Missile Thrown At Helicopter [Archive]

ShyTorque

29th Apr 2003, 03:54

PF#1,

Such self righteous aggression and venom, quite possibly without justification.

Firstly, The rotorheads pages are described by Danny as "A haven for professional helicopter pilots to discuss things that affect them". The Oxford English Dictionary describes a haven as "A shelter from pursuit, danger, or trouble". So, as a person such as yourself, self confessed as unqualified to fly helicopters, you breach that on at least two counts. So don't expect people to take such inflammatory remarks without some comeback.

Secondly, get your facts right. If you had done a simple calculation you would realised that the aircraft was on approximately an 11 degree approach, actually steeper than the 8 to 10 degrees that you yourself recommend. Get a grown up to give you a sheet of graph paper and draw it and measure it with a protractor. It appears he was making an approach to the runway threshold in compliance with an ATC instruction and he deliberately made it steep. In many helicopters such a steep angle is difficult to fly because the pilot cannot see the approach point because the instrument panel gets in the way and potentially quite dangerous because of the parameters where vortex ring may occur. So I think he was probably doing his best to keep the plates all spinning.

By the same standards that you wish to apply to others, do you always make your fixed wing approaches glides with full flap ? (You SHOULD because you CAN, as you put it). That would help cut down on the noise a bit...and you too could then aim one third of the way up the runway.

Have a nice day, if you posted deliberately posing as a complete dork for a wind up, well done, it worked. :suspect:

MaxNg

29th Apr 2003, 04:39

[email protected]

You said

"That is why helicopter pilots don't like steep approaches"

Speak for yourself, I've seen far to many shallow approaches, and I would advocate steeper and slower than shallow and brisk.

BTW the avoid curve is based on straight and level flight and asumes a reaction time of 1-2 secs for remedial intervention, and therfore has little bearing on a normal approach ( lower pitch setting, Hands on collective etc)

I think that operating a helicopter to and from protected enviroments (airfields) has a created tendancy for shallow (ie 3 deg) fixed wing approach, this also manifest itself in the pilots aiming point on the threshold rather than 1/3 rd of the way down the runway (not withstanding any ATC reqiurement to prohibit this) the danger of this mentality becomes evident when operating from unknown sites

If TOT had maid a steeper approach to a point 1/3 rd in from the threshold then the farmer in question would have not felt the need to vent his displeasure,

Any-how any one can make a shallow approach, thats why plank drivers do it, to make a steeper approach demands skill and flair and to my knowledge only helo pilots have that

:=

BlenderPilot

29th Apr 2003, 04:44

PF#1

I agree completely with your first post (your second post was a little aggresive for my taste)

I don't see how two "experienced" pilots could fly so low over property as to disturb people or chickens or whatever, especially when landing in such a large area as an airport which gives many opportunities to avoid hurting anyones feelings and comply with ATC at the same time. I just don't see how this could happen with two "5000" hour pilots on board.

Over here if you scare people needlessly they will shoot at you, no questions asked, I just had a friend who got his 212 decorated by .22 shots from the caretaker of an ostrich ranch, same situation, the ranch was close to the runway and he scared the birds all the time, being an airport he could have probably done 1000 different approaches with disturbing anyone, but he had to do it over the animals, stupid.

True profesional/experienced pilots ALWAYS take into account their noise footprint and downwash when flying near the ground so as not to distrurb needlessly.

There's enough people out there who hate helicopters, and we pilots should not give them more ammo to use against us, especially when it wasn't necessary.

In my opinion, there's a lot of crazy people out there with ready to use projectiles and we as pilots should anticipate that for our own safety.

whatsarunway

29th Apr 2003, 05:15

PPFan ,
mabye he should have pulled the mixture and the rotorbrake on finals too?;)

Thomas coupling

29th Apr 2003, 05:46

Pprune fan No31..

Mmmm, interesting bite to say the least. Looking back over your previous contributions, I reserve judgement regarding your qualifications.[Jury still out]

I think I'll see you and raise you a hundred that you are in fact a moderator trying to stimulate the thread.

Regarding the topic: 2 x veterans hanging out their dirty washing in public? I think not. They're too old and too bold to get this (particular) one wrong.

100 yds to run, 75' up, line good, speed good, on centre line.

My answer to that would be:

"Clear to land Romeo 22" :p

PPRUNE FAN#1

29th Apr 2003, 07:44

TOT ranted: Prune Fan, you have already decided we were to too low, to slow.
Well let me TELL YOU. between us both we have a total of 55 YEARS flying experience!!Heh- and you still screwed up! Maybe you should stop thinking that you've learned all there is to learn, you pompous twit. Sounds to me like you made an approach to an airport that wasn't very well thought-out. 55 years of flying experience evidently doesn't mean much in your case.

TOT gave us his little dilemma, without a whole lot of information, and asked us what we would do in his situation? Then he gets angry when a response isn't to his liking.

TOT will now go to great lengths to justity why he and his oh-so-experienced stick-buddy did not notice what was on the ground they were flying over until they were down to a mere 75 feet above it. Whatever. I guess nothing matters until you see angry people emerge from buildings and start throwing things at you?

TOT says:As we were approaching from the south east, we were instructed to approach the 31 threshold and cross after the landing fixed wing.

Cross after landing traffic? Wouldn't you be hovering by then? Or were you planning on transitioning ("air taxiing") across the active at some altitude above a hover? What was the wind?

In any event, being told by the tower to "approach the threshold" does not necessarily mean that you have to put your skids on the nearest-most edge of the where the pavement begins, especially if that runway is not the one in general use. Furthermore, as I have already stated, even if you were approaching the very beginning of the runway surface, you still could have used a steeper approach and avoided the farm buildings adjacent to the airport. Heck, you say that you were at 50 knots...you could've come down at 45 or 60 degrees at that speed!

And let's be honest - if the airport was big enough to have intersecting runways and a control tower, then there was some "extra" land around the runways. That farmer's land did not go right up to the threshold of the runway. And since you were approaching a runway it is probably a fact that airplanes have flown over his chicken coops in the past. What was it about your approach that incensed him so? Something doesn't add up.

300 metres...the length of a U.S. football field. Seventy-five feet...2.5 rotor diameters. Pretty darn low for a helo, I'd say.

Then Shy Torque asked:By the same standards that you wish to apply to others, do you always make your fixed wing approaches glides with full flap ? (You SHOULD because you CAN, as you put it). That would help cut down on the noise a bit...and you too could then aim one third of the way up the runway. Well sweetheart, as a matter of fact I *do* make all of my f/w approaches with full flaps (as long as the crosswind component is not too strong). But power-off glides? Some airplanes I've flown had too high a rate of descent with idle power and full flaps, so that technique, while valid, is not safe. Therefore *some* power is usually required. But let us all realize that an airplane on finals isn't generating all that much noise - compared to its take-off for instance...and compared to a helicopter on approach, which makes just as much noise as a helicopter on departure. In light of that, we helicopter pilots have a duty to fly in a way that minimizes our impact on people/animals below (no pun intended).

But yes, in airplanes I do aim for the first third of the runway, as is good accepted practice. And if there are noise-sensitive areas surrounding the airport at which I'm landing, then I will use a steeper approach if conditions permit and I can do it safely, simply to give the people on the ground a break. You see, I am a professional pilot. I not only think about what's going on with my aircraft, but its relationship to the outside world as well.

To make plank approaches at airports simply because airplanes do is just not thinking intelligently and professionally enough.

I welcome comments.

