Blackhawks Not Even Up

[JohnMcGhie]

Would someone knowledgeable please explain what this fuss is all about?

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/showstoppers-emails-reveal-barriers-to-flying-firefighters-in-black-hawks-20201007-p5630x.html

At the risk of once again demonstrating my ignorance, I would have thought that the risk profile for flying emergency responders into a bushfire in inaccessible terrain would be somewhat higher than that for regular passenger transport?

And is a Blackhawk necessarily the best aircraft for the job? It would seem to be a little over-powered, greedy for fuel, and maintenance-intensive for this task?

Especially in a pre-abused form as sold on Paramatta Road by the ADF?

Love to hear your thoughts...

[TWOTBAGS]

Blackhawks work on fire's .......full stop.
CALFire have spent $300M on a dozen new build machines..... why?..... they work.

Payload/Range/Work rate/Cost per drop/availability of air and ground crew.......they work. Even at $25M each new, the CA Govt realizes that the Capex was required to deliver a product that worked.

More to the Oz perspective, "I would have thought that the............." insert here !
................Could whom ever announced this years ago done their homework
...............

[SuperF]

It comes down to paperwork and rules and regulations. There is nothing about risk. the boffins in the office will talk risk and flight profile blah blah blah.

Australia doesn't have "Public Use" aircraft, like they have in the USA. So therefore anything that is flown is either Military, do what you want according to your own "military rules", and there is civilian. Civilian Aircraft must comply with civilian ie CASA rules.

CASA say that to use an aircraft it must be Type Certified, so now the Blackhawk is just a big Huey. you get them from the military, get a "Restricted" TC, and generally it is "restricted" to certain Types of Operations, being Fire fighting, Lifting, Ag Ops, and a couple of other things, but definitely NOT Carrying Passengers.

The difference in the USA is that they have Public Use aircraft, which I believe they are able to carry passengers in Carrying out Public Duties, ie Fire Fighting, Police, some SAR/Ambulance, under certain conditions, ie you cannot set up an airline and fly city to city, but you can carry pax for specific tasks. Not so in other countries!!

In Australia the Police have to play by the Civilian Rules, the Fire Fighters have to play by the Civilian rules. If you want to carry pax you need to get a Civilian Aircraft that is certified to Standard Category, get an operator with an Operating Certificate that allows passenger transport, and you are all good, or the Police/fire, whatever can get their own operating certificate. So far CASA have control over the RFS Aircraft, and RFS want to be able to operate like the fire service in the USA does. It is the same in a lot of other countries.

If they can get the rules changed for the Blackhawks, then you should be able to carry Pax in Hueys, OH-6s, Kiowas, suddenly every Restricted aircraft should be able to carry pax....

And please don't try to tell me that civilian aircraft are built safer and to a higher standard than the military ones. Has anyone ever tried to tell the US military or the any other Military that we have these perfectly good helicopters over here built to a higher spec than you require, but we will sell you the crap ones that no one else wants... Oh and they are no good for carrying pax, ah sorry what were the Huey then the Black hawk designed to do??

[industry insider]

CASA, Incompetent one day, idiots the next. Creation of a Parapublic Category should have been done years ago.

[Checklist Charlie]

Put them on the N register.

CC

[Ascend Charlie]

It is OK for a Blackhawk to deliver soldiers to go and kill people, but not to deliver firefighters to save people?

[ShyTorque]

Having operated both types, I know of two occasions when the Blackhawk was regarded as acceptable to carry members of the British Royal Family. In fact it was chosen in preference to the Sikorsky S-76C, due to its far better single engine performance. The exceptional strength and energy absorbing design of the landing gear of the Blackhawk is another big plus when it comes to safety. It will accept 500 fpm; to put that in perspective, in theory an instrument approach could be flown all the way to the ground at the normal 3 degree descent angle and the aircraft could be landed without flaring or cushioning the touchdown. I can’t think of another helicopter where that’s possible.

[Evil Twin]

The 225 gear can accept up to 950 fpm ROD with no airframe damage and up to 1500 fpm and only damage the gear if my memory serves correct. Been a while since I've flown one now and I'd have to check my training material. The above may be complete bull5hit by the way as I'm trying to recall my ground school from 2014.

