Twin-engined departure profile

[India Four Two]

Today, an H-145 Air Ambulance was carrying out exercises with ground personnel at my gliding club’s airfield. The departure consisted of a hover-turn into a very light wind, followed by a vertical climb to about 200’ and then an upwind transition.

Is this a normal procedure for twins?

[Bravo73]

I don’t know the exact profiles for the H145 but, yes, that sounds like a reasonably standard variable TDP vertical profile.

[Flingwing47]

It’s normal for tight areas or oil rigs - accountability in case of engine failure - before reaching that height you to descend back to the ground - at that height you can accelerate one engine inop and fly away.
For runway/cleared areas you can have a CDP - critical decision point on takeoff - (= fixed wing V1) an engine failure below that point means a rejected takeoff. After the CDP safe flight is possible. Manufacturers have a gate criteria such as 45kts/50ft. Operators like Ansett with the S61 had gates of 65kts/200ft.
the same for landing - an LDP. Ops over water was gear up before rotation for takeoff, gear down after reaching the hover.

[meleagertoo]

However it's a strange technique to use in an open area, particularly an airfield.

[rudestuff]

Unnecessary in the open, but could be practicing or it might be SOP?

[Bravo73]

However it's a strange technique to use in an open area, particularly an airfield.

Not really if they are there for training and/or testing.

[meleagertoo]

Yeah, right. I missed that!

[[email protected]]

Yes, showing the ground personnel the type of operational profiles they are most likely to see.:ok:

[JimEli]

Common sense really. Vertical climb until clearing obstacles followed by an altitude-over-airspeed acceleration. Statistics will show, HAA operators hit far more items in an LZ than suffer engine failures.

[FloaterNorthWest]

It’s the short field Cat A profile for the H145 and as it is flown using the automatics a good demonstration of capability.

[gipsymagpie]

Only recently validated for UK aircraft by the CAA (with Brexit you cannot just use any FLM update from the manufacturer- you have to go through an extremely painful game of email tennis to work out if any of the associated mods are significant - the new Cat A profiles were significant so needed separate validation by UK CAA).

If you have the correct tail mounted camera you can do an approach which goes to a point vertically above the landing pad then vertically down. Again great exploitation of the AFCS and reduces collateral downwash risk.

[India Four Two]

Thanks for all the feedback. Pretty much what I expected, but I wanted to check since all my experience with one exception* has been as a SLF in single-engine helicopters.

I've finally figured out how to get the URL of the video I wanted to attach to my original post:

https://www.facebook.com/100000619740296/videos/672782517058917/


Ah well, the FB URL doesn't work. Here are some screen shots instead:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1366/612da488_6390_4732_9801_58ddbf920b1b_75c86a5378dc54041062705 1f44f24308eba2d18.jpeg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1369/2cc84cfe_fa2f_4008_93f8_e253061b746a_1e2b6c19d9330f2122da037 baf22af3230ce7cf4.jpeg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1364/a2f00cfa_cfcd_443a_811c_3300fbf9a38e_620e2852918205a06662262 012a7e21e1e0ffd4d.jpeg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1362/8b4b2b40_13bf_48d7_b704_654f3352b198_f271fea4f240dcff7e9da03 91a03143216b02490.jpeg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1170x1317/82c1a235_63b6_4ef8_9e80_8003572ffd20_ad201788f9ce186b507f357 9954bf046194f5723.jpeg


The photographer is initially facing downwind. The shadow is from a 20' high, 70' wide hangar.

* Aeroflot Mi-18