Thomas coupling

29th Apr 2003, 09:39

Cracking response Mr mod man, lets watch this thread fly:ok:

Were you a catalyst in a previous life? He, he, he

B Sousa

29th Apr 2003, 12:52

Lets see here..........2, 5000+ Hour Pilots in a small thing in the UK.
1, set of rules for flying that would choke a normal horse. 1, Pilots license that weighs no less than five pounds from endorsements and results of tests that are not even necessary.
AND they are worried about some farmers hat.........
Lets look at this a minute.......First "The Chicken or the Egg" Did they just build this Runway or has it been there for some years. If it has been there a while, then the farmer must have seen at least a few "flying machines" overhead. SPECIALLY on final approach.
Next is the title of this subject. "Missle thrown at Helicopter" A bit of exageration?? A missle is a Hellfire, Stinger or an old SS-11, not a dam hat that may only scare a Robbie driver. Geeeeesh.
Hell, they dont even have an instrument in the cockpit that shows Missle Lock......AND believe me that sound when it goes from beep to solid will make your ass tighten.
I think these folks were down there Stealing Eggs. You can do that in a helicopter. I have taken bags of Onions also Watermelons and once I stopped to Pee in an Oilfield......

[email protected]

29th Apr 2003, 13:57

MaxNg, I am well aware that the avoid curve is based on S & L flight parameters but that does not mean you can ignore it on approach especially if you are steep and by implication have low speed and high power settings (to contain the RoD).
I was trying to highlight to the wind-up merchant some aspects of helicopter flying that his I-spy colouring book guide to helicopters might not have included because the print was large and the words kept simple.
PS PPrune fan - there are as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon Basin who know that air taxiing is not the same as transitioning!

ShyTorque

29th Apr 2003, 16:23

PF#1

You illustrated my point very nicely by jumping straight down the hole I left for you.

You say you can't make full flap glide approaches in your fixed wing because it might not be safe.

Yet you think a helicopter can make a safe approach at an approach angle of 50 or 60 degrees, or even 90 degrees as you stated earlier?

You have made contradictory statements regarding whether you fly rotary or not, but no matter. You imply that the correct place to look out on finals to an airfield is at the ground. Who the hell taught you to fly? Are you one of those many GA pilots that I am often obliged to take avoiding action from because they either haven't seen my aircraft or don't know or disregard the rules of the air?

You call others "self proclaimed experts"? Your ignorance seems to know no bounds, my friend.

Hingeless Rotor

29th Apr 2003, 16:47

After doing the airfield boundary inspection I found a peak cap lying in the grass. Thinking I may be able to return it to the owner, I searched for a name printed on the inside. Unfortunately I could only make out the words “PPRUNE FAN#1”. This didn’t sound like a typical name so I placed the cap in lost and found.

If your out there PPRUNE FAN#1, you can come and claim your hat. :E

vorticey

29th Apr 2003, 17:30

HAAAAHH!, HAHHH!, HAAAAH!, HAAH, this is the best thread for ages, keep up the good work!

Dantruck

29th Apr 2003, 18:27

Well, I take my hat off to the lot of you. Never read so much egging-on in my life. Given the right approach this thread could run and run. Well done!:p

MightyGem

29th Apr 2003, 20:59

TOT, getting to the nitty gritty, if you consider he was endangering your aircraft, it's an offense so report him. If you don't think he was, report him for it anyway. He might get lucky next time.

PPRUNE FAN#1

29th Apr 2003, 22:34

Shy Torque:
You say you can't make full flap glide approaches in your fixed wing because it might not be safe.

Yet you think a helicopter can make a safe approach at an approach angle of 50 or 60 degrees, or even 90 degrees as you stated earlier?

Shy, you must not know much about helicopters. At least, that's the assumption I'll proceed from.

Listen up now: A helicopter can make a very steep approach perfectly safely. As long as you keep some airspeed up you will be able to keep the power lever down. I'm not talking about an autorotative approach, just a very steep one flown above ETL. You might even be in the shaded area (the knee) of the H-V chart slightly. No big deal. You have your hand on the collective (which is at a reduced power setting), you're already coming down, and we'll assume that you're into the wind. If the engine were to quit you'd be in a very nice position to land. I have made thousands and thousands of such approaches in my career and never did I think that I was doing something horribly unsafe.

Would I make a 90-degree (straight down) approach? Perhaps. If the wind was strong and/or I was very light and the site was very, very small...sure! EMS pilots do it all the time - or a variation of it.

And Shy, as for my traffic-scanning skills, you need not worry. I do watch for nitwits like you. But I also am very aware of the ground I'm flying over. That's part of my "job." And I do not fly low unless absolutely necessary.

I was checking a pilot out in a new ship recently (he was flying). We went to a nearby airport for pattern work. Five miles out he had descended to 300 feet AGL! We were flying over all sorts of houses, businesses...whatnot. I pointed down below and told him this: "Most of those buildings down there have people in them. I always assume that those people hate helicopters. YOU might assume that those people love helicopters. In any event, I'd rather be wrong about my assumption. Would you?"

Unfortunately, he'd never really thought about it, and it didn't sink in. This pilot continued to fly very low - not just around airports, but as a habit. He and I got into some major...let's say "disagreements" about the philosophy of flying neighborly - not to mention safely.

Where I live there are helicopters flying over my house constantly. And you know what? They're bl**dy annoying! Sure, it might be music to you, mate, but not everyone hears it that way. I certainly don't. If one flew over my cuckoo's nest at 75 feet, I might be tempted to throw my cap at him too. And I'm probably not alone.

Personally, when I'm approaching an airport in a helicopter, unless there is a compelling reason not to, I try to maintain at least 500 feet until I could crash on the airport if the rotor fell off. Sometimes that means that I have to do a steep approach. Oh gee-whiz, poor me.

As I've stated, there is NO reason on the planet for a helicopter to fly a 3-degree glidepath unless that helicopter is in IMC. Pilots who do so in VFR conditions are showing how truly inexperienced, unknowlegeable, inconsiderate and unprofessional they are. Some of us have a lot to learn about noise and the non-aviator's reaction to it.

Thomas coupling

29th Apr 2003, 23:06

pee prude: would you admonish any of your employees if they flew any of your a/c on an approach like that?

Crashondeck

29th Apr 2003, 23:31

Here comes my 4 pennies worth.

Agree with keeping noise pollution down.

Object to people who complain about noise who choose to live close to an airport. (Assuming the airport was there 1st)

The original post seems to indicate the pilot was doing as requested by ATC/ normal practice at the airfield. I reckon 12 degrees (75', 100m) is plenty steep enough. Following HAPIs at 7 degrees is steep enough! Good job it wasnt a plank - 17 ft at 100m on a 3 degree glide slope - the hat would have hit! Never could understand the fascination plank drivers have with deliberatly hitting the ground at 60 odd kts!

We aim to teach about 6 degree approach in light two seaters because it is safe for all. Recommending a steeper approach might cause the farmer to get really mad. His chicken coups might end up in a smoldering heap with a tail boom sticking out.

BlenderPilot

30th Apr 2003, 04:04

This is a universally accepted fact,

If during an approach to a runway, in most airports in the world, you are within reach of some hat being thrown by a farmer, YOU ARE TOO LOW.

P E R I O D.

But then lets look at the other side of the coin . . . .

http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PPRuNe/320low.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PPRuNe/Toncontin727.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PPRuNe/uyuyuy.jpg

EnnArr

30th Apr 2003, 04:23

What you really want to do is come snotting in at 50 feet agl and 140 KIAS and quick stop to the threshold. That way the farmer wont see you until you've passed and certainly wont be able to hit you with his hat, which by the way, he would be hard pressed to throw 75 feet into the air!!!

