Originally Posted by
SLFMS
Serious question Crab, why get the helicopter to descend? I'm experienced in winching operations and did not consider than an option. I'm interested to know why you think it is?
The winch out goes without saying.
To add to crab@ reply, we were taught to descend when winching in once the bodies on the hoist were about 10ft above the surface, to maintain that height for them as a maximum for them to fall should anything go tits-up. With the move to larger machines with auto-hover/height hold this went by the board as downwash also became an issue plus accurate auto height hold.
There seem to be more and more videos of winch jobs where an unnecessarily high hover is maintained during and after the lift. A very good friend had never been taught about this, and when the crewman and 'survivor' fell from an excessive height onto the deck of the training vessel, both were killed. A transit to over water along with a lower height would have saved them both. Those of you engaged in winchops may like to review the height used by their operation with this in mind.
Re the spin and going to a lower height in this instance: the pilot held a very high hover for ages, with associated power requirement. A descent would have reduced that power and associated downwash, allowing the stretcher to be brought into the cabin without encountering the downwash problem so evidently apparent in this video.