Night landings, off heliport.

[Art E. Fischler-Reisen]

Military can obviously do this using NVGs.

UK Helimed and Police don't.

Who does them?

In what circumstances would you do this?

Anyone done this to an unlit site, such as a hotel, a farmer's field or a private residence?

[800]

An SX-16 (30 Million Candle Power Nightsun) would help

[rotorspeed]

Frequently! No big deal, surely? You need to know the site from daylight experience, have a landing light that swivels in azimuth and elevation, and approach and let down slowly.

Why the question?

[ShyTorque]

An SX-16 (30 Million Candle Power Nightsun) would help

Of course it would, but apart from the Police and the military, not many have that luxury.

And despite having Nightsun, the UK police still don't routinely do night off-helipad landings. UK Helimed could fit it but don't, as they don't normally operate at night.

[Art E. Fischler-Reisen]

Rotorspeed,

It's just a topic for general discussion. One I haven't seen here before.

[md 600 driver]

In which country are we discussing ? looks like a german asking and english replying ,in some countrys no night landings away from airfields [some countrys no off airfield landings at all day or night ?

[Bravo73]

looks like a german asking and english replying

Nope, 'Art E.' is definitely from the UK... (Ex British Mil, actually). ;)

[Capt SFB]

G'day Art,

There are at least 6 operations in Australia which carry out ship's deck landings every night of the year without the luxury of NVGs or Nightsuns. We call it MPT (Marine Pilot Transfer).

Cheers,
Capt SFB

[alouette3]

At the risk of being villified for doing something stupid and killing lots of people, we Yanks in HEMS do it regularly everyday and twice on Sundays (or any other holiday for that matter---y'know ----lots of drinkin' and drivin') and some of us (heavens to Betsy!!) actually do it without a co pilot, two engines or NVGs.;)
Alt3.

[Thud_and_Blunder]

This is a buoy which frequently gets rounded here on PPRuNe - there are 2 joint Police/Helimed operations here in the UK which routinely carry out night HEMS landings within their respective PAOM-mandated patches: Wiltshire and Sussex. Try asking them.

[manfromuncle]

At the risk of being villified for doing something stupid and killing lots of people, we Yanks in HEMS do it regularly everyday and twice on Sundays (or any other holiday for that matter---y'know ----lots of drinkin' and drivin') and some of us (heavens to Betsy!!) actually do it without a co pilot, two engines or NVGs.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/wink2.gif
Alt3.

Yeah, and we all know the USA EMS safety record!

[rotorspeed]

manfromuncle

To be fair to alouette3, whilst US EMS doesn't have a great safety record, I'm not sure that many of the incidents are from actually landing at night and hitting things - I think most are en route, often in poor weather.

[MightyGem]

UK Police helicopters can do night landings off heliport if required to. In twelve years I've only ever done them for training.

[timex]

Police can and do carry out night Landings (usually for Casevac) we would probably do one a month as an ASU. Only done after dark as the air Ambulance has to finish by then. No NVG yet, just a big lamp and a good recce with the Flir.

[FH1100 Pilot]

I fly a 206 for a small company here in the U.S. Only has the standard miserable landing lights, and one extra, fixed spotlight under the fuselage which is aimed downward almost vertically. We routinely go to certain of our sites at night. Of course, none we haven't been to in the daytime. No big deal if you're familiar with the site and you know what you're doing. (It's that last bit that gives me trouble sometimes.) HOGE power is a must-have, obviously.

Ironically, our home base airport has such poor and unreliable lighting that it is *nearly* as challenging as some of our better sites. The PCL isn't, and the beacon often gets stuck, showing green thisaway and white thataway...until it decides to start rotating again at its whim. Oh, it's a treat!

[John Eacott]

Art E,

Is this purely a HEMS/Police query, or a general night landing issue?

Australia has many 24 hour HEMS & Police operations, generally single pilot with crewman, all of which would carry out night landings with nitesun with or without NVG on a regular basis into unprepared sites. Many different compliance requirements for the choice of sites, but a trained and professional crew is quite capable of carrying out such an evolution.

[Blue Rotor Ronin]

Do it in SAR all the time with no NVG.

[chopperpug]

Am with one of the MPT (Marine Pilot Transfer) operators in Aus, and we do up to 7 or 8 ships a night every night of the year, single pilot, NVFR only (100's of different ships). Some ships have nice deck lights, others have next to none, all are underway, and pitching and rolling in some form, depending on the weather at the time. Chuck in fog, sea spray, cranes on the ships etc... it all makes for good fun. No night sun, no NVG's, single engine heli over water. Most operators over here though are now going twin engine. We fly 22nm offshore at most. EC120 has a reasonable nightscanner style light that from 250 odd feet can light up pretty well. The old Jetbanger not so flash on the lighting.. but then, nothing is in as much of a hurry in the good old girl as the EC120.
I am actually in the process of trying to make some form of video collected over the next month from my new aquistion, a high definition helmet camera, so as long as I don't cock too many approaches up, I might even share them. Just have to get around to polishing my shoes, as they seem to feature a fair bit in the footage as I look down through the chin bubble..
Will have to see how the camera fairs in the low light however. With out spending an absolute fortune this is the best I can get, but so far its a bit blurry at night.

[Sir George Cayley]

In the UK, both private civil and certain commercial helicopters operators land and take off at night from sites that are neither a heliport nor an airport.

Clearly, for a PPL(H) their 'copter has to be appropriately equipped and approved and the pilot current and Night Rated.

For commercial heli ops, I understand the limit is 19 seats or less and with a CAA AOC approved for this type of op.

The anomaly here is that, having departed a private site at night, one can't recover to a licensed airport or heliport if it is outside the published operating hours. Furthermore, PCL at these locations can only be approved for use by the Police/HEMS services. I'm not aware of civil NVG usage either.

