A380 - VH-OQA Write Off.

[Roller Merlin]

My understanding of the story is that Bluggy conducted a successful "running landing" in an iroquois after suffering a jammed tail rotor at El Gorah in the Sinai mid 80's. After that the Aussie chopper drivers were all sky Gods in the eyes of our pax who had though they were doomed. Pax were all US state dept observers whose job was to ensure the peacekeeping rules were complied with, and Fijian and columbian soldiers who deployed at observation points throughout the desert.

Back then the fling-wing types mostly belonged to the RAAF. We had a sinai peacekeeping detachment in El Gorah, a bombed out Israeli fighter base returned to the gypos in 1982. The were 11 nations based there each with different roles. The ozzies and kiwis (Anzacs) operated the only helo unit flying in the north, whilst sepo army covered helo flying based in the south.

It was common knowledge that we operated very differently to the yanks. We were all fixed wing/jet trained, and our SOPs reflected lessons and experiences from vietnam war to the present. Whilst the differences are another story, it would be safe to surmise the belief amongst the troops and yanks was that if anything nasty happened to the tail rotor operation, the helicopter would undoubtedly crash, as had occurred in virtually all cases in the us army operation. However unlike the yanks we RAAF drivers were far less regimented and amongst other things practiced simulated jammed tail rotor exercises in recurrent training, the result of having a smaller force size with more quality-based training program.

So when Bluggy encountered a jammed tail rotor (I recall it was at night) over the desert, the pax all knew they were done for. There is no room to muck around in such an emergency and slowing too quickly or miscalculation of wind effects can lead to loss of control. The procedure in the huey sets up the aircraft in a long, low approach where the slipstream on the fin balances the main rotor torque - typically at about 40-60 knots with 30-60 degrees of yaw over the fence depending upon the pedal positions. When all is stable across the ground, the throttle is wound off, the yaw reverses and aircraft is dropped on the skids and run along the ground to a stop. I was told in this case there was a nice sparklers show as the skids ran along the old runway which was the only place suitable. Of course when the troops got out without a scratch, they could not believe it was possible as all previous failures had crashed. After that all our desert choppers skids were reinforced with steelplate in case we needed to skate over the tarmac again. In my time there a crew did another running landing at night but I cannot recall the reason.

Of course the huey was originally designed as a throw-away airframe after 1000 hours. When I left choppers, our frames had around 7-8000 hours on them.