I Learned About Flying From That (ILAFFT)

[yogibear]

Hey all,

Now I know I haven't posted for yonks but here I am.

So now guys what is the dumbest thing you've done while flying and lived to fly another day ? I know this may sound lame but it would be interesting to see what sort of mistakes have been made and in so doing allowing others the chance to NOT repeat them.....

Any input will be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Fortyodd]

Not quite the dumbest but whilst we are on the subject........

Landed a Lynx during a lull in tasking on an exercise and got handed a couple of Ginsters pasties as it was some hours since brekkies. Deciding they would taste better warmed up, I placed them under the engine, through the fire hatch. Co-pilot re-appears to tell me that endex has been called and we are released so off we go forgetting about said pasties. Landed for a refuel at a busy airport in the North West about an hour later and, whilst doing the post flight inspection discovered said pasties steaming away.

[RW-1]

While on a mission on VQ-4's EC-130Q, I had a lunch that was on the ramp area, where during flight at 30-45K can be as cold as a freezer next to the A/C skin. Left overnight, it was a microwavable chicken kiev dinner, and I thought it would be ok, as we had been at altitude for a bit, it had been chilled again.

I nuked it in the galley for longer than the instructions required to be sure I cooked it.

But alas, 30 min after eating, I had the urge, left com central (The EC-130Q is a TACAMO bird, complete with soundproofing in the communications area) and went around to the galley and rest area on the aircraft, reached up in one motion, grabbed a bag and barfedmy guts out, right in front of the four personnel occupying the seats at the rest table.

The hilarious thing is though, is that in my rush to grab a plastic bag of any sort to avoid placing my contents on the deck, the bag I grabbed was a clear plastic bag, so the chunks and contents were clearly visable to those seated there.

Two sympathetically caused vomits thus ensued after mine. :rolleyes:

[CyclicRick]

The most stupid thing I ever did was tell someone the most stupid thing I ever did.

I was on pleasure flights one day in a 350. This little kid next to me was amazed that I hardly moved the cyclic at all. So I said " have a feel how it is" He reached over and grabed the bloody stick so hard I nearly had a heart attack.....won't do THAT again.

[Lu Zuckerman]

Re. RW-1s experience.

I was flying as a passenger on an USN PBM and although it didn't happen to me, I was a witness to gross stupidity.

Another passenger had to use the facilities, which consisted of a can like container situated near the internal fuel tanks. As required he placed a bag inside the container prior to defecating. When he finished he opened the right rear door to dispose of the bag. However, he neglected to open the air deflector. Upon disposing of the bag into the airstream it exploded and everything came back covering the passenger as well as the fuel tanks and lines. After landing he spent several hours cleaning the mess he made.

[ShyTorque]

Flying as a passenger in the rear of a USAF C-130 suffering from severe static electricity problems where everything touched caused a shock, I was stupid enough to take a pee into the stainless steel toilet.

:eek: Ouch :rolleyes:

[John Eacott]

Well, when there's a crew of four in one of HM's shiny new Sea Kings, none of us over 24, and with the combined common sense of a gnat.......

It seemed like a really good idea at the time to try to recover a USN missile that we found, floating around the Carribean, in the AFWR (Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range). OK, what a trophy for the crew room :D. Looker, get the grappling hook, let's use it on the end of the winch to trawl for the parachute, then recover the lot and wait for charlie time.

Any idea how long it takes for a Sea King downwash to fill a parachute? Any idea how fast a Sea King can fly sideways, whilst a Chinese parliament ensues as to the best way of losing a parachute before it gets into the rotors? Cut the cable? You have got to be joking, how would we ever explain that away :p

Fortunately, the bending strain of a pusser's grappling hook is less than the shear load of a SK hoist. Even more fortunate, being allocated 5 spot allowed us to sneak the (very straight) hook down the port gangway to the workshops, for a rabbit job worth a few gulpers. To the best of our knowledge, that was one of our escapades that escaped the eagle eye of the Hierarchy :rolleyes:

Then there was another crew who tried to catch a manta ray off Indonesia, and wrecked the winch cable before they retrieved the ray..........:D :rolleyes:

[Nick Lappos]

John, that story is priceless!

Once I returned from a mission in RVN at sunrise, having been scrambled from a sound sleep about midnight and launched into the blackness to fight the godless commies.

Up all night, expended ammo three times, re-armed and refueled hot, a few small holes in the tail to prove that the other side also used some ammo. It was a two-way rifle range, after all.

Mission over, I handed my helmet to the crewchief and stepped out of the Cobra, negotiating the small outside steps, failing to realize that my boots were still untied (scramble start, remember?). Stepped on the lace of one boot with the other foot while four feet above the ground on the three inch little step.

As the whole flightline watched, I windmilled my arms like the Third Stooge, struggled for a second, then fell whole body backwards onto the ramp, out cold.

No matter how I argued about combat wounds, the CO insisted that no Purple Heart was due! However, the French judge gave me a 9.0 because there was so little splash.

[John Eacott]

Nick,

At least you didn't damage the bone dome....:D :D

[ShyTorque]

Nick,

I knew that 'Nam was dangerous but having to fly with untied bootlaces.....wow, that is the pits!!

Thank goodness you didn't have button up flies on your underpants or you really could have had a long-term problem, those metal steps have sharp edges!:D

[heedm]

First flight after receiving my HGU 56/P from Gentex (use to fly with some tiny plastic covering with leather ear cups). Refuelled at a small operator in the Lower Mainland, BC. Prior to startup I strapped in and then wanted to check the clearances one more time, so as per habit I stuck my helmeted head out the window.

It wouldn't come back in.

While the flight engineer scrambled to get his camcorder, I unclipped the chin strap, dropped the helmet to the dirt, unbuckled, exited the aircraft and was applauded by a small crowd of onlookers.

[advancing_blade]

I read a reply to a simmilar thread on JH.com a while ago which makes my skin crawl even now, it was a chap who said that:-

"one time I was solo in (I think) a 212 with auto pilot engaged, I climbed in the back, just to see what is was like. Freaked me out"

:eek:

[Nigel Osborn]

I've done too many stupid things over the years to log them all but this one was amongst the more stupid. Many years ago as a sprog Navy pilot with a huge 700 or so hours in Borneo, a Royal Marine officer invited me to sling a long wheel based Landrover to another marine base. Not a breath of wind, high oat and quite a long trip. Jokingly ( fatal thing to do to a marine officer ) I said we were far too heavy but if someone steered the Landrover down the grass strip to keep it straight, then once I had 40 knots by the strip end which had a river about 10 feet below, he could dive into the river and I could fly away with 40 knots airspeed. Immediately he dispatched a marine into the landrover and started to hook it on. Highly embarassed I pointed out I was only joking. But would it work he said. I suppose so I said. OK let's get ready. Well to my surprise it did work but fortunately I never met the marine who had to dive at 40 knots about 20 feet into the fairly fast flowing river.:D :confused:

[John Eacott]

Nigel,

Priceless :D :D :rolleyes:

Errrr, who jumped back on the Rover to steer it when you landed :confused: :confused: :eek:

Wessie V?

[Nigel Osborn]

Hi John,
Yes, good old Wessex V, 848 Sqdn. After 90 mins flying my fuel was low enough to make a very temporary hover! Only myself and a crewy on board although there was some discussion if the Royal should stay put but I managed to flatly refuse that request!:D :D

[SASless]

Nigel,

Teenaged Chinook pilots being quite innovative (read "Stupid"), we improved upon your technique.....we found that the front wheels of US Army 3/4 ton trucks invariably turned to full left or right after a few minutes in the air at 100 knots.....thereby making landing slightly more exciting than the takeoffs....so we learned to put a rope hobble onto the steering wheel. Our rate of rolled over 3/4's decreased sharply with that modification....that way we could make both running takeoffs and landings.

The alternate loading procedure for loading Vietnamese rice harvesters consisted of folding seats in the rear, crowding as many as you could into the aircraft in a standing...up right posture....ramp level with 15-20 more.....taxi forward to about 5-6 mph....jam on the brakes....and simultaneously raise the ramp...makes it almost like a British Airways Economy cabin but not quite so crowded! Haulled 138 that way on one trip.