It's all here if you want to check:ok:

Publications with Titles Containing : helicopter | Publications | CAA (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=list&type=search&search=helicopter)

Sir George Cayley

[Sir Niall Dementia]

'Tis the shooting season. I spend most Friday nights landing (public transport) at sites in the west country lit by a well known member of the UK helicopter community. All part of the job, admittedly my least favourite part of it. In fact from recent experience dealing with the mud is worse than the flight.

There seems to be great surprise from many readers of this forum that this is legal. It is in fact a simple operation that requires a degree of planning, personal knowledge of the site by both the pilot and the ground agent, and a sense of humour. We land on a standard T with a 4x4 parked alongside showing lights and a strobe. The ground man is on the radio with a portable weather station and is able to give very accurate cloud and wind conditions.

We spend part of every August driving round the sites we are prepared to use at night. They are photographed annually to check for changes and large panoramic views are taken to show any potential hazards. The pilots make copious notes about the sites and operations make sure that all the notes and photos are available to each pilot before he flies. A telephone brief is held between the pilot and the ground man before the flight, and at any time the pilot can say NO, in which case the flight will go to the nearest available airport with full approach facilities.

I've been lucky this year. The one night we thought would be iffy was fine, but the field was like the Somme. On a rough night an early decision to divert (normally made before departure) and ground transport arranged, and an explanation to the passengers of why saves an awful lot of stress, trying to do that lot in flight, while setting up for an IFR approach is bloody hard work which is why we have as much prepared before hand as possible.

[Art E. Fischler-Reisen]

SND,

Thanks, a good answer. What about an ad-hoc site you cannot recce in advance and with no ground party to assist you?

e.g. "Tomorrow night, we want you to land as close as possible to.. (a postcode)."

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Art;

If the site is in regular use and has ground based lighting and a full survey report and brief was available from a resident pilot then ok. Otherwise no chance. I'm not paid enough to appear on these pages, while everyone speculates on how the hell I was stupid enough to kill myself.

We've had such a request this morning and the customer will be completing his journey, by road from the nearest available airport (10 NM) and the pilot flying is paid less than me, so wants to appear on here even less than me.

What alarms me is that this is the first job for this customer and he claims he has had the type of service you describe from someone. If so I expect to read about that pilot quite soon on this forum.

SND

[Art E. Fischler-Reisen]

I'm not paid enough to appear on these pages, while everyone speculates on how the hell I was stupid enough to kill myself.

What alarms me is that this is the first job for this customer and he claims he has had the type of service you describe from someone. If so I expect to read about that pilot quite soon on this forum.

Now we're getting to my way of thinking. :ok:

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Art;

I'm making a big assumption here, but are you thinking of the guys who somehow manage to do it without any form of ground assistance, lighting etc in fog, rain and plagues of frogs and pestilence? If so you are not alone.

The procedures for this type of work are of necessity tight. I'd rather lose a customer to another operator than a colleague or aircraft through pushing a marginal situation. Someone on here recently wrote that the customer being dead lasts a lot longer than him being inconvenienced, I'd love to have that as the first paragraph of our charter agreement!

SND

[wiisp]

Hi everybody,

It is possible to land off airport in the dark, it is possible to muster reindeer in the dark, it is possible to land in the dark forrest wo lights on the ground, it is possible to fly, work and land in snow and dark in the terrain..
It is not a matter of asphalt and yellow/blue/white lights, it is a matter of training, experience, brains and to take enogh time and use the right procedures..

Fly safe within your limits..
wiisp

[MightyGem]

What alarms me is that this is the first job for this customer and he claims he has had the type of service you describe from someone. If so I expect to read about that pilot quite soon on this forum.

My company had a charter earlier this year with the proposed(daylight) landing site on high ground. Going by the forecast for the day, the passenger was phoned the day before the trip to be told that it was very unlikely that the site could be reached, but he could be dropped at a local airport with a car for the rest of the trip, if necessary. He said he'd call back.

He did, saying thank you, but someone else had said that the trip wouldn't be a problem. A couple of days after the trip he called back to say that his pilot had scared the s*** out of both of them trying to reach the site and had then left him at the airport, where he had had to make his own way onward. He apologised and said that he would accept the advice in the future.

That pilot is another that I wait to read about on here. But, perhaps he's learned his lesson.

[Blue Rotor Ronin]

It's the smug, holier than thou attitude that I enjoy reading so much; Thank you...:rolleyes::E:ok:

[Bearintheair]

The Sussex Police and Ambulance Helicopter Unit have been carrying out night HEMS and hence night ad hoc landings at unsurveyed sites for nearly 20 years. Nightun, TI and a really good recce from above are considered essential.

[Regain]

I think on this one, we should differentiate between a previously recce'd site and ad-hoc. Where previously recce'd, a landing site effectively becomes a HLS (especially if lit) and poses little danger from the unknown. Ad-hoc sites which police helicopters can land at, albeit very infrequently in the case of the more urban units pose far more risk even with flir, swivelling landing lights and Nitesun. Those of us ex-mil will have plenty experience in all manners of night landings (recce'd or not) but there was plenty of training and practice and (I think) a higher level of risk acceptance.

NVG opens up a whole new debate but once again, in order to operate to ground level, this will involve a great deal of training, practice and currency, not to mention expense. Some units are already geared for it I believe. The question then though, is it necessary? Casevac would be the argument for but at what risk to the public and crew?

How much extra money please?

[EESDL]

Beware the customer who does the "well so and so company/pilot got me there in worse weather..."
not everything is as it seems.......and a well-used ploy by seasoned flyers to try and test the ego of pilots and to discover how big their balls are!

Landing off-airfield at night is not rocket science but also not something where corners can be cut.