I'm still very interested in how the 332 family stack up against the Blackhawks in the fire fighting scenario, bearing in mind people carrying capabilities outside the US. I can't help feeling that the 332 family will do all the Blackhawk can do plus carry anyone. Still want to fly a Blackhawk though, my experience is only limited to a little sim time a while back.

[ShyTorque]

ET, I have around 350 hrs on the S-70, including a fair amount of USL and fire bucket work. The best analogy I can think of is that it’s a bit like flying a V8 Land Rover. Despite about 11,000 hours on various other heli types, civilian and military, I have to say it’s my favourite type.

[nowherespecial]

ST and ET, would I be right in saying that the big issue for the Puma family is gear box cycles writing down the life of the gearbox much quicker in a Puma family aircraft over similar in the Black Hawk family? Both aircraft can take big water tanks and would seem to be suitable for firefighting otherwise. I have some data to suggest that the cost of a new FireHawk is around $20m maybe more and you still have the restricted category issue which is probably above a 225 at market price today.

[roscoe1]

Of course, the companies that use civil certified aircraft on fires are often the driving force, in the US, behind complaints about using restricted cat. aircraft for moving fire fighters. The public use option for federal, state and local agencies is a good thing here and allows them to perform missions like single engine winching ( hoisting), which in the US requires a Cat. A machine for civilian operatos.

[MightyGem]

The exceptional strength and energy absorbing design of the landing gear of the Blackhawk is another big plus when it comes to safety. It will accept 500 fpm;
It will do a bit better than that, Shy. The Black Hawk and Apache have demonstrated their ability to absorb hard landing impacts of up to 6.1 m/s (20 ft/s) with minimal or no damage to the aircraft and no injury to their occupants. That's 1200fpm.

The Black Hawk and Apache rely heavily on the fixed landing gear and seats to provide the required attenuation of loads for the 12.8 m/s (42 ft/s) design pulse. The landing gear alone were designed to handle over half of the total energy of a crash, with the floor and the seats absorbing the rest.

42fps is 2520fpm, which, IIRC, is the ROD of a Lynx in autorotation. Now that is impressive. In theory you could forget about the check/flare at the bottom and get out and walk away. In theory.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj36eHl7K_sAhVZTxUIHWMeBaYQFjABegQIBBAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sto.nato.int%2Fpublications%2FSTO%2520 Educational%2520Notes%2FRTO-EN-HFM-113%2FEN-HFM-113-07.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0IvRw--35ocMc67wN9I-_W

[SuperF]

Shy Torque

I have seen members of the Royal Family flown around New Zealand in UH1s. . It still has nothing to do with the legality of operating an ex military helicopter. In Military use, the Military can put whoever they want onboard their aircraft and go and fly. In the Civilian world then those aircraft have to obey the civilian rules.

Those same UH1s will never fly as a civilian helicopter, as the American TC's say that any aircraft to be eligible for a TC MUST have been operated by the US military....

I still remember being at HAI when Bell/Sik/Boeing and the FAA were telling us all how dangerous and totally unsafe Restricted Category helicopters were, when an Army General, or whatever rank, stood up and straight faced asked the company reps if they were selling the US Military substandard aircraft to send Americas Finest into battle with! It was funny to watch the company reps squirm as they were trying to explain when their own helicopters became the most unsafe things on Gods Green Earth.... finally came down to not the aircraft, simply paperwork and the operator

[ShyTorque]

MG, it’s over twenty years since I flew the type (BH) but 500 fpm was classed as normal, I think, requiring no engineering inspection. The 1200 fpm I think was the second absorption rate of the gear legs and required some engineering attention. Higher rates than that resulted in the seats stroking, which involves metal rods being pulled through dies, to protect the pilots.

[ShyTorque]

SuperF, yes, I know the rules. My point was that abiding by them isn’t necessarily the safest option.

[MightyGem]

Higher rates than that resulted in the seats stroking, which involves meal rods being pulled through dies, to protect the pilots.
Yes, it all makes for very impressive crashworthiness. I don't know if any other comes near it?

[JohnMcGhie]

SuperF: Thank you, now I understand. (Well I understand the problem, although I fail to understand why we keep it...)

Cheers