Single Engine Flights Over Cities
So it is Draconian to prevent you flying over a city??? Really???
If there is one thing you can be sure of in aviation, allowing people to do exactly what they want is a sure-fire way of inviting all sorts of unjustifiable idiocy.
Some one has to be adult enough to protect others from the selfish idiots who think they know best.
Perhaps you disagree with compulsory wearing of seat belts in cars (at least in some countries) as well?
If there is one thing you can be sure of in aviation, allowing people to do exactly what they want is a sure-fire way of inviting all sorts of unjustifiable idiocy.
Some one has to be adult enough to protect others from the selfish idiots who think they know best.
Perhaps you disagree with compulsory wearing of seat belts in cars (at least in some countries) as well?
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crab
Ironic though isn't it? That more twins appear to crash into cities because singles are restricted.
We all know that pilot error is the biggest problem, so the authorities legislate two engines to be the safest solution.
(yes I know it happened in London but that was CFIT not and engine failure).
We all know that pilot error is the biggest problem, so the authorities legislate two engines to be the safest solution.
Having got Crab to agree with me that we could get data and work out the risk (thanks Crab) we have now had another day of posts on this thread with the usual 'it is my right' vs 'everyone would die'.
Boring
Aircraft technology is changing. Navigational capabilities have changed. Pilot health has changed. So it is legitimate to ask the question, but the response needs to be data analysis not this repetitive diatribe
Same applies for single engine IFR
Now head down
Boring
Aircraft technology is changing. Navigational capabilities have changed. Pilot health has changed. So it is legitimate to ask the question, but the response needs to be data analysis not this repetitive diatribe
Same applies for single engine IFR
Now head down
Crab
Didn't seem to stop 341's hovering at night over Belfast back in the day ????????
Or 341's flying in IFR with a standby AH and a back up Alternator. No auto pilot, no 2nd engine . Please don't tell me this was because it was military the risk to people below was just the same . So it is all right when it suits the various powers to be !
Didn't seem to stop 341's hovering at night over Belfast back in the day ????????
Or 341's flying in IFR with a standby AH and a back up Alternator. No auto pilot, no 2nd engine . Please don't tell me this was because it was military the risk to people below was just the same . So it is all right when it suits the various powers to be !
No, it is when there is an overriding need for that extra risk - ie the national security element for Belfast and the IFR requirement to deploy the aircraft.
Done plenty of IFR in the 341 myself but you don't generally end up IMC over a congested hostile area.
Done plenty of IFR in the 341 myself but you don't generally end up IMC over a congested hostile area.
Not that it's got much to do with the SE/Twin debate going on and having spent a good 1000 hours over Belfast in the hover you get my tuppence worth evertime Crab albeit there was always plenty of practice and usually somewhere to aim for should it all go quiet quickly. EOLs were always practised in very restricted parameters where you did more than exercise the limits of the flight envelope - but it came with a massive penalty, countless practice.
I find it hard to believe that we (especially the QHIs) spent so long IMC (Gaz) in the IFTA courtesy of Boscombe, it was bad enough to have to demo a recovery in a totally non stabilised aircraft but then to do it on standby insts with an AH the size of a ten pence piece! Where everything in the aircraft was biased for the RHS. Just occasionally nowadays looking at one of 5 MFDs and the luxury of everything coupled I give myself a bit of a shudder thinking about what we did in the MW IFTA.
I find it hard to believe that we (especially the QHIs) spent so long IMC (Gaz) in the IFTA courtesy of Boscombe, it was bad enough to have to demo a recovery in a totally non stabilised aircraft but then to do it on standby insts with an AH the size of a ten pence piece! Where everything in the aircraft was biased for the RHS. Just occasionally nowadays looking at one of 5 MFDs and the luxury of everything coupled I give myself a bit of a shudder thinking about what we did in the MW IFTA.
Crab
Sorry you have said before it is not safe but now all of a sudden it is ( could have used Puma or Lynx over Belfast ) it is either safe or not to have single engine over a congested city, you can't have it both ways. So in your view if I picked up someone who is dying should I take them to a city centre hospital in a single engine ?
Sorry you have said before it is not safe but now all of a sudden it is ( could have used Puma or Lynx over Belfast ) it is either safe or not to have single engine over a congested city, you can't have it both ways. So in your view if I picked up someone who is dying should I take them to a city centre hospital in a single engine ?
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Hughes, Puma was definitely used over Belfast and other congested (and definitely hostile) areas. The Gazelle wasn't capable of lifting what was required to be carried.
Hughes - I didn't say it was safe - I clearly said it came at extra risk that was deemed acceptable because of the military need. The Gazelle was used because it was quick to launch, smaller and less obtrusive than Lynx or Puma and the Army had loads of them. It was also used for specific tasks which, as Mostafa explained, there was a great deal of training for.
