Oh, dearie me. I was moping around in a blue funk all day, depressed beyond words. Some of the "elders" on PPRuNe had "ostracized" me! Gee, did they put me on "ignore"? Whatever will I do now?! I was beside myself with grief (but at least I had someone interesting to talk to).
You stupid gits. You great pompous, heaving nitwits. I wonder if you guys even realize how childish and immature you look? "Oooh, Crabby, let's ignore him!" Yeah, that'll show me.
What are you guys, teenage girls?
See, my posts are certainly ascerbic. I make no bones about disliking your sort (Crab, Tc, OMR, Red Whine and a few others). Please feel free to *not* read them! But along with my personal jabs, I offer solid information. Said info may not be to your liking. But instead of rebutting it, you just rant on and on about what an awful person I am or must be because I don't give you guys the respect you guys say you deserve...that you jolly well demand! Why, the very nerve of that PF#1 person! Well screw you guys.
I'm sorry if I bore you people. Well, actually I'm not sorry, I really don't care. But somebody must be reading my posts, judging by all the views that this the the other "So It Was Kemble" thread have gotten. Obviously, people are interested in this topic and I'd wager that it's not simply because they enjoy seeing me self-destruct in public. My posts are carefully (some might say "lovingly") constructed and provide the viewpoint of a very experienced helicopter/airplane pilot. Yet the responses to my posts range from Old Man Rotor's "You're a bl**dy POM!" to Crab's eloquent, "Yeah, what he said!" A few intelligent individuals have noted the merits of my posts and have said so (thank you Blender and others). I rather suspect that there are still many others who are too fearful of incurring the wrath of the Chosen Few...you know, the hall monitors and Manners Nazis, the ones who bludgeon us with all of their supposed experience and knowledge, the ones who claim to have the Last Word in helicopter flying. Spare me.
For the record, I never said that landing on an offshore oil platform was the hardest job in all of aviation. I never even implied that it was. It's just yet another hazardous operation that, when performed by single-engine helos, is done with very little margin for error and very high skill-level demanded. Often, there is no wind at all out there and it's hot as blazes to boot. If you think that landing a max'ed-out 206 to a small offshore platform in such conditions is a piece of cake, then YOU don't know what you're talking about.
The reason I mentioned the 24-foot deck is because of how it shapes the way we do things. Quick Lesson: As you come over the helideck, you want the mast to end up "centered" as much as possible. This means that as you terminate, the cockpit will be pretty close to the windward/forward edge. Visual cues will be scant. This is not the time to be in a nose-high condition. This is not the time to be at a high hover. This is not the time to be jockeying the power.
Some pilots have a hard time adjusting to such pinnacle landings where you end up surrounded by blue water with only a tiny corner of the "pinnacle" in sight out your door or the corner of the bubble. Initially, many pilots come in too shallow. Eventually, they realize that steeper is not only better, it's easier. Hence, it's "safer," even though the approach may transgress the dreaded "shaded-area" of the H-V chart. (But a shallow approach will too because remember, you're making a point-in-space approach, and that "point" is 100 feet or so in the air.)
I don't devalue the experience of you guys, especially you military chaps (except that Crab really does come off as an R-22 pilot with his pedantic rants). But just as I don't comment as an "expert" on what you military guys do, please don't comment on offshore flying unless you actually *have* done it. And no, it's not the same as every other type of flying. There are techniques and considerations that are peculiar to the offshore world.
I'll close with that. I'm sure that the "usual suspects" have not read this latest PF#1 post anyway. They most assuredly do not find these epistles amusing. But I would definitely be interested in hearing an alternative viewpoint from another commercial/professional pilot...someone else with a lot of heavy current single-engine time. You know...maybe I have been doing it wrong all these years! Maybe the company I worked for in the Gulf Of Mexico had it all wrong! Maybe I really don't know what I'm talking about!
On the other hand, maybe this forum is dominated by a bunch of pompous ass*s.
P.S. Personal note to Thomas coupling: You don't have to double-post. I read your "Good-bye to PF#1 - you're ostracized, baby!" post in the other thread." I will be ignoring it there, too.