[ShyTorque]

Once had a Brit Army Major tell us he wanted his Landrover underslinging to the next RV. No problem, we agreed to do it and got the load slinging equipment ready.

With the Landie rigged up, we walked to the aircraft to start up and launch. We noticed that he started to climb into his Landrover. When asked what he was doing, he replied that he was going to sit in the driver's seat and point the way to the drop!

I told him that a) Landies rotate in flight and b) if we lost an engine on takeoff or landing, he and his steed would get pickled off the hook.

He changed his mind at the thought of b) but it was very, VERY tempting to let him try it...:D

[Lu Zuckerman]

The dumbest thing I ever did was to volunteer to fly with Sid Kennedy. But first, a bit of background. Sid Kennedy was trained as a pilot in the US Navy and he completed flight school just before the war (WW II) was over. He was discharged from the regular Navy but stayed in the reserves. After his discharge he went to divinity school and became a Christian Minister. With the outbreak of the Korean conflict the US Coast Guard advertised for ex US Navy pilots. Sid Kennedy came into the Coast Guard as a senior Lieutenant. They were checking him out in the various aircraft on our base. When he finished his checkout on the JRB (Beech D-18) he was sent to Cleveland from our base in Traverse City, Michigan. His mission was to pick up some high-ranking officers and civilians and bring them back to Traverse City. The day after bringing them to our station he was to fly them over all of the major aids to navigation on Lakes Michigan and Superior. As plane captain of the JRB I was asked if I wanted to fly with Kennedy. Sadly I replied in the affirmative. I slid into the right hand seat and we were off. Just after take off he removed his glasses and put on sun glasses telling me to remind him to put on his glasses just before landing. Right there, I should have known something was wrong.

He picked up a direct heading to Cleveland, which placed us out over Lake Erie. I asked him if he had a green card (Instrument ticket) and he said no. (He only had 172 hours in the Navy and about 20 as a CG pilot.) I told him that without the green card he had to back track and head over Detroit to Toledo and then to Cleveland. When we got to Toledo we were informed that the weather over Cleveland was deteriorating rapidly and I suggested we land at Toledo pick up some fuel and wait out the weather over Cleveland. He kept heading for Cleveland.

By the time we got to the airport the place was socked in. The GCA was inoperative but that didn’t matter because he was not checked out for GCA landing. The had us do a RADAR controlled approach and he must have made three or four attempts at which time they told him to land or they would shoot us down. We had to land because we were running low on fuel. I was so busy looking for other traffic that I forgot to tell him to put on his glasses. At about 45 feet or so he pulled the throttles back and we hit the ground so hard I expected the landing gear to punch through the engine nacelles. When we hit we bounced and then he remembered to put in some flaps. Normally when flaps are extended or retracted you would check to see that the landing gear didn’t move because the flaps and gear were operated by the same motor. I didn’t check because there was no time. Luckily, the gear did not retract and we ballooned down the runway and eventually stuck to the ground. They had to send a follow me tractor to lead us in and then he asked me why I didn’t remind him to put on his glasses and I told him I was involved in looking for other traffic. I asked him why he needed glasses during take off and landing and he told me that he had poor depth perception. He was supposed to wear corrective lenses at all times while flying.

On the way back we had two Captains and three high ranking civilians as passengers. The flight back was uneventful until at about 10,000 feet on a clear day we were jumped by two USAF F-89 Scorpions because Kennedy had failed to file into the ADIZ. Instead of letting down gradually, he made a big hole approach pointing the nose down like a dive-bomber. I along with several of the passenger had severe pains in the area of our mastoids and upon landing I was taken off flight status for several days.

Needless to say another pilot finished the trip. Kennedy performed equally as bad in his checkout on larger aircraft and he was eventually sent to Alaska where all of the work was off of water and a lot of fog was thrown into the mix.

[rightpedalRIGHTPEDAL]

Isn't there a famous one about a Sea King crew
who would engage auto hover and go for a stroll
on the outside rail to freak out the newbies?

[ShyTorque]

This one might identify me to a few of those out there that know this story already.

During a Central American Puma detachment we were ordered to fly an attractive French photographer. She wanted some "action shots". I was tasked to fly her and a young Army officer to a tiny helipad on the side of a 300' rocky outcrop above an army base. We hover jumped them off as there was a trailer already in situ and the pad wasn't big enough for a Puma in any event. We then did a couple of dummy approaches and finally picked up the trailer and underslung it away and back down into the army camp below after a couple of fly-bys for more photos.

Our final task was to recover the french photographer and army officer; they had to climb on from a one-wheel on hover. The crewman told me on intercom that she wanted to take more photographs whilst sitting on in the open doorway with her legs outside and her feet on the step, using the spare monkey harness to secure her from behind. The crewman told me he would sit alongside her, also in the open doorway to make sure she was OK. We got airborne like this, he then began laughing and asked me to do a wingover to the right to "Gi her a good look at the army camp". I obliged, to guffaws of laughter from crewman. As I rolled wings level, the crewman suddenly went quiet and I had to call him more than once to get him to speak to me on finals.

After shutdown I noticed he was looking extremely pale. I asked him if everything was alright; all he could do was nod. After his second cigarette he told me that he went quiet because halfway through the wingover he realised that he had forgotten to re-fasten his own monkey harness and had sat in the doorway with his hands on his knees, not restrained from falling out in any way....at the top of the wingover he had gone light in his "seat" and nearly fallen out of the aircraft.:eek:

[John Eacott]

Right Pedal3,

Since the Sea King hasn't an outside rail, you've probably heard the antics of various Wessex backseaters who were prone to liven up a sortie. Leading Seaman Edge (leading edge, amongst other AKA's) was notorious: usually on a dark and stormy night, whilst in a 30 ft auto hover, he would sneak the sliding door open, climb up the pilot's steps, and hammer loudly on the pilot's window.

More effective than an enema, I'm told :rolleyes:

[Heliport]

I've done many dumb things in my time, but I can't think of any quite as good as this one, which is true. Someone please correct me if any of the facts have become distorted in the mists of time ........ about 3 or so years!

'Bill' (name changed to protect the guilty :D ) an experienced freelance and TA pilot was hired to collect a B206 from a private house, pick up the owner from somewhere else, and take him back home. Everyone was away but, no problem, just take the helicopter from the paddock etc.
Bill arrived. The B206 looked in better nick than some he'd flown. Obviously well-maintained. A quick walk-round, and off we go.
Bill climbed in, the 206 heli started without a problem. Sweet! It wasn't always like that. All going to plan so far. But, what's that?! A rather strange noise, like nothing he'd heard before. Should he lift? Running a bit late, damn traffic! Gettign light on the skids. No, it doesn't feel right. That would be silly. Best to shut down, and have a look. But what he was expected to do without an engineer on hand? Oh well, this just doesn't sound right anyway, I'll call the owner and explain.
As he walked from the JetRanger, something caught his eye - and all became very embarrassingly clear. What Bill discovered later was that the owner had a friend who also owned a B206. He needed to use his helicopter for an important trip earlier that week but sh*t, it wouid happen now, the b****y thing's u/s. 'I know', the friend thought to himself, 'brilliant! Why didn't I think of it before? George is away on holiday for the week. He won't mind. I'll borrow his tail-rotor!" The moral of the story is .......... obvious!

[rightpedalRIGHTPEDAL]

I'll bow before your depth of knowledge and experience - that one probably has enough mileage on it to make it a 'Helicopter urban myth'.;)

[John Eacott]

The old man just dropped by my office, and just to show there's nothing new in aviation, he related a couple of stories. The first is the usual 'learning aerodynamics the hard way', when he was solo in an Oxford, couldn't reach the P tube, so he made the usual mistake of 'going out of the window' with subsequent inflow rather than outflow. What made it a tadge more unusual was the slow roll to an inverted dive before he managed to get back into his seat and regain control :eek:

On posting as a very junior pilot to 219 Sqdn (night Beaufighters) he was sent to pick up a Magister. Before getting back to Tangmere, he found a secluded spot for a bit of (unauthorised) aerobatics, and had a bit of fun.