A dying person ramps up the risk/reward comparison and for a single instance, the increased risk could be easily justified.
A dying person ramps up the risk/reward comparison and for a single instance, the increased risk could be easily justified.
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Certainly, the RAF used the Whirlwind HAR10 for search and rescue purposes for quite some years.
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are you sure there was a backup alternator I've never seen one there is a static inverter
Didn't seem to stop 341's hovering at night over Belfast back in the day ????????
Or 341's flying in IFR with a standby AH and a back up Alternator. No auto pilot,
Or 341's flying in IFR with a standby AH and a back up Alternator. No auto pilot,
I think he meant back up AI not alternator
Crab
I am sure there was a generator and an alternator, ( as a standby power source) but stand to be corrected as it was nearly 30 years ago.
It seems to me that it is all about perceived risk. Currently EASA and our CAA have stated that the need to do touch down EOL's can be removed from the syllabus to be replaced by power recovery as too many aircraft are bent in practicing something that is very very rare. So in some respect the authorities are saying one thing but .............. Personally it harps back to the earlier days of helicopter flying where things were perhaps not as reliable as they are now.
I suppose you can make figures say what you want. The US allows it so the question should be how many people have been killed form allowing single engine over built up areas v the number of flights ( impossible to get as no one records how hours are flown over congested areas ) But it does appear that most US police helicopter are singles so how many failures have they had that killed people. You could then argue as Crab has done needs /must i.e. in US they need helicopters to fight crime and singles are cheaper than twins so there now becomes a cost/benefit/risk analysis
I am sure there was a generator and an alternator, ( as a standby power source) but stand to be corrected as it was nearly 30 years ago.
It seems to me that it is all about perceived risk. Currently EASA and our CAA have stated that the need to do touch down EOL's can be removed from the syllabus to be replaced by power recovery as too many aircraft are bent in practicing something that is very very rare. So in some respect the authorities are saying one thing but .............. Personally it harps back to the earlier days of helicopter flying where things were perhaps not as reliable as they are now.
I suppose you can make figures say what you want. The US allows it so the question should be how many people have been killed form allowing single engine over built up areas v the number of flights ( impossible to get as no one records how hours are flown over congested areas ) But it does appear that most US police helicopter are singles so how many failures have they had that killed people. You could then argue as Crab has done needs /must i.e. in US they need helicopters to fight crime and singles are cheaper than twins so there now becomes a cost/benefit/risk analysis
ShyTorque, you are assuming roles the Gazelle never had or was even capable of doing. In the observation role, for which it was bought and paid for, it was a damn fine machine. The Gazelle could carry all the equipment required right up until 2004 and some of it was heavy, plus 2 and still spend 2 hours over the target, it was absolutely fine for the job, some even managed 3 hours on a good wind day, into wind. Ask me if I'd have preferred a 2nd engine on a similar sized aircraft you are damn right I would, for all the reasons Crab is telling you, I'd prefer not to accept all the added complexities it sadly brought along in the Lynx (That certainly wasn't the machine for the role) twin squirrel (or whatever they are called nowadays, would have been perfect for the job but we had 300+ Gazelles and its role was observation, it's that simple. for Hughes to suggest the people living underneath the flightpath or the crews in them didn't matter is farcical. We did use Lynx occasionally over the city but because it was capable of expanding the observation role, as did the the Puma and Wessex occasionally.
MD, you are right it didn't stop us, But even with the best part of 4000hrs on the machine I certainly didn't like doing or practicing it and I would consider it nowadays as an emergency. It was necessitated because it was the machine we had for the role. As for any auto pilot the vast majority of Army Gazelles were not stabilised, no SAS, no stick trim, no nothing, with the exception of a couple of dud switches. I know we bought 12 with that fit but this was for totally separate role and the equipment carried caused all sorts of problems.
Why not just accept your views and leave others to accept theirs I'm still 100% with Crab.
MD, you are right it didn't stop us, But even with the best part of 4000hrs on the machine I certainly didn't like doing or practicing it and I would consider it nowadays as an emergency. It was necessitated because it was the machine we had for the role. As for any auto pilot the vast majority of Army Gazelles were not stabilised, no SAS, no stick trim, no nothing, with the exception of a couple of dud switches. I know we bought 12 with that fit but this was for totally separate role and the equipment carried caused all sorts of problems.
Why not just accept your views and leave others to accept theirs I'm still 100% with Crab.
Last edited by MOSTAFA; 13th Jun 2016 at 11:48. Reason: Felt like it!
