I Learned About Flying From That (ILAFFT)

[Heli-phile]

I learnt a lesson that day! -share the experience

Over the years I have learnt a great deal from reading accounts of incidents to other pilots.

I will get the ball rolling again with one of my own!!

I was called by a local real estate agent to fly around some prime properties in the Marlborough Sounds (Beautiful part of NZ) Having sat down with the agent and planned the route and fixed the locations on the topo we were off.

After about 45 mins of various positioning for various locations we were all done, and I was heading back to base. The agent then says "oh can we just pop over to xyz bay where we just listed a property, its on the way back". I said fine and diverted to the small bay, it was somewhere I had never been before nor heard of. as we approached the location the agent rang the owner to warn him, and "get the washing off the clothes line" kind of thing.
The house was set back in the steep sided and wooded bay about 200' above a beach with the ridge running above and around it in a deep U shape about 600' above the house. As we approached and descended into the mouth of the bay I asked the agent if there were any powerlines in this bay?? "No, just head in to the house and hover a hundred metres out from the house, about 500' " he said, At this point I was all set to carry on in and position as requested. But resisting the invitation I slowed the 500c down to about 40kts with about 800m to run, and with the agent looking at his watch!! I did my mental checklist
Wind - No 'sign' on the trees or on the water surface so ok.
Wires - Knowing wires are pretty much invisible,especially set against native bush and trees I began scanning the slopes for power poles, eventually I found 1 pole in about the 2 oclock LEVEL position. QUICK STOP !! Putting the machine into the hover, with the agent looking at me with a "why have you stopped" look on his face, I searched for the next pole, scanning intently my eyes ran right around the U shaped bay ahead until then in the 10 o'clock LEVEL position, I found another pole. Then to my absolute horror I spotted and followed the barely visible set of double wires which hung between these two poles ACROSS THE BAY, there about 20m metres directly ahead and level with the nose of the helicopter were the wires waiting to greet us!!
At this point the agent asked "why have you stopped?? I invited him to look carefully 20m ahead. eventually he found the wires and turned a sickly shade of grey (to match me no doubt!!) I turned the machine around and headed for base without another word.