The subsequent summons to the Boss, without a cup of tea, did enlighten him as to the location of the requisitioned country club, then used as Officer's Mess for Group: slap bang under his secluded spot :rolleyes: :D :D

[Sloppy Link]

Trusted a French Met man. Git.

[oldpinger]

Could never match Mr Eacott (we are not worthy):D

My humble contributions;

Going out looking for bad guys in a surface search in a SK and finding a yacht to hover alongside to say hello to, staying there just long enough to arrive back on deck of the ship with BOTH fuel low captions illuminating..... :rolleyes:

Same exercise; having 'Arrival' competitions back over the deck between the pilots, unfortunately I misjudged the wind, instead of coming to the hover alongside 4 spot on the flat top thingy, it went something like, 4 spot, 3 spot, 2 spot, 1 spot, ramp, phalanx...:eek: backed down the flight deck to the marshaller and duly got a scorecard of 0.0 held up in the window of flyco. Luckily no 'grown ups' were on watch!

Not one of mine, but quite a while ago at a Culdrose air day, two QHIs did the 'old lady wins the flight in a hiller competition'. The QHI wearing the wig and dress, after 'Stealing' the aircraft from the other QHI took off, and in the process, the wig slipped down to give him a 2inch view of the world. His simulation of an old lady not quite in control of a helicopter was apparently VERY realistic!!

[Draco]

My father in law, a naval commander, was offered a flight from a carrier many years ago (probably not long after WW2).

Fully kitted up, he and the pilot were leaving the crew room when the pilot threw a coin into a huge sack full of identical coins.

Curious, he asked the reason.

Apparently there were seven arrestor lines on the carrier. The first pilot to pick up the seven lines, in the right order, in seven consecutive flights got all the money in the sack.

Fine, said Mike, what happens if you miss the last one? "We go swimming", he's told.

"Which line are we going for this time?"

"The last one"

He never did get his flight from a carrier.

[Out of Balance]

Early 1980's I was a Lynx crewman (LHS) on a flight from Bessbrook to Crossmaglen. As it was an underslung load flight I decided to con the hook up from the rear cabin. It was a rare warm summer day so I elected to stay there for the remainder of the flight with my legs dangling out of the LHS cabin sliding door (instead of the usual practice of climbing back into the LHS).

Apologies to RAF and RN crewmen, but we Army crewmen were not familiar with the aerodynamics in the cabin area and so I was most surprised when the airflow against my legs pushed me towards the rear of the aircraft.

As I was about to ask the pilot to slow down I slid far enough back to cause my helmet jack lead to become unplugged. Normal IC voice communication being impossible, the further back I slid, the louder I shouted until I was at the limit of my monkey strap and my vocal range.

With my fingers stretched in a death grip against the troop seats I had visions of an embarrassing approach into XMG of an Army Lynx with two underslung loads. Fortunately the reduced airflow against my legs during the approach enabled me to crawl back into the cabin and breathlessly con the aircraft into the base to drop off the sling load!

First time I've admitted to that one but the moment is still very clear to me!

[Big Green Arrow]

I've done more than my fair share of silly things, but here's one....

The tea pot at Dungannon had seen it's last days..the bodge tape and the fablon had finally given way and the crews at Dung decided to give it a decent burial...the next task was a pick up from near Keady lakes..so we droppped it there...it was like a scene from the Dambusters movie...well nearly..anyway one wessex flew point with the pot and the other formated to take phots....it was dropped a tad late down the lake...bounced well enough to make Barnes Wallis cry with pride...and missed a fisherman at the end of the lake by microns!

Dropping a water balloon onto the range wardens car at STANTA...took the back window out...yes it was you Jules!

[Chimbu chuckles]

I knew a guy years ago who had flown Army Bell 47s in Vietnam very early in that conflict as part of an Australian combined sevices thingy. From memory he was actually RAAF.

In those days they were absolutely forbidden to have 'armed' aircraft so apart from their personal weapons were of little danger to the enemy.

He likened it to the very early days of WW1.

Boys being boys they decided that this was a little rediculous so 'perfected' various ways of taking the fight to the Vietcong. One was straffing with their rifles out the door and another was throwing handgrenades at the little dratsabs.

The Ob would lean as far out the door as his loosely adjusted straps would allow to pull the pin...thus minimising the possibility of him being hit by ground fire and dropping the bloody thing on the floor. The little Bell would be put in a dive and when the pilot yelled now the Ob would lose said ordinance :eek:

Well one day the grenade didn't fall away but sat tumbling around in some sort of swirling air...right outside the door...the Ob slapped him in the arm and pointed out the door wth wide eyed horror...he pulled all the pitch he could and it exploded right under them peppering the aircraft with shrapnel...holing the fuel tanks and causing an early return to terror firma...luckily far enough away from the baddies to allow rescue of both them and later the little Bell.

Then there was the time they took an Oz Army C180 to Cam Ranh Bay to pick up supplies. the aircraft was fitted with 250lb bomb racks underwing to which were fitted 'Storepedeos'. The managed to talk a big 'Negro' chap gaurding a HUGE dump of 250lbs to give them a couple.

"Hey sure man what you flyin?"

"Well that over there"

"Goddamn....well sure I guess":confused:

He refuses to say what they did with said bombs but laments that the little Cessna was not fitted with a 'Stuka siren':D

Or the time they decided to build a really huge bomb from various chemicals, mostly detergent, and drop it on an island in a lake that was VC. The upper ranks heard about this unauthorised use of 'chemical weapons' and nearly went berserk...when things had quietened down they completed construction of their bomb in a 44 gallon drum.

The secretly dropped it on said VC with a huge and very satisfying bang late one afternoon. The next morning they flew a recon to observe the results of their labours only to find that the lake was covered in soap sudds and 100s of 'black pajama' hanging drying from every tree branch.

He's thinks that there may have been a mistake with the quantities:D

Chuck.

[aspinwing]

There was a daytime version to the Wessex window gag.

Think: brand new squadron pilot on his first solo trip since joining squadron in Singers.

Beaut of a day off the coast getting some basic ping-time.

Just enough breeze for good doppler hover hold; head down trying to suss what really makes all this really work; when in over my right shoulder comes a thermos cup full of lemonade.

Lets just say that the dampness evident on the front of my flight suit, after landing, was not due entirely to spilled lemonade. :rolleyes:

[Chuffbaby]

Not one of my own, thank goodness, but heard of a teeny-weeny helo pilot who dropped off a photographer at a landing site. Not wanting to waste any time he pushed the collective down and then opened the door for his passenger.

As the photographer climbed out, the shoulder strap from his camera bag caught under the collective lever. The helo back-flipped.:eek:

At least the pilot was still strapped in, otherwise it might have been difficult to explain:p

[Darren999]

Not as good as some of the military ones, but a learning curve none the less..

As a new flight instructor on a Bell 47, very keen. Had an uneventful flight to a local airport, nice landing by the student, all going very well.... got out a looked at the tail boom which is now completely covered in oil!! AARRGGHH what the hell happened here!.. Well now I always make sure the oil dip stick is in before I get in! and not resting the frame. God it took ages to clean.. who was the dip stick then!!

Darren

[belly tank]

This one comes under the category "dumbest things passengers have done when flying"!!

At the time i was a about a 350hr pilot i was flying tourist in central australia. just to fill you in on our helipad and its surrounds. departing to the east we had a strip cut from the edge of the pad by dozer straight through the mulga trees and scrub to give us a nice profile on our departure path to the west the departure was fine except for the camels in the yard with their 20 foot tall necks!!

anyway loaded up and breifed the pax on a scenic flt, on this particular day we had to depart up the strip to the east. into the hover all ok!..start to transition and at about 25-30kts and 20ft or so the front pax next to me gets a bit excited!!

Next minute i know we are heading straight for the trees!..she had braced herself and her right hand went straight onto the collective with hercules like downward force. i then proceeded to yell and carry on! eventually i arrested the decent with elevated heart rate and i kindly explained to her not to do it again!!

quite a scary moment...i now make certain every time to breif about controlls!

