Excessive Downdraft during SAR Ops
Before I get flamed mightily.....
I have a massive amount of respect for the work done by the heli crews and the time from callout to attendance was less than 10 minutes in both cases which is outstanding service.
On two occasions in the last week I witnessed inconvenience caused by the downdraft from an RAF or Navy Seaking during relatively non-urgent SAR/coastguard operations.
The first situation was an unconsious man in an RIB following a colission between the RIB and a small boat in a river marina. The boat was already under tow and the man being looked after and the Air Ambulance already on scene. The Seaking hovered low over the marina causing two or three smallish RIBs (empty) to be flipped over by the downdraft meaning two of them lost their outboard engines to the bottom of the river.
The second was in a cliff rescue (person stuck 5m up a cliff over a sandy beach) With the situation under control and the cliff rescue team 3 minutes away a Seaking decided to hover low over the beach, in the process scattering a party of holidaymakers (with very young children) and there picnic to all the points of the compass.
My questions as an interested non-pilot are..
..how much are heli pilots aware of the major inconvenience that can be caused by the downdraft?
..Does it influence how they fly the chopper in an SAR situation?
..Do the services pick up the tab for any damage caused during ops by heli downdraft?
Deliberately been a bit vague about the location and situation to avoid making it a personal criticism of the pilot.
Many thanks
DeepC