Summer 2002, night T/O for a 160Nm trip from an airport on a little island in the deep south mediterranean sea (for those middle aged remember Loran C station in Lampedusa?) towards Palermo hospital.
I was junior F/O with less than 1000 hours and my captain was a newly hired retired navy istructor pilot who had quit flying ten years before and recently resumed his licence to get some living.
He cranked the good 412SP, we checklisted everything, he pulled pitch and got into the runway ready for departure while I stood head down on the cockpit setting nav and gps.
Suddenly I felt a strange vibrations under my backpants and shortly resumed my vision towards the gauges--------what the f..k!
We where pitch down attitude, 40kts, 50ft on the rwy, zero climb or dive, the helicopter rock shaking without any intention to get airborne.
Than I turned at him: he had crossed arms on chest, feet-off-the-pedals staring at the cockpit doing anything and waiting for something never coming up to him.
Autopilot was engaged with Vertical speed and Heading modes coupled at 40kts some feet off the concrete, flying towards the accident.
"What are you doing?"
"Waiting for the autopilot to bring the ship off the ground!"
"Pull pitch!!"
"I say pull pitch!!"
"PULL PITCH NOW!"
No answer or movement coming from him.
As I grabbed the lever and pulled the heavily loaded 412 crawled up in the night.
For allmost all the flight he didn't say a word and I performed all till we got to Palermo Hospital and unloaded pax and refuelled.
I asked him about the argument just before strapping in for the flight back.
"Sorry for that, boy; I don't know how this autopilot works, nobody told me ever about this!" his gloomy words.
He was a good man, maybe once in the navy was a good pilot but now he was experiencing how difficult it was his return to flying operations in the unknown civil hems world after ten years behind a desk in the military.
Douring his +30 years pilot career in the Italian navy he had used 4-axis autohover autopilots on B212 gaining good skills in antisubmarine operations, being also istructor in all that stuff.
Now we where using a 3-axis on our hems 412 and minimum speed for his operations was 60kts and 500feet after crosscheck calls between pilot flying and pilot not flying.
He told me anything wasn't in the right place for him and he left the company some months later.
My stupid thing?
Trust an unknown colleague without going through any assesment about his flight ability or human behavior relying only on his huge military background experience just because he has huge military experience.
My second stupid thing?
Feel too confident about night operations as to leave my head behind the ship.
Cheers
Maeroda