[B Sousa]

Heliport has been around, as the dumbest thing one could ever do is to confess to something on an Internet Forum..........
(With nobody buying you a Beer to hear your tale of Woe.)

[J_H_A_V_I_C_K]

BellyTank, you forgot to mention the CRANKY Station owner which would restrict your departure to the south !!


CHEERS .

JH

[ShyTorque]

I was told this one by my RAF QHI, true story as it happened to him in the Whirlwind (single turbine).

He was to fly an army WO pax who had been briefed how to strap in rotors running. The WO climbed up the left side, sat down and began strapping in, with the QHI helping him using his left hand to pass the harness straps. Suddenly, the aircraft launched itself vertically upwards. The QHI, assuming the aircraft had a fuel computer runaway up, immediately went computer out (pulled in the big "bike brake lever" on the cyclic) and concentrated on controlling the aircraft which was now rapidly (well, as rapidly as a Whirly could do) approaching level with the hangar roof.

Having now put himself in a manual throttle situation, which made no difference, he realised that the collective was way high and tried to lower it, without success, it was stuck fast.

As he transitioned over the hangar roof (!) it became apparent that the WO had somehow put his left hand leg strap UNDER the collective and pulled it up tight, jamming it in a high position! Unfortunately he was not yet on intercom and not surprisingly, was petrified! The QHI had to yell at him and finally convinced him to unstrap, which was no mean feat considering the pax thought he was going to die in the next few seconds!

Yehaa! They got it down in one piece with the only damage to self respect and pride.... :O

Stupidest thing I ever did was to swap hands on the controls in a Gazelle when I was flying as QHI from the LHS. I was asked to fly for a few seconds by my student as he had got his maps in the wrong order as we approached the departure point. He had the friction far too tight for my liking (friction situated on the right collective) so I stupidly tried to hover with my left hand whilst I wound it off with my right.

Well I shan't ever do that again!! The next few seconds went very quickly and my life flashed before my eyes. If anyone wants more detail, I can say why!! :uhoh:

[2beers]

Hi all!

A few days ago, there was a great thread from a guy that managed to save the day when his R44 beltdrive gave up in the early stages of a climbout.
The discussion that followed made som great points about maybe not having to be in that difficult situation in the first place. Unfortunately, the points made where not made in a nice tone and in the end the thread that gave many helicopterpilots something to think about was deleted by the originator. I think that's a great shame, so let's try this instead:

What have you done?
You didn't listen to your inner voice, telling you something is wrong?
Made a bad decision?
Made a good decision?
Crashed a helicopter or just bent it a little bit?
Wished you had said no?
And so on...

I guess that some of you does it daily, while others never have anything happen to them. (Why is that?) Instead of only reading AAIB-reports about other pilots hard learned experiences, how about sharing your worst or best moments in a helicopter, from a safety-point of view?
There will of course be some very experienced pilots who seen most of it anyway, so nothing will be new to them. Imagine if the newcomers could be able to tap into some of that experience that otherwise have to be learnt the dangerous and expensive way, it might actually save lives. And if you think that you know and seen it all, I hope you have retired...

The best thing is if it's your own experience, so that the thoughts and actions are accurate. The next best thing is if it's happened to a "friend" ;). If you want to comment on someone elses mistakes, feel free to do it, but keep it polite. By using that 20/20 hindsight, we might actually have a better vision of what's going on when, or if, it happens in realtime.

Let's make this a great thread :ok:

/2beers

[PPRUNE FAN#1]

Hey, I'll bite.

You know, it's cool to have a gazillion hours of flight time. The trouble is, you can't ever mention it because people think you're just bragging. "Oh what are you, some kind of know-it-all? You have 10,000 hours? Big f'ing deal." Yup, big f'ing deal.

Having a lot of flight time does not mean I know everything, nor does it make me immune from mistakes. I have to guard against making them every bit as diligently as a guy with 1/10th of my flight time. Maybe even more diligently, because I know more now than I did back then.

I look at the accident reports every day. Not just helicopters, but fixed-wing too. I study each one, trying to put myself in that pilot's place, wondering if the same thing would have resulted with me at the controls? Often, I cannot say for sure that it would have not. Sometimes the "accident chain" begins...or the dominoes start to fall if you will prior to take off.

The other thing that comes to mind when I scan the accident reports is: How many "situations" come this close to being an accident but don't result in bent metal? Like Raven's little clutch failure. How easily that could have been an accident! The decision to turn back from 200 feet surely was gutsy. And risky. There have been many aircraft lost in such a maneuvre. How many times have we ourselves been in similar situations? When high-time pilots like myself get together, we often marvel that we've been able to survive to this level without killing ourselves. It's no joke; it didn't happen because we're such nice guys. Not that I haven't crashed...

Early on, when I was just a private pilot I was flying a Bell 47. We all knew it had a weak engine, weaker certainly than it's sister ship, but not by much. I flew out to a friend's farm (who was a student pilot), loaded him up and proceded to show him an ag-turn. Only... Only nobody had showed me. Oops!

Took off and made my "swath run." Due to the weak engine and the load of the two of us, I was only at about 45, not 60 mph at the end of the field. Little did I know that wasn't nearly enough airspeed. Hauled back on the stick. The helicopter climbed up a bit and then just stopped. I pedal-turned around. We were now pointed directly at the ground and it was very clear that we didn't have enough altitude to get some airspeed and fly away. Gulp! Pulling max power, I leveled and braced for impact. And impact we did! Spread the skids, cut the boom and rolled it over. Totalled that little G-2. And it was all me, baby!

The FAA came, and I made weasley excuses about a "power problem." Turned out that one of the six cylinders was completely dead. Off the hook! But you know, it was still my fault. I wrecked a perfectly good Bell 47 (well, almost perfect) nearly killed myself and a friend and I have to live with that for the rest of my life. Do not think that it doesn't weigh heavily, for it does. I made a dumb mistake due to overconfidence and cockiness. I've spent the rest of my career trying to atone for it.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Stop hanging yourself Prune1 - we've all done silly things. I've flown across the Florida Pan Handle at 2 in the morning, right across the Everglades, looked in the Left tank on landing and it was empty. Had two friends on board. Simple fuel miscalculation. Stalled a TB9 on the flare out onto the runway with 4 up and scraped the tail. Yep, had sleepness nights for a while but i'm still here. Made dumb mistakes but these mistakes have made me a dedicated safety conscious pilot, so at least something good has come of it.

TFS

[Whirlybird]

Guys, this could be a good thread, but far, far better if we keep judgement out of it. OK, so some of us screw up. We're human, it happens. It's much more informative to know what happened, and why, and what was done about it, and what could have been done. The judgement is a waste of time and bandwidth. PFF1, you don't "atone" for something like that. You learn from it, then go on. Sounds like you've been hanging on to it, beating yourself up over it, and then blaming others who make mistakes. What for?

Me, I screwed up bad once, as a very low hours pilot.
Some of you know about it. Guess what? I'm not repeating it here. Not until some people learn to discuss this kind of thing without being judgemental. And I bet I'm not the only one. So...and you know who you are...why not...stop.

[sandy helmet]

Well, there was this time at band camp.....................

:} :}

[oldbeefer]

Stupidest thing I ever did was to swap hands on the controls in a Gazelle when I was flying as QHI from the LHS. I was asked to fly for a few seconds by my student as he had got his maps in the wrong order as we approached the departure point. He had the friction far too tight for my liking (friction situated on the right collective) so I stupidly tried to hover with my left hand whilst I wound it off with my right.

Ah Yes - remember it well!

[SASless]

Late night arrival back at base. Low close downwind circuit at warp speed in a Chinook. (Just letting the lads know the last of the flock had made it back!) Taxxied into the revetment to see both the Company Commander and Battalion Commander waiting in a jeep. Being a WO-1, I considered it really a nice gesture for them to swing by and pick me and the co-pilot up for a ride to OPs.

It turned into an altogether different ride when my CO rather bluntly informed me that I had removed the Battalion OPs Center FM radio antenna from the roof of the TOC.