Oh and make sure your helo weighs around 20 tons to get a bit of downwash blowing over his 'coups'. Thoughts anyone? :ok:

Ps Blenderpilot, is that pic of the Air France jumbo real or fake? Great beach spot.........

topcat450

30th Apr 2003, 04:29

or do it at dusk with a night-sun attached....and dazzle the swine...:=

and I the air france pic is real...St Martin or something like that. I've got a load of pics from that beach on my pc at work...will email them if anyones interested...pm me

[email protected]

30th Apr 2003, 16:16

PPF1 have you ever tried doing an engine off landing from 100' and 15-20 kts (ie just above ETL on a steep approach) no I thought not - it is not a safe approach and despite the comments about the HV curve being for straight and level flight you are very unlikely to establish autorotation at min RoD speed ( the best configuration for surviving an EOL.

PPRUNE FAN#1

30th Apr 2003, 23:55

crab:PPF1 have you ever tried doing an engine off landing from 100' and 15-20 kts (ie just above ETL on a steep approach) no I thought not - it is not a safe approach and despite the comments about the HV curve being for straight and level flight you are very unlikely to establish autorotation at min RoD speed ( the best configuration for surviving an EOL.
::::Sigh:::: Oh crab, why do you make such assumptions? Do you enjoy making an ass out of yourself? For the record, no crab, I have not done an auto from the parameters you describe. However, I have done plenty of them from a 100' hover and they work out fine as long as you're ready for them and don't sleep for one second before reacting. I would have no objection to cutting the engine in a descent on approach at 100'/20 knots.

To claim that something is definitively "safe" or "unsafe" is unwise. I think you know that (at least I hope you do) and are just reacting in anger and not thinking rationally. Something that might not be advisable in a Robbo might be perfectly okay in an Enstrom or 206. You have to set your terms.

Helicopter pilots need to think "outside the box." They need to realize that there are an infinite number of ways of making an approach. The speed, angle, and azimuth are all variables that can and should be managed. There is no "cookie-cutter" approach that works for every landing. An approach that avoids any infringement of the shaded area in the H-V chart is simply not always possible. Okay, get over it. Accept it and fly the aircraft.

Now I'm not suggesting that an approach to a wide open area like an airport should be made deep inside the shaded area. All I am saying is that helicopter pilots *should* fly steeper approaches than they do, and not come dragging in on a long, low final merely because they're approaching a runway and that's what airplanes do.

TOT's original post left a lot to be desired. Was TOT's estimate of being "100 metres" from the threshold really accurate? (This would mean that the farmer's land actually extended to within 100 metres of the runway pavement, which I find doubtful.) Or was he really further out than that as I suspect?

What was it about the approach that made the farmer so mad at TOT? Did the farmer throw his hat at every aircraft that landed on that runway? Was there a VASI or other approach-slope indicator installed? Was there an instrument approach to that runway? If so, what was the HAT? Was there a displaced threshold?

I've made hundreds of helo approaches to airports (maybe thousands, actually). Of course I wasn't in the ship with TOT that day. And I'm glad I wasn't, because we probably would have had words. I think he and his stick-buddy made a judgement error. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The time to notice that there are people/things on the ground that might object to a the presence of a helicopter is *not* when they come out throwing stuff at you.

BlenderPilot

1st May 2003, 02:19

@[email protected]

An autorotation from the conditions you describe is not by any means an easy manuver, but you talk about it as if it were hardly survivable or extremely difficult, have you ever practiced this?

I learned to auto from conditions you describe at PHI(or even from a hover) and me the instructor and the heli are still here, intact. I know the difference between an actual EOL and Auto's is considerable, but I still think of it as something survivable, although the helicopter will for sure be damaged.

Autorotations all the way down from 100FTAGL/Hover are part of everyday training at PHI, this is just in case the engine quits coming out of a rig, Autos from all parts of the shaded area of the HV diagram are required training at PHI for all 206 pilots, (haven't worked there just went for training).

Important note:
These autorotations from the "shaded area" are taught as a survival manuver, and only practiced in helicopters with fixed floats in order to cushion the touchdown with the water, the splash is always a good one, (crawfish on the windshield everytime!), collective movement down and up has to incredible rapid and you usually end up with the collective in your armpit in about 3 seconds.

PF#1

You had the right idea at first, but now you are overdoing it and making it an aggresive personal battle, referring to others disrespectfully creates an upleasant atmosphere.

Thomas coupling

1st May 2003, 02:59

Pprunejuice: would you object to any of your employees doing this sort of approach in any of your helo's?

C'mon answer the question.....sulky knickers

ShyTorque

1st May 2003, 03:07

PF#1,

I certainly seem to know more about helicopters than you do about basic maths and you had no reason to call me a "nitwit" other than my disagreeing with your view. BTW, I'm not your sweetheart or your mate either.

You said that an approach at 50 kts can be flown at a 45 or 60 degree approach angle. This equates to approximately 3600 and 4500 ft /min ROD. I don't know what type of helicopters you fly but they must have very unusual flight characteristics to achieve those figures.

You imply TOT is a liar and you seem unable to post anything without name calling which IMHO does nothing at all to further your argument. You must be a delight to fly with. :yuk:

The pilot you "checked out" (checked out for chicken coop spotting?) would be liable to prosecution in UK for illegal low flying, and you too would be implicated if you are a professional pilot, you allowed it to continue for some time by your own admission and presumably you were captain as "check pilot".

To put TOT in the same category is ridiculous. He was making a steep approach in accordance with an ATC instruction, as you would have realised had you thought a little before posting your first rant.

BTW If you made one of your "recommended" 50 /60 /90 degree approaches carrying passengers with my company you would be looking for a new job shortly after lunch (and possibly a nose job too if some of our typical passengers were on board... :ouch: )

[email protected]

1st May 2003, 03:23

BlenderPilot - no I haven't chopped the throttle and completed an EOL from this condition because, as you correctly state, the likelyhood is that the helo will end up badly bent but it would be a survivable crash because helos are stressed for vertical impacts. You would be far better placed for any engine off in a 206 rather than an R22 but TOT was talking about an R22 ( if I can remember all the way back to the beginning of the thread correctly).

PPF1
The whole point of the HV (avoid) curve is that in the shaded regions you are unlikely to achieve autorotation at min RoD speed following an engine failure (after the obligatory one second delay for recognition). You will almost always be able to get the lever fully down regardless of where you are in terms of height and speed but the deeper into the shaded region you are the more it is going to hurt when you reach the air/ground interface.
If you are outside the shaded area, providing you are not a complete F***wit you should achieve auto at min RoD speed and have the MAXIMUM chance of a perfect EOL where the aircraft does not get bent.

So here we have the question - do you:

a). always fly steep slow approaches knowing that if the donkey stops you might walk away from it but you will trash the aircraft

or b). try whenever possible to keep outside the shaded area (yes even on the approach) safe in the knowledge that the potential for a safe and controlled arrival at the bottom is always an option if it goes wrong?

My answer would be b but I bet PPF1 picks a!!!

I think it is TOT who is lucky he was not flying with you rather than the other way round, he might have had to point out that your risk assessment skills are rather poor!
I spend a great deal of my working life in the avoid curve (fortunately in a twin but still with insufficient OEI performance to go anywhere other than the crash site if a donk stops.

PPRUNE FAN#1

1st May 2003, 05:22

Oh dear, it gets this way every time I have a discussion with a group of helicopter pilots - I come away with such a splitting headache! Some of you are truly dense...or maybe daft. Or maybe narrow-minded. Limited? Yeah, that's it. Crab? Step up to the podium, please and get your award. Stop making such inane, blanket statements. It really makes you out to be quite the fool. By the way, TOT only mentioned that he was in a two-seater and gave three possibilities. He did NOT state that it was an R-22. Crab, please try to pay attention.