Because with that mentality the Wright Brothers would never have flown. As 'applied scientists' surely we should try to answer the question which is 'what is the risk?' Hughes is incorrect in arguing that we need to know the total number of hours flown over congested areas. We dont. We just need total hours flown which can be reliably estimated, and the number of forced landings. If we had 100% reliability of all components clearly it would be safe, so we need to calculate the incidence per 100,000 hours flown for both singles and twins. Apart from answering the question, it would be an interesting exercise in itself. Not for 341s but for today's singles....and twins
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Mostafa, I'm not sure where you're coming from with your seemingly indignant last post. I never made any claim that the Gazelle wasn't capable of being used in the observation role because I know it was. I was replying to a post from another contributor who appeared to be unaware of the fact that the Puma was also being used.
Having spent quite a lot of time "working nights" in NI, flying the Puma in the early 1990s I'm very much aware of what the Gazelle was used for after dark. However, it definitely couldn't lift the same equipment that the Puma did at that time The equipment in use back then was far too big and heavy for a Gazelle. The Gazelle used a smaller and lighter set.
Having spent quite a lot of time "working nights" in NI, flying the Puma in the early 1990s I'm very much aware of what the Gazelle was used for after dark. However, it definitely couldn't lift the same equipment that the Puma did at that time The equipment in use back then was far too big and heavy for a Gazelle. The Gazelle used a smaller and lighter set.
ShyQ. You are absolutely right, precisely what I think I said. Apologies for my indignation and for not reading it properly.
Homoculus, it's got bugger all to do with the Wright bros, you may well be an applied scientist but HM flying corps trained me to be a helicopter pilot. You know the person who gets in the front and points. I'm not sure where the risk comes into it hopefully that is an area the applied scientist has already sorted.
I'm totally with crab, I prefer having a 2nd engine flying over anywhere the autorotative envelope might not allow me to make some sort of safe'ish landing in a single albeit I remain adverse to mixing it in a Tesco car park, full of shoppers. The rest is for the bean counters, statisticians and the applied scientists to sort out. I'm just glad once the sums are done I'll have retired and will steer clear of Tescos.
Homoculus, it's got bugger all to do with the Wright bros, you may well be an applied scientist but HM flying corps trained me to be a helicopter pilot. You know the person who gets in the front and points. I'm not sure where the risk comes into it hopefully that is an area the applied scientist has already sorted.
I'm totally with crab, I prefer having a 2nd engine flying over anywhere the autorotative envelope might not allow me to make some sort of safe'ish landing in a single albeit I remain adverse to mixing it in a Tesco car park, full of shoppers. The rest is for the bean counters, statisticians and the applied scientists to sort out. I'm just glad once the sums are done I'll have retired and will steer clear of Tescos.
Last edited by MOSTAFA; 14th Jun 2016 at 11:28. Reason: Felt like it again
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Oh dear I was away from this thread too long and have let Crab wrongly assume that singles are banned from flight over congested areas.
This was partially reinforced by JimL's INCORRECT statement that "The exclusion of singles over the congested area of cities is almost as old as the regulations themselves." They are not excluded, that is just plain wrong Jim, the regulation is quite clear in the regulation that you yourself quote. "unless at such a height as will permit, in the event of an emergency arising, a landing to be made without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface."
So the arguement that there is no data to go on is unsound, there is 50 years of experience without them being banned.
There are occassional engine failures, over congested areas in singles, the results have in general been spectacularly good. Sometimes the airframe is bent, but that is the same standard to which twins are permitted to operate also, they too would crash at critical but permitted data points, so long as there's a reasonable expectation of no injury.
It is NOT CORRECT to take engines in isolation when considering the hazzard of aircraft over towns. I would have thought that to be blantantly obvious when you look at the catastrophic results from gearbox failure and the (obvious) increased risk of such other accidents as are more inherently encountered in twin engined helicopters. Just pause and think for a while about just how many twins in just the UK have had catestrophic failures. A109 times 5, fuel system, tailrotor broken due exhaust failure, swashplate, EC135 fatalities (would not have occured in a single, and if it had the result would not have been fatalities), AS355 times 3, etc etc etc
Not to mention internationally horrible fatalities (Norway, Newfoundland) due to the mathematically unsound over obsession with engines. It's the total system that counts, to take engines in isolation and treat them as an independant cause of accidents to be avoided without considering the consequent increases of risk is unsound. 3 people might be carried in an aircraft weighing 1 ton, with more fuel reserve, with greater reliability, and if it did have to land would descend at less than 20kts vertically, as opposed to a terminal velocity arrival of something weighing 3 tons (in a pub roof).
As someone said the helicopter doesn't know its over a city, the 225 in Norway didn't know it was not over a city, just imagine THAT in Central London !!
You might feel better in a twin, but that selfish and ignorant attitude kills people.
So in short
It IS NOT BANNED NOW
There is a ton of data (50yrs exerience) showing it not to be a problem.
There is no valid case for banning it now.
It would be another unjust blow to the perfectly reasonable freedoms of the private flying community. Imposed by people (like Crab) with a long held experience of twins, holding incorrect views based on wrong assumptions.
and the idea that Gazelles over Belfast were just running a risk that was neccessary at the time (acceptable military risk etc) is just clearly rubbish. As far as I can determine there was only ONE engine failure in a Gazelle in 30years of service. Not reasonable to call it a risk. Engines were never the problem in Gazelles.
This was partially reinforced by JimL's INCORRECT statement that "The exclusion of singles over the congested area of cities is almost as old as the regulations themselves." They are not excluded, that is just plain wrong Jim, the regulation is quite clear in the regulation that you yourself quote. "unless at such a height as will permit, in the event of an emergency arising, a landing to be made without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface."
So the arguement that there is no data to go on is unsound, there is 50 years of experience without them being banned.
There are occassional engine failures, over congested areas in singles, the results have in general been spectacularly good. Sometimes the airframe is bent, but that is the same standard to which twins are permitted to operate also, they too would crash at critical but permitted data points, so long as there's a reasonable expectation of no injury.
It is NOT CORRECT to take engines in isolation when considering the hazzard of aircraft over towns. I would have thought that to be blantantly obvious when you look at the catastrophic results from gearbox failure and the (obvious) increased risk of such other accidents as are more inherently encountered in twin engined helicopters. Just pause and think for a while about just how many twins in just the UK have had catestrophic failures. A109 times 5, fuel system, tailrotor broken due exhaust failure, swashplate, EC135 fatalities (would not have occured in a single, and if it had the result would not have been fatalities), AS355 times 3, etc etc etc
Not to mention internationally horrible fatalities (Norway, Newfoundland) due to the mathematically unsound over obsession with engines. It's the total system that counts, to take engines in isolation and treat them as an independant cause of accidents to be avoided without considering the consequent increases of risk is unsound. 3 people might be carried in an aircraft weighing 1 ton, with more fuel reserve, with greater reliability, and if it did have to land would descend at less than 20kts vertically, as opposed to a terminal velocity arrival of something weighing 3 tons (in a pub roof).
As someone said the helicopter doesn't know its over a city, the 225 in Norway didn't know it was not over a city, just imagine THAT in Central London !!
You might feel better in a twin, but that selfish and ignorant attitude kills people.
So in short
It IS NOT BANNED NOW
There is a ton of data (50yrs exerience) showing it not to be a problem.
There is no valid case for banning it now.
It would be another unjust blow to the perfectly reasonable freedoms of the private flying community. Imposed by people (like Crab) with a long held experience of twins, holding incorrect views based on wrong assumptions.
and the idea that Gazelles over Belfast were just running a risk that was neccessary at the time (acceptable military risk etc) is just clearly rubbish. As far as I can determine there was only ONE engine failure in a Gazelle in 30years of service. Not reasonable to call it a risk. Engines were never the problem in Gazelles.
AnFI,
It is extremely frustrating in exchanges with you as you do not read, or inappropriately misinterpret, what others post.
In a previous post the following was stated:
Your indignation over proposals for changes to the rules is misplaced; there is no suggestion of tightening them up, attention is merely being drawn to the erroneous assumption that they are different world-wide and using that as an reason to call for changes in Europe.
You could save yourself quite a lot of anguish by actually reading what others have written; doing that might actually prevent alienating someone.
Jim
It is extremely frustrating in exchanges with you as you do not read, or inappropriately misinterpret, what others post.
In a previous post the following was stated:
'abgd', you are quite correct in your statement; the 'land clear' rule is just that (as can be seen in the US version shown above). Nothing in regulations (North America or Europe) prevents flight over those parts of cities where a safe forced landing could be carried out; that is more to do with the 'fly neighbourly' policy.
You could save yourself quite a lot of anguish by actually reading what others have written; doing that might actually prevent alienating someone.
Jim
Jim - righteous indignation is AnFi's default position!
AnFi - would you like to present this data?
why not? can't singles run out of fuel?
Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that because twins operate where singles don't, more of them will have such incidents. If singles were used over congested areas for law enforcement CAT, air ambulance etc then we would probably see at least as many incidents.
isn't it strange that what you claim as the reliability for singles and what eminent bodies like RAES (who regularly advise ICAO) appear to be different....
There is a ton of data (50yrs exerience) showing it not to be a problem.
EC135 fatalities (would not have occured in a single, and if it had the result would not have been fatalities)
Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that because twins operate where singles don't, more of them will have such incidents. If singles were used over congested areas for law enforcement CAT, air ambulance etc then we would probably see at least as many incidents.
isn't it strange that what you claim as the reliability for singles and what eminent bodies like RAES (who regularly advise ICAO) appear to be different....