To say the Colonel and my CO were not amused is an understatement. I suggested said event was really just a youthful indiscretion but that seemed to fall upon some very deaf ears. My tea leaves as interpeted by the BnCo did not agrue well for rapid promotion. My stature amongst the other pilots did take somewhat of a lift as I took possession of the Grand Royal League of the Yo-Yo award for some time afterwards.:uhoh:

[toolguy]

I was in the back, the pilots were scud running when the weather turned to soup. Instead of setting it down, they decided it was a good idea to follow a bus, until the bus turned a corner and we lost the tail lights. They climbed in the blind until we came out on top and all was well. I should have turned them in but was just glad to be alive.:}

[Colonal Mustard]

Heres one i did myself.........although NOT heli related....

Joint services parachute centre middle wallop, 91ish i believe.....

Old mustard obliges to attend a sports parachute freefall course, week 1 all goes swimmingly, nightly piss ups occur and tales of woe are said, the following day feeling somewhat jaded i climb aboard,The BN islander steadily climbs up to 5000` all goes well, Mustard looks at instructor 3......2.......1.......GO , Mustard leaps out and admires the features such as "Stonehenge" finish my exit plan from the a/c THEN.............****, I`m wearing boxer shorts and im dressed (if you get my drift) under one of the groin straps:=

What would you do..................?

answers on a postcard

[Twiddle]

Two of us in a little R22 at North Weald, I'm sitting in the left seat and decide to move over to the left to give my friend a fighting chance of moving the controls.

Crowd of people outside the squadron watching these two fatties in a little jellywopter.

Not paying too much attention to what is going on when I feel a distinct pressure on my left leg, then a few seconds later the same, only harder, then I feel it again, even harder this time when I suddenly realise it's the collective sticking in me, so to be helpful I moved slightly to the right........

Cork out of a bottle....

I promise if I ever do that again I'll say what I'm going to do :E

[Gaseous]

Dumbest thing.

On commencing descent, mixture full lean instead of full rich due to brainstorm. I had bruises on my head for weeks from my wife hitting me.

[Lord Mount]

Having saved for years to learn to fly helicopters I was soaking up every ounce of knowledge imparted by my godlike instructors.
I was informed of a gem of a hint when pre-flighting my Bell 47.
Sensei instructor, wise and sage counsel that he is, advises me to manually turn the main rotor blade perpendicular to the fore-aft axis of the aircraft as it then visually confirms that the blades will miss any obstructions or other nearby aircraft when the donkey is started.

I was later singing the praises of this instructor to another member of the flight school. I mentioned the obsruction clearance hint given to me and was surprised by the hysterical giggles that it prompted. When I enquired as to this strange reaction I was informed that this tip had been learned by the aforementioned master aviator when he had started the aircraft without having first removed the main rotor tie down and it actually confirms that the blades are in fact free to rotate.:O

No names, No pack drill.

[BlenderPilot]

Damn!

Everytime this thread comes up my mind gets blocked with memories and I get a funny feeling the next time I go up.

[McGowan]

I think back about it and the dumbest thing I've done while flying has been as an instructor. Sitting there for hour after hour while the person next to me tries to kill me (and him/her) time and time again, all with a smile on their face. When you finally get back and gently explain that some of the things they were allowing the helicopter to do were extremely dangerous, you get that look, and "yeah right", we made it back didn't we?????
Sometimes it is just as well it is difficult to get a gun licence in Aussie.
I do very little instructing now, I own several guns.....................

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

:) nice one McGowan.

I visisted a firing range in Auz and they let me loose with a Magnum for a few rounds. Funny, I was thinking the same thing ! :eek:

I remember when I was doing my PPL(H), I was so engrossed in the flying controls, I went to transmit to talk to Redhill, and pressed the start button instead - I can still see the look on my instructors face, as we violently yawed over the M25 - at least I got the accolade of being the first to do that one !!
Gotta watch em like a hawk !

[Spunk]

Once upon a time... when I was still young and unexperienced I went out on a photo mission in a 300. I told the photographer on the phone that I would land first, shut down the a/c and give him a short briefing on how to behave and talk about the various locations he wanted to go to.
Somehow he didn't want to listen, was more the kind of guy "been there done it".

Upon landing at the airfield he missed the main rotor blades only by a couple of mm's as he approached the a/c (rotors still turning) as I parked it on a slope. He jumped into the a/c and yelled at me: "Come on let's go, I'm in a hurry". I told him that it was stupid of him to get into the a/c while the rotors were still turning and that I didn't like it. Nevertheless I was trying to give him a safety briefing but he didn't listen and just replied: "I've done that a hundred times before, you don't have to tell me what to do and what not." Finally I pointed out to him to secure his camera which he denied "I've got a special camera grip, I don't have to secure the camera". I just thought: f**k it, let's just get this job done and go home.

We finally got airborne, everything went fine until he started to push it again. "Ok, stay here, hold position, a little bit sidewards, backwards upside down." "Excuse me, but that is kind of unsafe in an underpowered a/c like the 300." "Well, the last pilot I flew with did it." So I continued, pushed it to the limits and... well beyond.:=

720° later and 800' lower I was lucky enough to recover from LTE and finally had a positive indication on the VSI.:ouch: :ouch: :ouch:

[WHK4]

Great post, Spunk. I really related to it.

Some of the photgraphy flights I fly are at 500' in a R22 and LTE is on my mind alot of the time.

The R22 ops manual has a Safety Notice ( SN-34) in the back section with the title "Photo Flights - Very High Risk."

I found it really applicable to the sort of photo flights I do.

Cheers

WHK4

[rudestuff]

I'm not too familiar with ozzie rules, but if you are taking photos of something isn't 500' a little high? I know in the UK they have a rule that says you cant go below 500'. is it the same down there or can you fly low like the US?

While we're on the subject, the stupidest thing i've done is fly 90nm out to sea....in an R44

[rotor67]

I was going to take an ex girlfriend up for a ride in an R-22. Now this before we had a governor, the old manual throttle!! As we're warming up the engine, I give her my safety briefing....which usually ends in....DON'T TOUCH NOTHING! Great flight, no problems, no nothing! I set up an orbit over Dodger Stadium, and she wants me to orbit on her side. So I bank it over to her side, and pull back to make a turn to orbit her side. She screams, grabs the collective, and completely twists the throttles WIDE open, this poor little R-22 YAW'D so quick, I quickly bring it back into the green, and tell her not to touch the :mad: controls!! Needless to say, I now remove the pax controls! Damn near left a balloon knot shape in the seat when I got out of the 22!!! :)

[Patrick_Waugh]

An Army buddy of mine had just bought an ultra-light (a plank), and I met him at the local field in North Caroling outside of Bragg where we were stationed (as special forces), and he offered to let me take her up for a spin.

As it was a full camber airfoil, after a quick pre-flight, I deemed it airworthy and jumped in and turned on the fan. Power to weight ratio was excellent, and this was to prove useful. I climbed out easily to pattern altitude and began a left circuit. Thing was so light that it took me a minute to get used to controlling it in the wind, but basically got heading downwind no problem. It was a little weird flying with only an airspeed indicator, though. I had asked my friend before departing the deck what the stall speed was, and was a bit puzzled by his response of, "I don't know", but was not detered.

Well, I began my descent, downwind abeam, and shortly turned base. The throttle was controlled by a level on the side-rail, and was a bit odd to me as well, but all was well till I entered my turn to final, and made the classic, and usually fatal (maybe that's why they call it final!), mistake of student pilots, however in a unique and at least inovative way.

I reached up to tweek the power back ever so slightly while in a nice steep (1st mistake) turn to final, and tap the throttle ever so slightly. Unfortunately, I had not noticed that the whole assembly was rather loose, and my little tap was not resisted and rather effectively cut my power.

Needless to say, I stalled low and slow, and from the ground appeared to disapear behind a barn at the end of the runway. Needless to say, I slammed the throttle full forward, and was only saved due to the afforementioned power to weight ratio, and the lack of a 2nd story on the barn.

