Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
I once arrived at an IFR equipped, twin engined helicopter which had a very much depleted battery due to certain unqualified people having “fiddled” with the systems for some time and subsequently not realising that plugging in an external power supply disconnects the aircraft battery from the system, rather than charging it...
Having pointed out the situation, I was then told to fly said helicopter to a maintenance place to get the battery swapped for a good one. Bearing in mind that the engines were DECU only, with no manual backup and didn’t have their own generators and the cloud base was well below 500 feet, I made myself extremely unpopular by refusing. An engineer with a new battery had to be dispatched by road.
A double generator failure with a failed battery (or even a cooked battery due to overcharging in flight) could have found me with no flight instruments, no engine control, or a battery fire.
I applaud your decision to
NOT fly that aircraft under those conditions. I have read to many accident reports of aircraft flying to a maintenance facility- mechanical 'get-home-itis'.
I flew HEMS for 16 years and at one point, the SOP was to start with an external battery on dispatch to reach the patient in order 'have a fully charged battery available for the start on the patient transport segment'. The program had good maintenance and a regular battery replacement schedule.
Then, in the middle of the night at a remote improvised pickup-point, the weak battery failed, not having the amperage available to start the aircraft. There the pilot was,
patient loaded, after months of 'first starts' on the battery cart and before the scheduled battery swap.
That may be the most adverse start of your shift, a cold soaked aircraft and a battery inactive for days, it may dismay the requesting agency if you've accepted dispatch and now another aircraft has to fly longer to get there- If one has a weak battery, the place to find it is at the base.