To: Nick Lappos
“A cure is to ask the ship to turn into the wind, so the roll angle is not aligned with the crosswind, but pilots are reluctant to impose on the ship operations (unless they are in the Navy, where the air boss helps the ship captain decide)”.
On a Coast Guard icebreaker (at least in my experience) the Captain will not accommodate a pilot during the landing of a helicopter when in the icebreaking mode. While in this mode the ship can be rolling +/- 18-degrees (maximum) and at the same time, pitching up and down several degrees. Because of the inherent dangers involved in landing along the centerline of the flight deck (approaching over the stern) the pilots would land athwartship trying very hard not to contact cable stays and a large boom. And they would be flying sideways and forward in order to maintain their position in relation to the moving flight deck. The danger in landing in either direction was that there were no wheel brakes on the helicopter and the parking brakes, which were set upon touchdown, were ineffective. Because of this the ground crew had to attach tie downs and chocks to restrict any further movement. If the helicopter had to be restarted in this position under the stated conditions there would be a severe instability due to the helicopter moving on its’ oleos and the imbalance of the rotor system during start up. It was the same when the helicopter was aligned with the ship centerline but there was less chance of losing the helicopter over the side. Now these are my experience and they differ from the rules and regulations that exist at this time. Most likely they occurred prior to the birth of most of the pilots on this forum.
Another point to consider, is that if during the landing sequence, the icebreaker hit large/thick pack ice and became stalled in its’ forward movement the pilot would crash on the other helicopter on the deck. Or in the case of our ship, also hit a very large fuel tank that we were transporting to the Alert weather station. Perchance we were the pathfinders that would lead to changing the rules to those that presently exist.