I poped up over the barn, more carefully removed power, and did a nice smooth full stop and as cooly as possible exited the aircraft and informed my friend that it handle pretty good but that I think he needed to tighten the nut on the throttle linkage.

As if this wasn't enough, later my friend kept asking me numerous questions that it seemed any pilot would know, and I finally asked him, "You did go to ground school didn't you?" He replied that know, he did not have any flight training! I about died, knowing that he had calmly jumped into his new single seat ultra-light and flown without a second thought.

When asked about his foolish descision, he told me that really he had just intended on running fast down the runway to test it out, but that it had become airborne and so he had little choice but to learn to fly.

Patrick

http://home.comcast.net/~pwaugh/pics/AttitudeAvitar.gif

[ericferret]

1 pilot and 2 engineers returning to a UK base in a Hiller 12E after a heavy night on the pop.

I'm going to be sick, I'm going to be sick.

Pilot lands and Eng 2 proceeds to throw up through the attached litter.

Eng 1, Did you see something?

Pilot, I might have, what did you see?

Eng 1, Well I thought I saw a Giraffe.

Pilot, Thank f**k for that so did I.

Landed in Longleat Safari park hadn't he!!!

[topendtorque]

Belly tank
Neither you nor JH touch on the proprietor (Les-now deceased- and mates) of the tourist venue, if it's the same one that I am thinking of close to a certain cranky station owner.

Methinks if that's the place and the incident was the same as one relayed to me by one with a couple of stumpy fingers, then you cover yourself with some modesty.
TET

[TwinHueyMan]

Half flying, half ground... but maybe it'll suffice for this thread.

Was out doing a compass swing with one of our maintenance officers and the company commander... the whole process involves parking the ole salamander along a given cardinal direction provided courtesy the compass reading from a mechanic standing 25 feet out on the nose with a lensatic, then adjust the slaved compass in the cockpit until it matches. Naturally the spot we picked to do it had a bit of reinforcing bar weaved into the concrete, or maybe some WWII bomb fragments or maybe a damn zero fighter buried under there, and my readings are fickle and unreliable. I move out farther from the nose and the readings are getting better, and continue pushing out further until my ICS cable is maxed out but the readings are workable. I tell the ole Major to nose right, he says the tail wheel feels stuck. I walk out to the left (my right) and take a peek, its cocked a bit so I tell him to put some stank into that pedal and get it to swing round.

I think there was a verse in the theory of relativity and motion that states "when one object is out to the maximum of his ICS cable length, opposite side of his ICS cable connection to aircraft, and aircraft rapidy yaws away, an object at rest will begin to move and continue to move until object hits ground". Thankfully neither saw it. I just told them I was going to ground to get a better alignment on aircraft center. They bought it.

-Mike

[FlightOops]

Not quite the war-story of the longer toothed members, but still makes me chuckle and there may be ppruners who were lucky enough to witness.


Passed my CPL(H) the day before and was invited by the Chief Pilot to fly the H300 demo aircraft to a safety seminar that I was attending with him - great effort the fellas at Air Work, Caboolture.

Feeling a little green but enormously eager to impress I jumped at the chance (free hours !!) even though I'd spent the final 30 odd hours of CPL(H) in a Bell47 and was a little out of practice on the 300.

Clean startup, one of my best departures (correct direction !), good radio calls, nice approach to centre of dest. airfield and smooth steady hover taxi to the hangar at the far end.

In front of a crowd of approx. 50 attendees I came to a nice 5' hover ready for landing ... nerves starting to build with the audience but never mind I'm a CPL(H) now !! I CAN do this.

Words of FI(H) in my head .... "keep your eyes outside the aircraft!!" ... lowered the lever, down we came then ... BOING ... straight back up to the 5' hover ... damn the H300 being slightly further off the ground than the B47 !!!

<click> ... "Nice landing [name removed to protect the guilty]" ... <click> came the immediate repsonse with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

Needless to say my second landing in as many minutes had a little more polish, but I learnt a valuable lesson from it !! Never fly with your CP if you're planning to co*k it up and can avoid taking them, and we only ever make mistakes when there's an audience !! :ok:

FO

[Heli-phile]

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.

[Heli-phile]

NZ has the 500' rule but you can operate as required for bona fide reason as long as the action does not put anyone on the ground/below at risk.
In this case the house was 200'amsl so the 500' amsl would have been 300' above the house.

[Hell Man]

Low Vis Sling Ops Incident

Basic Info

Aircraft: MD530F
Local: Rocky Mountains
Elev. 5800ft
Job: Construction Support
When: Late 80’s

Scenario:

I was finishing-up a job flying construction materials to a repeater site in the Rockies. The build was over and there were a number of cement bags remaining which were surplus to requirements and which the contractor wanted transferred back to the staging pad from where they would be returned to his stock.

It was the end of the day with weather, wind and cloud, moving in fast to the ridge-top pad (around 5800ft) on which the final load of cement was waiting. I had been using a 50ft line the entire day.

The Incident:

On my second to last load I noticed that the cloud base had been descending and that the wind had picked up. I was concerned that the final lift might be tight but returned to give it a go. Sure enough the cloud was descending rapidly and there was now light rain meaning reduced vis.

By the time the remote hook was secured to the load, the cloud base (assisted by local downdrafts) was now surrounding me so that I had to lower my height making the line slack in order to maintain visual reference. The wind was bringing in the cloud and rain real fast and I reckoned I had 2-3 mins before the entire pad would be engulfed in the fog.

The loads were being taken to a staging area at around 1500 ft at the bottom of a valley which led up to the ridge pad. The valley was still clear (I had just flown up it) and so I decided to enter IMC, lift the load off the ground while IMC, transit a sufficient distance in the direction of the valley in IMC and then execute a descent.

I entered IMC and kept climbing an additional 30ft vertically while moving easterly in the direction of the valley and which course I held for about 3 seconds before reducing height in order to regain VMC.

The return to VMC took slightly longer than expected so I increased nose down attitude to hasten the cloud break. As I broke cloud I felt a jolt to the fuselage and simultaneously punched the load heaving my head out the door to watch the line, net and cement strafe their way across the tree tops with a spray of cement particles as they did so! My velocity was up around 65kts in a shallow dive at the time of the impact and I continued to contour the valley towards the staging pad.

The Cause:

Pilot stupidity! By going IMC I no longer had vref with the valley into which I was descending. Although I had a good 'feel' for the progress of the deteriorating cloud base my 'feel' was insufficient to make this insane maneuver 'safe' and in the end I was caught out by the weather. The cloud had begun enveloping the ridge pad while I was being connected to the load and was progressing into the valley at a rate which was faster than I had estimated and which is why I remained IMC for longer than anticipated.

Eager to break cloud I nosed down and brought the bottom of the load into dangerous proximity with the terrain (tree tops) resulting in a load strike at the moment of cloud break.

The Luck:

My luck had been to have my hand over the cargo release handle at the time of impact combined with the fact that I seemed to release the load simultaneous to feeling the jolt through the line. Unlike the Lama I was flying, which had a neat little electric switch right next to the cyclic, the 530 had a manual cargo release lever (like a motorbike brake handle) up front of the cyclic – a bit of a reach but I have big hands and could comfortably wrap my fingers over the lever while controlling cyclic with my palm base and thumb.

As the 530 sped down the valley from the incident I recall, in a moment of adrenaline-fuelled madness, screaming “Yee Haa” into the open air as I celebrated my skill in ‘cheating death’ but - about a week later sitting in my chair at home looking at my son I could have punched myself in the head!

The Excuses:

This had been a three day job based in a pre-fab camp at the staging pad, it was the final day with the helo due to return to base that evening. The day had been long, I hadn’t had lunch and was as hungry as a horse. The job was routine and my mind had been elsewhere figuring out the moves on a contract me and my partner were bidding on.

By the time the wind and the rain had moved in we were all but done, just one final load and we were clear. The consequence of landing, coiling up the 50, slinging it in the back, re-entering the hover and attaching the net directly to the belly hook, would (in my view) have resulted in being stuck on the pad overnight. Even to land and coil up the 50 and depart without any load would, in my view, have taken too long so – it was either button the 50 and fly away or .. do what I did!

