Limited range for SAR - Dauphine

[VH-XXX]

Here's VH-XXX question of the week:

Was talking to someone who had been talking to someone (you know how it goes).

They were telling me that the Victoria Police chopper only has a usable mission range of 60nm on it's fuel (120nm in total).

This seemed to me to be ridiculously small when compared to other SAR aircraft and the places I've seen it operating, such as the HEMS Bell 412.

Is this 60 mile "limit" an operational thing or a limitation of the aircraft configuration? (I realise that they need time allocated for winching etc)


http://www.edgeonweb.org/read/5q4/helicopter.jpg

[Lt.Fubar]

Mission range is the same as operation radius.

I don't think that HEMS helicopter have to search for anyone, than hover over them to lower a rescuer, and then pick him and other persons up. It's 60 miles, but at that 60 miles mark you have to do a job that will use up quite a lot of fuel. That range is just a half of the capability you have on the remaining fuel after taking what you need for the job. HEMS uses way less fuel doing the job on the spot so the range is bigger.

So if the mission range is set expecting the job to take 2 hours on the spot... the resulting range will be quite small.

I would guess it is always a mix of both "operational thing" and "limitation of the aircraft configuration". The machine is suited for the job (equipment adds weight, so it takes fuel) and the foreseen operation (sometimes worst case scenario, sometimes a statistical average) will dictate how much of that fuel will be used for job. Whats left is for stating the range that job can be done at.

[9Aplus]

It is important to know wich version of Dauphin they use :)

SA365 C MTOW 3400 kg
to
AS365 N4 / EC 155 B1 with MTOW of 4500 kg

[tophelios]

As far I'm concerned, using a 365N3 in a SAR duty, with POB 4 (2 pils, 1 HHO and 1 rescue swimmer, plus usual SAR equipments- stretcher, life raft...), we can take off at the MTOW (4300 kg) and full fuel, and are able to reach 120 nautical miles, then to spent 20 to 30 minutes in the hover, then rejoining before reaching the 20 min safety.
Of course, as said previously, depends of the 365 they use....

[Squeaks]

IIRC, VicPol currently have 2 N3s and a 'spare' C2, with one N3 dedicated as HEMS1. If the C2 were pushed in to service, it may well have limited SAR radius of action, but I'd expect far more from the N3.

Although Company requirements for full acountability does have limitations on MTOW, I believe?