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Old 28th Oct 2017, 22:56
  #18 (permalink)  
ShyTorque

Avoid imitations
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
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As a young first tourist helicopter pilot I once had an "interesting" night recovery to a farmer's field in Norfolk during a task deployment. The fuel bowser driver had got completely lost and never made the briefed RV. He was supposed to be in place well before dark to lay out a night landing NATO "T" for me to land at and refuel. Arriving at the briefed area, already at fuel minimums, we searched for ground lights without success until the first low level light illuminated. I decided to land asap but we had to go around from the first two attempts due to multiple HT cables seen on short finals.

I eventually landed (i.e. dumped the aircraft on the grass) with both fuel low lights on and the fuel pressure lights flickering - the boost pumps were beginning to suck air. I shut down immediately on lowering the collective lever. After shutdown we checked the fuel gauges - they read O kgs and 10 Kgs remaining.

A couple of years later another Puma flamed out both its engines with about 30 and 40 kgs indicated, IIIRC. The Turmo engines burnt about 550 - 600 Kgs per hour between them (as much as 660 Kgs per hour was possible) and the tanks held a total of 1,000 kgs so we were usually short of fuel at first takeoff.

I learned about flying from that. The holes in the cheese were lining up even before we found the bowser was not there.
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