I had a rep for taking risks without incident – its a bad M.O. but had gained me good business and new clients – I was known for getting the job done! I’m being honest (and showing my age by admitting it now) when I say that there was a part of me that was looking forward to the loadies (ground crew) telling their buddies that I’d disappeared into the clouds in order to get the last load away (yes, very stupid I know!).

Because of the evaporating time, wanting to get the job done, being fed up with the day’s work, feeling tired, cold and hungry, wanting to go home and being a 50% owner in the ship – I thought “I can do what I want” and "I’m gonna finish up this job and I’ll do it anyway it comes!"

The Lessons:

I’ve had around 8 incidents in civilian aerial work (no crashes) and some life-threatening events in Nam. This one passed almost unnoticed but, over the years I’ve reckoned that it had the potential to be one of the worst.

The lesson was pretty straight forward, don’t mess with poor vis – ever! It can be hard when you’ve had enough and your are just seconds away from finishing up and all you want to do is get back home but .. had I been slow in punching off the line or had the belly hook jammed I have little doubt that I wouldn’t be writing this now – let’s say by some miracle I made it – I’d be lying in some hospital bed pretty messed up possibly unable to do anything meaningful in the future – I’d be lying there thinking “If I just waited until the following morning everything would be fine.”

Thankfully I never had to say those words and, as with many (but not all) ex-Nam pilots I had a good many years where I thought I was pretty much untouchable but, as you mature, you begin to see the error of your ways.

Aside from that cardinal rule of keeping the hell away from weather when you need good vis for specialist ops the other two lessons I engraved on my soul were a) Always make sure that your belly hook is 100% operational (as in no question as to its serviceability) b) Always fly with your hand over the cargo release handle/switch while the line is attached.

An old friend M.C. the III ‘rd (also ex-Nam) was doing wood in Alabama with a 58 – the remote hook was working fine but the belly hook was falling open all the time – he told the loadies to weld the hook closed! You tempt fate and she’ll come right up and greet you – on his fourth load after having ordered the belly hook closed .. the line snagged .. down went the 58 and MC was gone!

.. I learnt about flying from that!

http://www.verticalworks.co.nz/uploads/images/Web500DrillMoveCanada.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Z1yEWKwt3cc/Tpl01uHKUdI/AAAAAAAAFRI/W2bVcUi4iy4/s640/500D%252520Ridge%252520Lift.jpg

(Not the actual helo but a similar setting)

HM

[outofwhack]

I had the biggest lesson of my rotary flying career a few months back.
I present it in the hope it might prepare someone better in case they suffer the same.

1. It's easy to burn all your reserve fuel if you engage in 15 minutes of unplanned fun at high manifold pressures. Viz chasing rabbits. I calculate the helicopter that normally burns 50litres per hour must have been burning well over 100 liters per hour for that 15 mins.

2. Don't forgo a landing to check your fuel level even if it's getting a bit dark and you are not quite home. Motels or taxis are cheap.

3. a real engine stoppage, even if semi-expected, is nothing like a practice. Your eyes dilate (adrenalin I suspect) making focus difficult. Its hard to read the airspeed. Time stops. Your brain tells your limbs what to do but they don't move. You wonder if the blades are still going around - you look for them. You are confused. I still wonder how long it took to make the inputs.

4. You fly too fast shortening the glide. You flare on the high side. You pray there's enough inertia left to cushion the touchdown. You slide for an eternity.

5. You realize that if you had 1 litre less you wouldn't have reached the flatness and space of your home airfield and would have probably made the papers.

I was lucky - there was no doubt the engine had stopped - and my training worked.

But I recall once taking off in a fixed wing (with 1200 hours under my belt) and it took me a good 30 seconds to realize the engine wasn't functioning properly. I cleared the fence by 300 feet instead of the usual 800 feet due to an intermittently blocked injector yet I had convinced myself the take off should go ahead and that I was 'seeing things' and everything was fine. The instrument panel was a blur during the take-off due vibration!

The same delayed decision making with a semi functioning engine in a helicopter in any part of the flight could easily chew up a lot of your height.

I was flying a helicopter deemed to have high inertia blades. I don't know if I would be here right now if I had been flying one with a lot less inertia.

OOW

[Shawn Coyle]

OOW
Thanks for sharing, especially the part about things not being as they were in training. We often forget that.

[Goody35]

Been involved in an accident or incident or narrowly avoided a mishap over the years? Tell us your story so that in the interests of better safety for the community we can lean from your experiences.

[Goody35]

Not long after completing my PPL i was filling our 44 . My cell phone was in my pocket .i'd just filled one tank as my cell phone rung, so knowing phones and fuel arent a good mix due to a potential static discharge, I walked over to the bowser , put the fuel pump away, wandered a safe distance and took the call.

At the completion of the flight one of the other pilots who we share a hanagr with asked me if I was missing anything. Rather sheepishly I asked what he'd found that I'd lost. Out of his jeans pocket comes the lid to the fuel tank.

In the distraction to taking the call I'd obviously forgot to put in back on and left it sitting on top of the fuselage. Fortunately it was on the pilots side and it harmlessly blew off onto the ground and not into the tail rotor. Just as fortunate I was on a short flight so half filled the tank , it was a sunny day and I landed on tarmac so no water condensation or foreign debris got into the tank. I got lucky.

Lesson learnt, as soon as I get out my car and go to preflight, my phone gets switched off and the last thing I do once all the passengers are strapped in is I take a 30 second final wander around the machine to make sure I've not forgotten anything

[RMK]

Similarly, during my first year of flying. Upon lifting at the fuel pumps, I thought I heard a sound like “shlink”. Couldn’t tell if it was my imagination (BoseX do work really well). I sit motionless for a few seconds checking/looking and then think nothing of it and take off. (I later find the "shlink" sound is a fuel cap sliding down the side of the fuselage onto the concrete).

Downroute while seated at the table for lunch, I get a call asking if I’m missing a fuel cap. I go out and check and yes it’s mine. I tape a big “X” with duct tape over the opening for the flight home and all was fine. Except the guy who found the fuel cap only did so after pulling another helicopter over top of it smashing flat (it was the same custom colour to match the heli).

Other story:

My front left PAX has never been in a helicopter. Again first year and SFH, so every time I fly I’m in a different helicopter. I notice I see more daylight than usual around the passenger’s door frame (this was ill fitting even by R44 standards). As I’m commenting on whether her door is fully closed, she grabs the handle to possibly (pull in some?). We have the bubble windows and her door quickly pops open. My mind goes quickly to “protect tail rotor”. What I did was a quickish stop to about 40kts and at the same time a bit of right pedal in case the door did come off – in retrospect I believed this to be OK

I’d be interested in comments from the Pros/Old timers on the above reaction. I reached across her and held the door handle as I was slowing - I can add that you would be surprised how much force the bubble windows pull outwards at speed.

[topendtorque]

My mind goes quickly to “protect tail rotor”. What I did was a quickish stop to about 40kts and at the same time a bit of right pedal in case the door did come off – in retrospect I believed this to be OK

I’d be interested in comments from the Pros/Old timers

Don't know if I'll go near the Pro bit but perhaps the old timer will suffice.

I wouldn't do a quick stop, think about the direction of airflow through the main rotor in forward flight. Now think about it in even a gentle quickstop - ugh. If it is still there by the time you are evaluating - then it would stay there for a while longer.


If you've checked the door security, hinge split pins or whatever on your daily it would be near impossible for it to fall off in a short time, I'd slow down gently, get safe in your flight mode, then secure the door, land if necessary first.


You could perhaps pass onto others to think about the time at say sixty knots it would take for a loose article to travel from the cabin into the T/R. Would you react, and get the T/R out of harms way faster than that?

A door popping is something students should be exposed to a couple of times by their instructor, part of the "be prepared and react properly" syndrome. When they pop it usually scares the living S' out of you first time, '47's did it all the time. Had it happen in a B58 on take off once, bloody 'ell.

