R44 fish spotting video

[heliUD]

Hello everybody!
I'm not very active in the forum, but this time I'd like to ask you an opinion.
A friend showed me this youtube video of an R44 doing fish spotting flying, and immediately it caught my attention.

Mt46x_MxseU

With my relatively low flying experience I don't feel like I'm in the position of judging, but I have to admit that I wouldn't feel very comfortable doing some maneuvers the pilot is doing in the video in an R44. I would be especially concerned about the risk of low-g.
I'd like to know what do you think.

I've made a search to make sure that this one hasn't been posted already and I couldn't find anything, I apologize if it was!

[jellycopter]

Interesting vid. I've never seen 'fish spotting' before. Is this typical?

HeliUD, I didn't see any low G manoeuvres though and the pilot was clearly comfortable handling the machine.

JJ

[Lplates]

Hi

From the video although hard to judge the forward speed is very low. He may be moving around quite a bit with a very nose low pitch attitude but due to low forward speed will not put the aircraft into a low g situation. Remember the low-g caused by forward cyclic is exasperated with increasing forward speed.
Also due to the hard maneuvering it would be difficult to build up any significant airspeed. Probably not much above translation lift speed 15-20 kts.

Regards

[TunaSandwich]

Yep, very typical of Tuna flying in the Pacific. "Tuna spotting" hardly sums up the job as the Helicopters biggest job, at least in the pacific areas, is rounding up the Dolphins and coordinating the catch. The Skipper will be onboard at this point and he will operating the radios screaming at the speedboats and main boat as they circle around the Dolphins (Tuna stay with the Dolphin:confused:). Whats going on at the begining where the abrupt manoeuvres are used is probably chasing a small pod of Dolphins which are trying escape from the main pod, this could be disasterous as they may take the entire school of Tuna away. At this point the skipper will be dropping flares (and bombs:oh:) to turn the pod back to the main pod. It can be quite tough flying especially if you're operating within only a few hundred miles from shore as these Dolphins have probably been "worked" several times and don't behave as one would prefer:ok:. You can see the smoke from the flares on the surface of the water during some of the low level turns. The problem is that the skipper likes to circle at 500 feet as that's where you can see most and coordinate the boats, but if they start to run he wants you down below 50 feet in an instant as thats where the flares work best. Never felt any low-g myself as speeds are relatively low at this point but not impossible. Great experience but you shouldn't be out there without at least 1000 hours (in Robbies), minimum.....

TS

[heliUD]

Thanks guys for the replies and TunaSandwich thank you for the insight on the job, much appreciated!

I've never heard of low-g at low airspeed, but I also never really had a conversation about that with an experienced pilot, so thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess, even if it's not likely, it would be good to stay vigilant for any lightweight sensation.

I heard people talking about tuna spotting like a job good for low timers but it definitely doesn't sound like one.

[driftersabre]

I have no idea what this guy is doing. It is not how we heard in the pacific. The Roby is way to high and fast to have effective downwash on bait fish. I wouldnt have this guy near my 500.

[TunaSandwich]

driftersabre


I have no idea what this guy is doing. It is not how we heard in the pacific. The Roby is way to high and fast to have effective downwash on bait fish. I wouldnt have this guy near my 500


Bait fish?? who said anything about bait fish?? As I mentioned before, this chap is dropping flares to distract the Dolphins, not the fish. I'm not sure how the fishing is done on your side of the Pacific but boats out of the Americas typically use Helicopters for Dolphin operations and Yellowfin Tuna. There are exceptions where the log fishing boats use Helicopters purely for spotting but not the Dolphin Ops. There are also plenty of H500's doing this type of flying (although fewer every year as the R44 has more than proved its worth and becoming the standard)

heliUD

I believe that Atlantic operations generally do not fish with Dolphin and is more of a spotting role so maybe this is the type of operations you have heard about for low time pilots (still have to land on a moving boat though:ok:)

Cheers
TS