who had put together a severe weather safety plan for base personnel, then suggested that Miller and Fawbush issue a severe thunderstorm forecast, and then asked the men if they would issue a tornado forecast based on the similarities between the conditions that produced the tornado which hit the base five days earlier, which they were reluctant to do. Fawbush wrote the forecast message that Miller would type and issued it to base operations at 2:50 p.m. as thunderstorms were approaching from North Texas. Defying the high odds against two tornadoes hitting the same area in five days, one hit the Tinker campus around 6:00 p.m., to the surprise of Miller (who left the base an hour earlier, believing their forecast would not pan out), who found out about the storm (produced by two thunderstorms that merged to the southwest of Tinker) via a radio report. Miller and Fawbush would not put out another tornado forecast until March 25, 1949, when they successfully predicted tornadic activity would occur in southeastern Oklahoma.

Miller and Fawbush soon would distribute their tornado forecasts to the American Red Cross and Oklahoma Highway Patrol, after giving William Maughan, chief meteorologist at the U.S. Weather Bureau's Oklahoma City office (who provided them with additional archived weather data to help fine-tune their forecasts), permission to relay their forecasts to those agencies. The relative accuracy of the forecasts restarted a debate over their reliability and whether military or civilian agencies should have jurisdiction over the issuance of weather warnings. The USAF had pioneered tornado forecasting and tornado warnings, although John P. Finley had developed the first experimental tornado forecasts in 1885. Two years later, he and other officials with the agency were prohibited by the United States Signal Service's weather service from using the word "tornado" in forecasts. They were instead directed to refer to "severe local storms". This position on tornado forecasting would be shared by the U.S. Weather Bureau after its formation in 1890, fearing that tornado forecasts were insufficiently reliable and that such warnings would incite panic among the public. The side effect of this policy was that the lack of warning resulted in a steady increase in the number of tornado-related fatalities through the 1950s, with some events prior to 1948 (such as the deadliest tornado in U.S. history, the Tri-State Tornado in March 1925, and the Glazier–Higgins–Woodward tornadoes in April 1947) having death tolls well over 100.
- From

https://www.outlook.noaa.gov/tornadoes/torn50.htm

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

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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#4 Post by FD2 » Sun Jul 31, 2022 4:54 am

It may be routine in the States to tie aircraft down at military bases in areas where these sudden severe events may occur, but it's not something I experienced in the UK unless my memory is playing up. Then again there wasn't often the experience of these severe conditions. Chocks, blade socks, pitot covers, engine blanks etc perhaps but no lashing points ashore.

The only exception I can recall were tie down points ashore for Wessex when there were often prolonged ground runs pulling full power to adjust things after an engine change, that couldn't be done in flight. That led to one or two serious accidents if the lashings weren't adjusted properly and ground resonance caused a lashing to break. If memory serves correctly the nylon lashings used at sea had a higher breaking strain than the chains but it was usually belt and braces. At sea during flying operations the nylon lashings were always used as they were light, quick and easy for the ground crew to operate.

They weren't always completely safe though as during rotors running refuel of a Wessex on a DLG deck, in a storm off the Lizard, our ship took an almighty roll (thanks to the senior chap who instructed the OOW!) and the right main wheel lifted about 3ft off the deck, much to the surprise of the man holding the pressure refuelling hose! The lashing had pulled through the clamp, probably due to grease contamination or wear. I was handed the controls double quick and luckily the red faced and furious flight commander was intercepted by the navigating officer before he got to the bridge, to have a 'quiet word' with the captain!

I suspect that the Buccaneer that was lost from Ark's deck was tied down with chains which parted in the night and chocks that were jumped.

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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#5 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:00 am

One last comment from me. I suspect that the Navy brass will be pretty thorough in their investigation of this weather-related incident coming as it does after the recent loss of an unsecured F18 due to bad weather on board a vessel in the Mediterranean with the huge expense of locating and potentially recovering the aircraft...

https://sofrep.com/news/super-hornet-bl ... -s-truman/

I appreciate that the nature of naval operations and the fact that a ship is moving makes the nature of making such warnings at sea even more difficult, but one would guess that shore-based facilities should operate standard operations and warning to mitigate against the risk of damage and loss.

Apropos the US military and weather, the only time a tornado siren has ever sounded in the UK was when USAF Met Officers noted rotation in a storm near a base in Eastern England and sounded the siren. The sounding of such a siren which would be a clarion call for the aircraft to be tied down moved into shelter etc. and for all personnel to be warned to take cover.



(PS - Note the mammatus cloud in this video) ;)))

Written before I had seen FD2's fascinating insight into such matters. :-bd
It may be routine in the States to tie aircraft down at military bases in areas where these sudden severe events may occur, but it's not something I experienced in the UK unless my memory is playing up. Then again there wasn't often the experience of these severe conditions. Chocks, blade socks, pitot covers, engine blanks etc perhaps but no lashing points ashore.
Your point about such severe weather not being a regular feature in the UK is well made but interestingly the ultimate harbinger of severe weather, the Super Cell storm, was categorized here in the UK!
Supercells can occur anywhere in the world under the right weather conditions. The first storm to be identified as the supercell type was the Wokingham storm over England, which was studied by Keith Browning and Frank Ludlam in 1962. Browning did the initial work that was followed up by Lemon and Doswell to develop the modern conceptual model of the supercell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercell ... ll.%5B5%5D
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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#6 Post by FD2 » Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:21 am

Shipboard facilities are remarkable nowadays compared to my time at sea. :)) The advent of satellite comms has taken away the need for interpretation of synoptic charts etc in the last forty years or more!

That siren would give anyone the willies TGA! Where's the nearest underground shelter? Is there time to get the aircraft in a hangar? Maybe not as humans are more important. ;)))

All the while that dark mass is moving towards you and rotating faster! :-o

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Re: Norfolk Virginia Storm Damages 10 USN Helicopters

#7 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:25 am

FD2 wrote:
Sun Jul 31, 2022 4:54 am
........... That led to one or two serious accidents if the lashings weren't adjusted properly and ground resonance caused a lashing to break. .......
One of those accidents involved DR who was knocked unconscious during the incident and was unable to shut the engine down. Ground crews initially couldn't get in to do anything as the main rotor stubs were still thrashing about. In spite of wearing a helmet DR suffered such bad injuries to his head that he never flew again.

The long absent hico-p from this forum woke up one morning on a Forties platform to find that the overnight storm had pulled the welded tie down deck attachment from the helideck and in spite of being properly tied down at the end of flying the previous night his S76 lay in a crumpled heap on its side.
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
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