In my vague old timer cells I remember two incidents from somewhere in OZ, from about twenty five to thirty years ago. One ended OK the other tragically, each involved stupidity.
I.E. A pillow under the head of a patient on a Bell 47 litter, supposedly for the comfort of the patient.
The one that was OK was one of ours just US'd the T'/R, red face for pilot; the other somewhere, else took T/R off with resultant C of G loss - very ugly.
Loose articles is certainly a priority for tourists drivers.

[Brilliant Stuff]

Why does the industry not paint all Fuel caps in bright orange for example, that way it will stand out so much better??????

We always put the fuel cap in the passenger footwell during refuelling that way when we forget the pax steps onto it. Has saved us a couple of times.

Painting them though IMHO is a no brainer .....

I lost a cap in my R22 days, bought one of those one fits all caps at the local petrol station and flew it back to base.:E

[ascj]

We always put the fuel cap in the passenger footwell during refuelling that way when we forget the pax steps onto it. Has saved us a couple of times.

So what if your not carrying pax. How about you put them on the drivers seat. Hopefully the machines not going anywhere without a driver!:ok:

[Helinut]

BS's op is in a police EC135:

Always has a front pax
Fuel loading on LH side just behind the door
So Front pax footwell is the most obvious

[rotorfan]

My first flight after earning my heli rating was to fly to an airport picnic to give a few rides in an R22. I bought fuel, and did all the normal preflight checks, including checking both fuel caps. These had a black mark on the round periphery that lined up with another mark on the fuselage when fully tightened. That makes it easy to see if it's properly attached.

Upon landing, and the crowd looking over the machine, someone asked what the hole was on the top. Hole? WHAT HOLE? The left cap was missing, and my knees weakened when I realized it could have taken out the TR. I still don't understand how it happened with the alignment marks and I was certain I had fully tightened it. With great luck, the tractor used for cutting the airport grass used the same very cap, which was loaned to me for the return flight.

What amazes me is these caps aren't on a tether chain so they can't depart the aircraft, or be set aside and forgotten.

[Brilliant Stuff]

I was given to understand the reason why fuel caps are no longer tehtered is because the thinking is that the cap will roll of the airframe when you start the helicopter or lift into the hover instead of hanging on for dear life until the chain fails and then goes into the tail rotor. That's what happened to me on the R22.

I stand to be corrected.

Thanks helinut.

[Helinut]

Having seen the results of a tethered fuel cap on the external paintwork after a short flight, I don't really think that is the optimal solution. Much cheaper and better to lose the cap.[It is a bit similar to the effect of a seat belt buckle flapping in the breeze] :eek:

I have done it more than once; I suspect most pilots have.

It usually occurs when something disrupts your normal procedure, in my experience. Very difficult to entirely prevent such things.

The ultimate is to include something physical that prompts you at the start-up or just before lift-off stages. Even that requires the self-discipline of using the protection.

[Wageslave]

This event happened near Tenby in May '88 and was published in Pilot magazine in the mid '90s. Dennis, youda been proud of ol 'AX that day! She impressed the hell out of me I can tell you!

Wire Wise


Way back, early in the reign of Queen Margaret 1st I was a cocky young Helo jock revelling in the escape from drudgery as a North Sea P2. I’d swapped Aberdeen for the exciting (and unknown) world of charter operators, a Captain at last! A proverb pinned to the crewroom noticeboard in Aberdeen was long forgotten.

At 100 hrs a pilot thinks he knows it all.
At 500 hrs he knows he knows it all
At 5000 hrs he knows he’ll never know it all.

I’d just cracked 500 hrs...
The most exciting part of the job, better than the charters, joy rides and wedding trips was the twice monthly pipeline patrol which took my observer and I over much of southern and central England for two and a half days at a time, 30 hrs per month at a legal 200 ft AGL. We dodged Chinooks and Pumas in Hampshire, Tornados in the midlands, mortar shells on Salisbury plain, the landlady in Birmingham, Hawks and Harriers in Wales and the weather everywhere we went. Oh, we also had to avoid the wires, which were never far from our thoughts.
The observer knew the route by tree, hedgerow and roadsign. His job was to spot anyone damaging the oil pipelines we were following, potentially vulnerable to a JCB digging foundations, ditching or draining fields.
We got off to an inauspicious start. The forecast was lousy and much of Wales was clampers until late afternoon. The potential for getting “stuck” was high and I elected to wait an hour or so to see how things would develop. The thought of a delay sent our boss, who I’ll call Harry into one of his John Cleese rages jumping and screaming and waving limbs around at improbable angles. Half an hour later I called Salisbury Ops and got the usual reply, “Roger, cleared Shrewton-West Lavington VFR 200 ft, live mortar firing in progress left to right you are passing beneath the trajectory.” Hmm.....
As the hills rose cloud began to obscure the tops of the pylons I was folowing towards the oil depot. Soon we were grubbing along at 200’ and 60 kts and eventually I had to chuck it away. I made a slow, decelerating turn away from the wires searching for any suitable landing site.
The farmer’s wife was, as Colin said, “Welsh Bloody Wonderful, Boyo”. We explained ourselves at the kitchen door and were fed and watered in the most generous style. As we sat in the damp cockpit phoning Bracknell Met from our huge handbag sized Vodaphone (this was in the days when you could actually talk to the duty forecaster) we saw a hope of moving just before dusk. I called a friend’s father who had a farm thirty miles away; no problem, there’s room for two or three SeaKings here, come on over, and then he briefed me about the wires.
The front passed and we set off. I recognised the farm and did an orbit to recce the field and spot the power lines. Colin and I kept up a running commentary on those wires to ensure that we both knew exactly where they all were. Our host was there to marshal us in. The haze and overcast had made it a very dull grey afternoon and as we slowed the drizzle no longer blew off the screen, making vision ahead rather poor. Still,I could see the electricity poles ahead and our host who was marshalling energetically as the tall hedge passed below.
The next few seconds passed in a series of freeze-frame snapshots. A pencil thick black line, horizontal in the chin window by my left foot. Odd! Then a strong smooth deceleration. The entire screen full of nothing but grass, lit ice-white in improbable detail by a silent flash. I don’t remember taking any corrective action, it must have been instinctive. The field, miraculously back in it’s proper place in the windscreen rushed up at an unhealthy rate as I pulled the collective to my armpit, throttle wide and thought, “That’s all there is...” As we settled like a feather Colin uttered the immortal line, “Nice one, I guess we caught the third wire!”
It lay looped across the grass fizzing malevolently. Grey haze, grey field, grey hedges and poles, and a grey drizzle on the screen. Even my friends father was grey. For all our looking neither of us has seen the third set of weathered grey wires in the undershoot. (Colin never saw them at all, he thought we’d had a control failure until the flash, which he said made one heck of a bang) Our poor host had told me of them on the phone but I had only registered the first two which we had seen. His marshalling acrobatics were an attempt to warn us, and as I flew on he knew what was coming.
Was it pressonitis? Yes. I should have scrubbed the trip back at base and just let Harry rant and rave. Complacency? Had I let my guard drop as the weather improved? Probably. Inattention to the briefing? Definitely. Environmental Capture, seeing the two wires which corresponded to what I thought I’d been told? Obviously. Poor visibility turned from acceptable VMC into something much worse on short finals as drizzle frosted up the screen. I should have thought of that. 500hr pilot-itis, more than anything else, I reckon.
The Enstrom had reached a pitch angle of 40-60 deg down at perhaps 20 feet above ground level. The cable virtually stopped us before it snapped, destroying our translational lift which left us in a very high hover with about a third of the power that we suddenly needed. Thanks to the wonderful design of that little Enstrom we did no damage at all, ego apart. A Jetranger would have chopped it’s own tail off and my beloved Hughes 500 would have dropped the last 20ft like a ripe peach. Boy, were we lucky. Good thing we only hit the wire though, and not one of the poles...
Earlier this year, on a wet, grey, drizzly evening I shot an ILS into Luton and thought about writing this story. Somewhere between Barcelona and that landing I’d passed 5000hrs.

[Senior Pilot]

Bump: hopefully there are more tales to be shared :ok: