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Old 21st May 2007 | 00:52
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Arm out the window
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 3,009
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From: North Queensland, Australia
A couple of quick ones - hard to know what needs covering without knowing the situation, but:

If it's an elevated pad without much terrain around it for reference, find out the elevation and plan to get yourself to a 'gate point' about 300 ft above and say 500 m out from the pad at 60 kts. Fly in level on finals until you're approaching what you judge to be a comfortable approach angle, sight down and across the pad to something in the distance you can line up gunsight-style, and fly a gentle decelerating descent to get your backside over the pad as you reach the hover. Go round if you don't like it and start again.

Get a brief first and do a diligent recce to ensure you know where any wires are (going to outbuildings or whatever, or maybe guy wires).

Probably windy there, so be aware of where it's coming from and whether you're likely to get turbulence from structures or surrounding terrain, have a power margin to cope with same.

If it's a small deck you may lose some reference to it when you're over the top of it, so see if you can pick some fore-and-aft and lateral markers to satisfy yourself you're landing where you want to and where the rotors will be clear of obstacles.

If your machine breaks down on the pad, are there alternative means of getting in and out, or is there enough room to land two there?

Departure - if there's a nice drop-off, it will probably be tempting to nose over and head off like a diving seagull - don't do this unless you're absolutely sure there's no wires to spoil your fun. Otherwise a normal departure or a level-ish airspeed over altitude type one would be good.

How are you off for flotation gear, epirb, ditching brief etc - 7 nm doesn't seem far but it would if you were swimming in the cold water.
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