Let's clean up some loose ends and revue: I recommend steep approaches. There, is that so hard? If you can keep it out of the shaded area, great. (It *is* possible to fly a steep approach in such a manner.) If not, then don't have a heart attack. Saying things like, "A real auto from such-and-such parameters *WILL* result in a bent bird" is just plain silly. There are too many factors/variables involved. And we all know guys who've had the donk quit in rather precarious positions yet...somehow...unbelieveably...they got the ship down with no damage. How could it be??? Crab says it's quite impossible!

There are those who maintain that the H-V chart only applies to takeoffs. Others say it was derived from straight-and-level flight. I say it doesn't matter. But let's be realistic. Suppose we're at 45 knots and 200 feet, outside the shaded area for this particular aircraft, but only just. Which is worse: full power and a rate of climb, or reduced power and a rate of descent? Of course, WE all know the answer to that, but crab seems to want to debate the issue ad nauseum.

My advice to my pilots is that they fly steep rather than shallow approaches. It lessens the pitch-attitude change at the bottom, and gives better control of the aircraft as you near your "aim point" (you did pick a specific one, DIDN'T YOU?). But more than that, I try to get my pilots to THINK.

Two quick stories.

1) The aforementioned pilot I was checking out and I were on a ferry flight in his new ship. As we approached a refuel stop (an airport unfamiliar to him but not me), this dimbulb again descended to about 200' AGL. Lo and behold, he couldn't find the airport even though it showed quite clearly at 12 o'clock and one mile on the moving map GPS. Frantic, he started to turn away from it in an effort to...well, I'm not sure what he intended to do. (And this was a commercial pilot and flight instructor!) Finally, I could take it no more. "If you'll just climb up a bit, I'm sure you'll find the airport," I said as calmly as I could with every ounce of self-control I could muster. The place was hidden by a treeline. Sure enough, from 500 feet, the whole airport was visible from miles and miles away.

2) With yet another pilot, on yet another new-owner ferry flight. Landing for fuel. FBO is way at the other end of the runway at an uncontrolled field. This genius descends to about half a rotor disk and flies down the runway, decellerating. Gets to more or less where he wants to come to a hover and, and guess what...it's too hot/high to hover! Oops! What to do! He pulled max power as the ship settled ungraciously onto the heels. Of course it rocks forward but I was ready for it and by this time was pushing on the cyclic and we slid even more ungraciously.

Now mind you, these were not freshly-rated PPL's, they were (supposedly) experienced pilots with advanced ratings. Did I let them both go too far? Yes. Hey, it wasn't *my* aircraft and I wasn't giving them any "official" instruction as neither needed nor had asked for any. I had told them what I wanted to see, but they both just had to do it "their way." Fine. Go kill yourself if you like! (Actually, one of them eventually did, doing something he'd been repeatedly warned against.) Just don't do it with me in the aircraft.

In his original post, TOT made some claims that I found "suspicious." It's not that I was calling him a liar - I just think his distance judgement might not have been accurate.

Shy Torque posted this bit of lunacy:You said that an approach at 50 kts can be flown at a 45 or 60 degree approach angle. This equates to approximately 3600 and 4500 ft /min ROD. Okay, I was being flippant, so sue me. If there is some wind, a 50 knot approach could very well be vertical. Shy, do you always fly in a windless world?

Thomas coupling asks:Pprunejuice: would you object to any of your employees doing this sort of approach in any of your helo's?

C'mon answer the question.....sulky knickers What type of approach is that, Thom? Steep? I certainly would not object. But where is the line drawn between "steep" and "unsafe"? Like most things in aviation, it's a judgement call. And of course it depends on the landing site, doesn't it? But I'll tell you what - if I saw one of my pilots flying so low on an approach to a runway that a farmer on property adjacent to the airport threw his cap at the ship, then I definitely would counsel my pilot! (By the way, I prefer "Ppruneface" as it more accurately describes my appearance.)

Here's another thing that helo pilots sometimes forget: We are allowed to maneuver. I've seen helo pilots fly low right over hangars and other airplanes to get to an on-airport LZ when they could have chosen a different and more clear path. This is part of our "job." Just the same when approaching a runway. You don't *have* to line-up on the extended centerline. In fact, if there are chicken coops out there, you *might* want to pick a different path! Oh but see, that takes staying ahead of the aircraft, something that so many of you seem to have problems doing.

This all gets slightly off-topic with respect to TOT's original post. But again, it gets to the philosophy of flying. Do you do stuff "just because?" Or do you actually think about your helicopter's position in space and time?

Crab, if you ever graduate from flying that little Robbo and get into a real job, you just might find yourself in a single-engine helicopter with a half-dozen other paying passengers on board, having to come to a 200-300 foot OGE hover as you approach to land on an oil platform. What will you do? ...Or you might find yourself in an EMS 206L circling above a scene at night where the LZ is a dark, clear spot surrounded by 100' trees. What WILL you do?? ...Or maybe, just maybe you will be on approach to an airport runway and the tower wants you to come straight-in to land at some spot near the field boundary, but there are buildings and cars and people and wires all along the street that borders the airport. WHAT WILL YOU DO?????

If I were as presumptuous as some of you lot, I'd suggest that crab's response would be "Uhh, Tower, unable. I'll have to circle around so that I can find a way of making a normal approach to that pad or I'll have to choose another airport."

TOT

1st May 2003, 05:24

Ok , thanks everybody for the various points of view, good, BAD and the ugly. I STILL maintain it was a normal approach. The one part of my original question hasn't been commented on, what if this had upset a fairly new student ?? Let me tell you a bit more about us two guys on board. I fly 20 different types of helis, from the smallest right through to heavy twins, my mate on board flies a HUGE of range of fixed wing , from J3 cubs right through to 747 400'S. Just one thing, I am still NOT convinced Prune Fan I is a chopper pilot., come on PF1, I was NOT flying a R22, what WAS I flying that day?? I have told you the VNE (75 Kts). IF you are an EXPERT then I challenge you to tell me!!! :ok:

Ascend Charlie

1st May 2003, 05:37

Methinks Pee Prunefanny is sounding more like the old Flare Dammit with every post. My, what a disagreable pr1ck.

nulian

1st May 2003, 06:21

While I don't really agree with PPRuNeFan's attitude, I do agree with his overall message.

I'll preface this by saying that I'm currently a student, flying robbies. I also hold a private fixed-wing certificate.

As such, I find myself again and again thinking like an airplane pilot in my helicopter flying. I catch myself doing something because it's how I'd do it in an airplane, when there's a much simpler, more direct way to do what I wanted - as a helicopter pilot.

It seems to me that there is a lot of this attitude around. I try my best to think outside the box a bit, and hope I'll have greater success as I build experience.

Certainly it's not a bad thing to dig up and kick around the forum for a while - I'm sure everyone - no matter how experienced - find s themselves doing something the way they are 'just because'.

Anyway, there you go.

ShyTorque

1st May 2003, 07:23

PF#1,

Please take your credit where it's due. The "piece of lunacy" I just posted was yours entirely. I merely calculated the required rates of descent for the approach angles and speed you quoted in your earlier post, out of professional interest. What you were saying just didn't ring true so I did the maths, which you perhaps could have done yourself, seeing as you were posting such aggressive criticisms of professionals.

You really should have done the same with TOT's original quoted figures before you tore him off a strip with your allegation of a shallow approach. As I said before, his approach angle was actually steeper than you initially advocated. You really ought to get your facts correct, if your view of yourself as an expert is to be shared by others. Or can't you do basic vector diagrams or trigonometry?

However, it could just be that you are so busy jumping to conclusions and making blind criticisms of others that you fail to see your own errors and later try to pass them off as your flippancy (as you just did), or a fault in another. You are criticising professional people so be professional yourself, or what do you expect?

And no, I do sometimes fly in very windy conditions, thank you. Not too long ago I was required to fly both offshore and overland in severe typhoon conditions, on more than one occasion for the purpose of saving life. Thankfully it is seldom as bad as that in UK. Perhaps the wind in your part of the world does reach 50 kts or so more often, but perhaps some of it is self generated in your case?

Neither myself or any of my colleagues make unduly shallow approaches to an airfield or anywhere else so kindly refrain from your completely unfounded and slanderous remarks in that respect, I strongly object to unjustly being tarred with that brush.
Some of your responses have gone completly OTT, including your first.

PF#1, like Ascend Charlie, I too recall you being banned from this forum once before under a different username, later reappearing cap in hand wearing your new one. A phrase involving the words "leopard" and "spots" comes to mind.... :suspect:

I was rather hoping someone was about to come clean and admit this is all a setup, but I'm not sure it is. :uhoh:

[email protected]

1st May 2003, 15:33

PPF1 come and spend a couple of SAR shifts with me on dark and stormy nights and you can show me how your many hours of flying in a 'real job' can improve on my obviously pathetic skills!

Sarik

1st May 2003, 19:26

as an observer to this forum (and someone that does not post much, as you can see), I'd like to give PPF1 his due, he is, if nothing else highly entertaining....And I'm loving this thread...

I'm a PPL studying for a CPL with not many hours and a SHED load to learn, but one thing I hope I can do is fly safe, and if I can change one thing about a flight that makes it .01% safer, then I'd do it....

but safety includes safety for the pilot, passangers, aircraft, people on the ground and the horses shagging in the field over there... And it's down to the pilot to weigh all options up and decide how to fly this particular 'flight'.

finish your approach (shallow or steep), land, shut the machine down and decide if you flew as safe as you could. If yes then great, if no, apply what you have learned and do it safer next time...Isn't that what it's all about??

s.

Old Man Rotor

1st May 2003, 19:40

PPRUNE FAN#1 and Coning Angel are husband and wife..............which is which??

Who cares, their both taking up valuable space....

Sorry this is not my normal attitude......but some folk just deserve it....!!!

Steve76

1st May 2003, 20:41

Hey Crab! I didn't know that you boets did SAR in R22's...... now thats impressive :) Please post a piccie of that for PPF1 ;)

Nulian:
Be careful in the R22. As your instructor has no doubt made you aware the 22 has pickled a lot of ex-FW pilots due to them instictively reacting in a FW manner to an emergency. Have fun thou.

PPrunefan#1:
I think you need to do some high altitude work around BC or Alberta or even in some really hot environs at 40 deg C. Throw in a bit of longline as well and you might be change your opinion on steep approaches. True, they have their place at times but a loaded disc is a great advantage.

nulian

1st May 2003, 21:19

Steve76 -
Rest assured, emergency procedures are something I drill myself on.

Old Man Rotor

1st May 2003, 21:40

A loaded disc...mmmmmm...now you have them in the books...

Thomas coupling

2nd May 2003, 00:47

Pprude: Perhaps you are another 'handle' reincarnated. What worries me is that some poor bas**rds out there have to work for you and reading your past threads leads me to think either you aren't who you say you are,
or,

you are for real and a complete di*k for a boss

But you do make this forum colourful at times....

Keep the crap coming sweetheart.

PPRUNE FAN#1

2nd May 2003, 01:43

My ONLY contention all along has been that if TOT been steeper that day (or chosen a slightly different approach path), perhaps he would not have had a p*ssed-off farmer try to shoot him down with a "missile"...er, cap. That's it, pretty simple. Over and out. QSY. 10-40, good buddy.

But dear Lord, some of you are so insufferable. So many assumptions on such scant information! I have very little respect for any of you lads. As for my "mysterious" identity, 007 has nothing on you lot!

Shy Torque:PF#1, like Ascend Charlie, I too recall you being banned from this forum once before under a different username, later reappearing cap in hand wearing your new one. A phrase involving the words "leopard" and "spots" comes to mind.... Cap in hand? Not bl**dy likely! You all (including the mods) can kiss my a**. Cap in hand, oh please. You must be mistaking me for someone who cares about being banned from this board (don't any of you have anything serious to do with your lives?).

Sarik:as an observer to this forum (and someone that does not post much, as you can see), I'd like to give PPF1 his due, he is, if nothing else highly entertaining....And I'm loving this thread... See? Even a mere PPL "gets it."

Finally, let's go right back to the horse's...er, mouth. I'm speaking of course of TOT, who started this melee.Ok , thanks everybody for the various points of view, good, BAD and the ugly. Well I guess the only BAD points of view are the ones that differ with yours, eh? That adult of you. TOT goes on: I STILL maintain it was a normal approach. Yes. Normal approach. And that's your trouble, mate. You should've made it a steep approach, then maybe you wouldn't have had an angry farmer try to throw his cap at you. Do you see that now? (Self-congratulatory wanking snipped) Just one thing, I am still NOT convinced Prune Fan I is a chopper pilot., come on PF1, I was NOT flying a R22, what WAS I flying that day?? I have told you the VNE (75 Kts). IF you are an EXPERT then I challenge you to tell me!!! Well I never said you were in a Robbo...I think it was Shy of Torque or Thomas decoupling who leapt to that assumption. I assumed you were in a B47 or a B2B, but did not speculate because it did not matter and I do not care.

Oh, and real helicopter pilots do NOT refer to them as "choppers," which tells us all we need to know about TOT.

**** on, lads! (WINK! That word is "wink" I tell you! We just pronounce it differentlly here in SoCal. Why did you edit it??)

[email protected]

2nd May 2003, 02:37

Yes PPF#1 and you are the biggest winker on this forum!

Steve76 don't let the MOD even hear a suggestion about using R22 for SAR - some bean counter will work out how cheap a yellow robbo would be even if we couldn't winch anyone with it (be a bit like a Whirlwind I suppose). I suppose with the R44 we could fly 2 pilots, 1 winchop and a winchman.....hmmmmmm still no room for the casualties though.

ShyTorque

2nd May 2003, 03:26

PF#1 has now given us all the benefit of his wisdom. Regrettably, all that a number of us have learned is that we have a very angry man here.

Firstly, any approach shallower than 11 degrees is too shallow for his liking. 45, 50, 60 or even 90 degrees is far more normal for him.

What happens if the engine stops when you are making a 90 degree / vertical descent into an LS? A pilot less skilled than PF#1 doesn't have eyes in his arse, so most people prefer to fly an approach where they can actually can see obstructions ahead of them. A double angle approach is a far safer option, whatever the wind strength, so I will stick with that. Also, we haven't touched on Performance A / Class 1 approaches yet. By flying outside the required parameters you may be deemed negligent after an incident or accident. No aircraft I have flown includes such steep approaches in the certificated flight profiles.

He told us he eventually advised another pilot who is being given the benefit of his presence to climb a bit to help see an airfield but he says this requires him to "summon every ounce of self control" to do so. No good CRM or nav assistance coming from his side of the cockpit until then, by the sound of it, even though he was familiar with the airport and could have offered just a snippet of help earlier on.

On another flight he allows himself to be flown, by another pilot, too low over congested areas, for some time. Illegally flown, from what he says, at least by UK regs. Personally, I would have felt obliged to ask the pilot to climb or go around the congested bits, for the sake of my licence.

And he offers no early advice to the other pilot who finds himself short of ergs in a hot & high situation. Again, PF#1 sems to have been ahead of the game and was expecting it to happen, but he left it so late that he was obliged to over-ride the guy on the controls.

What happened to the multi-crew concept, good airmanship and CRM? What sort of professional pilot sees something that he is very unhappy with to the point of anger, lets the guy go further into the mire but says nothing, leaving the poor bloke (who is quite possibly finding it quite hard going with such an overbearing presence alongside him) to screw up, then berates him afterwards?

I just hope I never have to go anywhere near an aircraft containing Mr PF#1, previously known as Flare Dammit, until he has at least done a CRM course.

PF#1 said he doesn't care at all about this forum. But enough to find himself another username so he can continue here.

"Cap-in-hand" I said. Sorry the irony went over your head, Flare Dammit, bearing in mind the original post on this thread (not just the farmer's cap). I won't be taking up the kind offer of your ass, thanks. ;)

[email protected]

2nd May 2003, 16:27

Nice one Shytorque

PPRUNE FAN#1

2nd May 2003, 23:00

My daily internet time is limited, so I can't spend too much time debating point for point. But Shy of Torque makes some assumptions that are not correct. For instance, I'm not an angry man. But I get that way when I see pilots do stupid things without thinking.

When I fly with rated, supposedly experienced pilots in their own aircraft, "CRM" does not apply. Eventually, these chaps are going to be flying by themselves or with non-pilot family members onboard. You cannot spoon-feed them. They've been through the best flight schools (and in some cases factory schools) and they swear that they know what they're doing. In pre- and post-flight talks, I do give them the benefit of my years of experience but they continue to do it their way. For the most part, I let them - just as my mentors let me do some incredibly dumb things on the way to experience and seasoning. (I could tell you stories about some of my own early cock-ups, but Danny tells me that I'm limited to 2,000 words per post now.)

Sometimes the best way to learn something is to make the mistake yourself. Pilots are incredibly reluctant to learn from the mistakes of others. They say they do but they don't. If I'm flying with such a pilot and he does something dumb, as long as it does not jeopardize my personal safety or violate any rules then I let him run with it to see how he'll handle it. Will he recognize the situation, and how soon? How will he resolve it?

In the case of the pilot who liked flying low and descended so low that he could not see the airport, it took all of my self control to not react angrily, since I had repeatedly admonished this pilot against descending prematurely in the past. But he flew by rote. At this distance from the airport he needed to be this high. It was a formula he applied EVERY time, reguardless of conditions. I think the point finally got driven home...but I'm not sure. And no, we were not flying over "congested areas" by anyone's definition. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not stupid.

As for the pilot caught in the hot/high situation who almost pranged his ship, again, he'd been warned. We had talked about it repeatedly. So how far do you go? I knew that very shortly I would be leaving this chap to his own devices, operating from an airport based in the mountains, and summer was coming. Had he learned nothing up to that point? Evidently. I wanted him to see the folly of his shallow, airplane-like approaches. And it worked. I did over-ride him on the controls at the very bottom, but I would have been just as happy to leave the damaged aircraft and it's red-faced owner there and catch an airline flight home.

In these cases, I was not acting as CFI. There was no "crew concept" in place; these guys were essentially flying their own machines home SOLO, as they were legally and insurance-wise able to do. I went along on the ferry flights as uncompensated personal favors, to help with the nav and offer the occasional advice. In retrospect, I wish that I'd yielded the seats to these Robbo pilots who are always clamoring for stick time.

For the record, I do avoid approaches shallower than 10 degrees. I think they're unnecessary. Helicopters do very nice, very safe 10-12 degree approaches. Steeper than that? Sure, if the conditions warrant.

But I never advocated that pilots routinely or casually make 45-60 or 90 degree approaches. Anybody who read that into my posts is loony. Unfortunately, that particular brogan fits a number of you lot.

Let's keep in mind that in single-engine helis, with very few exceptions (AS-350 comes to mind), the H-V chart is located in the Performance section of the AFM...*not* the Limitations section. As such the chart guarantees nothing. It does not guarantee a safe autorotation if you stay outside of the shaded area, nor does it guarantee a crash if you fly inside the shaded area.

Further, the chart is derived from throttle chops performed in cruise flight at MGW over flat, smooth areas with a one-second delay in pilot response. Reduce or improve any of those things (or add some wind) and the shaded area shrinks. It can even disappear under the right conditions.

In an earlier post, a South African R-22 pilot known as "crab" went positively apoplectic at the mere thought of infringing on the shaded area. Many inexperienced pilots do. Shy of Torque thinks that you can be held negligent in a court of law after an incident or accident. So I posed three scenarios to this "crab" fellow - three common situations that pilots sometimes find themselves in:
1) Approach to an oil platform that is 100' feet above the water;
2) A landing to an off-airport site 100' in diameter surrounded by tall trees;
3) An approach to an airport where the designated landing spot is near the field boundary, where there are obstructions in the approach path.

I asked "crab" for his suggestions of possible technique. As I expected, no response. All he did was give a verbal hand-job to Shy of Torque for lambasting me. You guys can be very juvenile.

Each of the above scenarios requires a steep approach. Also, very likely each of those approaches will require that the pilot transgress upon the dreaded "shaded area" at some point and for some time. Perhaps "crab" has the luxury of always operating from airport runways where he can make those less-than-11-degree approaches that Shy of Brains feels so adamant about. But the rest of us fly in the real world.

On yet another flight with another very experienced pilot at the controls (who happened to be my boss), the tower directed us to do Scenario #3 - land right on the ramp of the gen-av FBO. As we neared the field boundary the approach we would have to make looked awful (to me). My boss however kept on going, intending to do as instructed. Yes, it would've worked out but it would not have been pretty. This time, because we *were* flying as a two-pilot crew, I intervened. I suggested an alternative: a shallower-but-lengthier approach to a taxiway that was parallel to the active runway with a hover transition to the ramp. My boss said, "They'll let you do that?" Only one way to find out, right? It was a military field and they did not get a lot of transient helicopters. The controller hesitated for a moment (conferring with his supervisor/trainer?) but ultimately cleared us as requested.

The point is that you cannot always follow orders blindly. You have to think about what's going on and be flexible.

Nevertheless, I would still be interested in hearing how "crab" would handle an approach to an oil rig in a 206L that was at or near MGW - in which he finds himself at 200' and back below ETL with a handful of power pulled. Or how he would handle picking up some executive at an off-airport site landing that was not as big as he'd like it to be. These are things I've had to do in my short career. And yes, sometimes I've had to come more or less straight down from 100 feet. That's not so bad. What I worry about is going more or less straight back up to 100' before being able to flying away. But such is the life of a commercial pilot sometimes. I'm just glad I don't do things that are really risky. Like logging...

Thomas coupling

2nd May 2003, 23:23

Pprudee:

you just might find yourself in a single-engine helicopter with a half-dozen other paying passengers on board, having to come to a 200-300 foot OGE hover as you approach to land on an oil platform

What helo is this then?

Your 'steeper than normal' approach philosophy, could now persuade newbies to err on the steep side...no health warning/mention of VRS...surprising coming from you with your pedigree.

Climbing takeoff's to 100'+ not your cup of tea? I occasionally do a standard restricted heliport departure to a TDP of 120'...straight up, as per the FLM...surprising coming from you with your pedigree, prudee..

Chinks appearing in your armour, sweetie. All is not right, methinks...

Keep it coming bumble bee.:uhoh:

topcat450

2nd May 2003, 23:35

PPno.1 Said...
My daily internet time is limited, so I can't spend too much...

Why's that then? Does the nice nurse comes to put the sleevless jacket back on ya'? or perhaps because the medication kicks in and knocks you out cold for the rest of the day?

:}

Chill fella...no point burstin a blood vessel over it...

PPRUNE FAN#1

3rd May 2003, 00:31

What helo is this then?

Bell 206L? 407? Eurcopter EC-120? Squirrel? All helos used widely and routinely in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

TOT

3rd May 2003, 01:32

All right chaps, as PF 1 has not come up with the answer, you deserve to know, it was Hughes 269A.
VNE 75 KNOTS , MTOW 1750 LBS. manufactured 1967 still going strong.!!:cool:

ShyTorque

3rd May 2003, 07:43

PF#1,

Well I'm glad we caught you when you were short of time and went for the "abridged" version. Whew! ;) Here's my equally "short" reply, Whew! :O

I just cannot agree that "CRM does not apply" in ANY circumstances where there is more than one qualified person in the aircraft, if for no other reason than if it's me up there, it's my arse (and my licence) on the line too, whether I'm paid for it or not. Good CRM does NOT mean you are "spoon feeding" people!

You say you aren't angry, but you certainly seem to be very highly frustrated by all these "failed" pilot who will possibly never meet up with your personal standards or match your own skills.

I too have instructed, as it happens. I have been required to teach students of widely varying experience and ability levels. I've taught on single engine (basic training) and multi engined helis (advanced and operational / tactical conversion to type, including ETPS staff pilots for evaluation purposes) also a fair bit of fixed wing stuff. Included in all that was aerobatics, close formation, confined areas, SAR winching, low level navigation, IF, USLs including firefighting, air to ground gunnery and night NVG stuff etc, as appropriate to type).

Some of my less experienced students were better than the supposedly more "experienced" ones. I too was sometimes surprised by mistakes that people made, sometimes there is a good reason for a persistent error if you look deeper.

I always took it as my duty to get the best out of each of them. In my experience, berating students NEVER works.

As far as making assumptions goes, I think that if you read the whole topic again, you might see that you are the undisputed PPRUNE champion, at least on this thread. There are at least 4 of us who quite early on were called names and were strongly criticised by yourself about our flying skills, mental state, ability and judgement - and you haven't even met us, let alone flown with us. If I was actually "loony" as you put it, I might not have got as far as completing even my first logbook and only a very small part of my career so far.

With regard to your questions about approaches to oil rigs and confined areas, of course sometimes it is necessary to make a less than ideal approach and sometimes a very steep or vertical final aproach is needed. A good pilot will make a correct analysis of the situation, weigh up the options and the risks and make the best decision to get the job done. However, to possibly put the aircraft and occupants more at risk at an airfield by making an uncomfortably steep approach because of a perceived concern over possibly angering a farmer (with a chicken coop stupidly placed immediately under very short finals to an established airport runway) is possibly not the most sensible decision to make. A slow, steep helicopter approach isn't necessarily the least obtrusive one in any event.

Would you rather ignore the mandatory requirement for operating a public transport aircraft iaw the RFM approach profile or risk annoying silly old Farmer Giles to the point where he throws his hat in the air? Get real. :ooh:

Old Man Rotor

3rd May 2003, 08:10

Steep Offshore Approaches........now your in quicksand and up to your neck.

People look at these threads with the view of educating themselves, so I have to correct quite "Bluntly" your steep approach suggestions.

Why a steep approach....are you really suggesting its the best way to successfully land on the platform when somethings goes foul with your engine?

Your answer please....

And in helicopters with more than one engine......I guess your suggestion is a steep approach with little or no torque indication, lightly loaded disc is the best and safest way?

Your answer again please.

And please keep it to a paragraph. Knowledgable actions are far safer than words.

[email protected]

4th May 2003, 00:59

Mr Thickie PPrunefan - you clearly do not bother to actually read anyone elses posts - I suppose the fact that anyone has dared to contradict you is such an affront to your extremely inflated opinion of yourself that the red mist descends and you head straight for another ego runaway up on the keyboard.

I had better ring my boss and tell him I have changed nationality and aircraft type - only a retard could deduce that I am a 'south african R22 pilot' from my posts - numpty!

I just don't know how I managed to cope without your assistance the other day when I was winching an injured yachtsman off a 30' yacht in a Force 8 or the day before that pulling 2 cragfast climbers off a 300' cliff.

Guess what? steep approaches don't feature in my day to day flying because they take too long and are cock all use. If you were a real helicopter pilot you would know that a curved and relatively shallow and fast approach will get you almost anywhere safely and allow you to avoid farmers, chicken coops etc without the need for 12 degree (oops I've lost sight of the landing point) approaches.

CRM courses are run to highlight what a nightmare it can be having a knob like you in a cockpit, I just bet your students love flying with you!

Thomas coupling

4th May 2003, 03:43

C'mon lads spot the ringer..he's stitching you all up..

Smoke me a kipper, skipper.

Look at his track record for responses will you?

:D

[email protected]

4th May 2003, 05:21

I see what you mean TC - most of his posts are made shortly after school finishes, so he probably comes home, tells his mum he's going upstairs to research his homework on the internet and instead creates his works of fiction on PPrune. How is he ever going to pass his SATS? let alone his GCSEs.

Hilico

4th May 2003, 05:25

Let's all be fair here. I am an inexperienced heli pilot - 11 hours dual in total over 20 years. So I'm on my first lesson of circuits. Seven times in one hour we go through "the gate", 60kts/mph (can't remember the units, tsk tsk), at 500 ft with the spot in front of us. But every time, we were over a school playground. I kept thinking, "can't we keep the speed up for longer, and lower collective when we know the landing is assured?" And "are the children at all distracted by the noise of the engine/rotor?" I could hear the engine relaxing as it went down to 15" MAP, but the engine isn't the thing that people on the ground hear.

Experienced pilots, I wonder if you forget this. Hopefully I am an above-average student to be pondering such things, but I don't want to crash-land on a school.

PPRuNeFan, do you get the tone? I do not believe I am insulting anyone by this post. Equally, cannot instructors change their approach [literally] to take into account the surroundings of the airfield?

Mod, feel free to erase.

PPRUNE FAN#1

4th May 2003, 06:02

Oh Crab (and what an appropriate moniker)... actually, I *do* read everyone's posts, even yours - as tedious and boring as they are. Dear Lord, you are so full of yourself...well, so full of something. I'll say one thing: You certainly provide a cure for my insomnia!

My dear fellow, it was *YOU* who leapt to the preposterous conclusion that I advocate steep, in-the-shaded-area approaches all the time. I believe that if you read some of *my* posts, you'd realize that is not the case. But you can't be bothered to read all the posts, can you? Or is it that your short-term memory is so bad that you can't remember that TOT was originally non-specific when it came to what type of ship he was in? Wasn't it *YOU* who assumed it was a Robbo because you didn't want to go back to Page One/Post One and look it up?

I call you an R-22 pilot because that is the way you come across in this forum: inexperienced and of limited intelligence. Not everyone flies SAR - some of us have real jobs, doing real things with helis that have to make money. We don't get the chance to stand around, patting ourselves on the back, telling ourselves (and anyone else who will listen) what great pilots we are. So maybe in your world this "curved," shallow, fast approach is what works. But for those of us who don't operate from airports, that won't work.

Speaking of which by the way, I'm still breathlessly waiting for your response to my three scenarios that I've previously posted. I know it's hard to believe, but all across the globe people use single-engine helis for a variety of things, including offshore and off-airport work. So I'm eager to hear your suggestions as to how a super pilot such as yourself would handle certain things. How do you do an approach to an offshore oil rig without being deeply inside the H-V curve? How to you do a site landing to a confined area without doing the same? Please enlighten us.

As for this "Old Man Rotor" piece of work. Well OMR, you certainly must be old, but your "rotor" qualifications are open for question. You say: Steep Offshore Approaches........now your in quicksand and up to your neck.

People look at these threads with the view of educating themselves, so I have to correct quite "Bluntly" your steep approach suggestions.

Why a steep approach....are you really suggesting its the best way to successfully land on the platform when somethings goes foul with your engine?

Your answer please.... Old Man, the fact that you pose this question tells me two things: 1) You have never flown in the offshore environment, and 2) You would not believe me if I told you. So I'll offer this bit of advice. Go find a real heli pilot (e.g. one who is not you) who actually flies offshore, and ask him whether he uses a steep or shallow approach. Then get back to me with your apology, you fatuous cock.

PF#1, be careful. If we have to warn you again, you'll get the form letter we keep handy for Lu Zuckerman. Your mod status will be revoked and you might have to re-register under yet another screen name. -Helliport

To Shy of Torque. About CRM. When two pilots fly together in a "crew" situation, or in an instructor/student situation, then yes, what you say is true and I agree with you. But remember, we're not talking about student pilots here. What about a pilot/owner who is no longer a student and who is acting as PIC of his own aircraft? This was the case in the two examples I cited. I had no authority in those aircraft - was not acting in any official capacity other than map reader/holder. These guys wanted and needed to feel as though they were "pilot in command." They certainly would not feel that way if they had some smart-arse high-timer sharpshooting and second-guessing them all the time from the co-jo's seat. It's a difficult, uncomfortable position to be in.

I like the "kindler, gentler" approach to instructing as much as the next guy. But with rated pilots it's like this:
Please don't do that. Here's why.
Please don't do that.
Please don't do that again.
Don't do that.
Did I mention not to do that?
Look, you bl**dy turd, DON'T DO THAT!

Again, it comes down to a question of how many times do you tell a pilot not to do something until you have to let him go and see why he should not do that particular thing? One guy actually said to me, "Look, I'm not going to be flying this thing commercially. I'm just a private owner." I replied that with me on board, he better fly it like the Churchill himself was along for the ride (I suppose that would be the equivalent of Richard Nixon to you Yanks).

Well, we've certainly beaten this topic to death. Just in case anyone missed it, I avoid shallow approaches in helicopters if I can. I'll say one thing though. I've never had any irate chicken plucker try to take me out with his cap. And I continue to wonder at just which big (i.e. multiple runway) airport in the U.K. there is farmland within 100 metres (300 feet) of the runway pavement. It seems quite odd, but maybe I need to get out more.

Oh yeah...still waiting for your response, Crab!

Hilico asked:Let's all be fair here. I am an inexperienced heli pilot - 11 hours dual in total over 20 years. So I'm on my first lesson of circuits. Seven times in one hour we go through "the gate", 60kts/mph (can't remember the units, tsk tsk), at 500 ft with the spot in front of us. But every time, we were over a school playground. I kept thinking, "can't we keep the speed up for longer, and lower collective when we know the landing is assured?" Quite right, Hilico! Good on ya. And that is the very technique you will probably use if you ever encounter that situation after you get your rating.

The trouble is, you have to learn all types of approaches. And at your level of learning, the "normal" approache is what you need to concentrate on now. Other types will come in time.

It is unfortunate that there is a school playground right under the finals at the airport where you are taking lessons (but it might even be chicken coops!). Rest assured, they do hear the helicopter down there. And they are probably annoyed by it. If there was a way to avoid flying over it, let us hope that your flight school would've explored it by now.

It is smart to keep your eyes on what is underneath you as you fly and modify your profile accordingly. To fail to do so would expose you as an unprofessional, inconsiderate rank amateur.

Old Man Rotor

4th May 2003, 06:24

Please note that the poster "PPRUNE FAN#1" has been posting statements and answers that are contrary to the Helicopter Industry best standards and practices.

Whilst I am sure he / she does / can make some valid points, in general he / she is not presenting the most accepted and safe method of operating helicopters in today's industry.

Some of his / her statements are ficticous, dangerous and technically inept.

There are a significant number of knowledgable people in these threads that can and do make valid and worthwhile contributions to Pprune....."PPRUNEFAN #1" is not one of them.

As a service to the high standard of both Onshore and Offshore pilots around the world and to Pprune itself, I will try and place this warning after each and every statement that Mr / Mrs PPRUNE FAN#1 makes, to ensure that you do not accept his / her statements as representative of our industry.

sarboy w****r

4th May 2003, 07:04

Quality thread chaps! Best value on PPrune for ages.

In my experience (far less than many here I figure), I always try to weigh up the scenario before making the approach. I usually figure that a low (ish) approach with speed, whilst it may sometimes inconvenience or annoy some on the ground, will not generally result in my precious skin (or those of my crew) being bruised in the event something goes wrong. And climbing to the LS can be better still in the mountains!

An unduly steep approach can help keep the neighbours happy, but you can look a right prat when the donk stops.

It's all about captaincy.

Every approach is different.

I agree with PP1 that sometimes a steep approach can be necessary. I've sometimes had to descend maybe 300' vertically (night, IMC and poor weather, back of bowl feature, mountains, very high power, no flyaway). It was what was called for at the time, and if it goes wrong then you just have to take the rough with the smooth. The same goes for confined areas. That's what we get paid for. You just need a few beers at the end of the shift.

I merely suggest that gate approaches, with a ground track chosen appropriate to local obstacles, are generally better than steep, slow approaches. (An appropriate level of) speed can give you more options. Keep your flyaway for as long as possible. It's what I'd commend to other pilots.

And don't be foolish enough to mess about in single engined helicopters!;)

ShyTorque

4th May 2003, 07:18

PF#1,

Now you have at least stopped calling me names, I will say that I do have some understanding of the situation you have been in with pilots who seem to stop learning once they are qualified.

However, with experience, I would play it slightly differently to how I might have done in my own past. I have learned that some people tend to "blank out" memories of unpleasant exchanges and so might not remember a "right rollocking" as readily as one might think they should, strange as it seems.

I would a) probably not voluntarily go flying with qualified pilots who seem to keep making the same silly mistakes and explain why not, or b) if I did, I would give my advice early rather than late "I knew that would happen" type rebuffs.

A timely polite rhetorical question such as "are we OK for performance on this next landing?" or "could we go a little higher, I'm finding difficulty in seeing my way to the airfield" can be used rather than an angry outburst. Next time the other guy might remember to ask himself the same question and then he's learned his lesson.

CRM issues? As I said, if I'm in the aircraft, in any capacity, it's still my arse that's likely to get busted too if the flight goes pear shaped.

These days I fly two pilot aircraft, we don't employ co-pilots but take turns to be commander. We check up on each other, gently take the pi$$ out of each other all day, take the same in return in good spirit and help prevent each other's mistakes before they happen if we possibly can.

It's not a good safe cockpit environment if one guy is thinking he's not in charge but wishes he was and the other is thinking he's in charge but wishes he wasn't.

I need every spare brain cell I can scrape together to be at my best. A bad cockpit environment makes me use some of them up thinking about stuff I could well do without.

Old Man Rotor

4th May 2003, 08:07

Why a steep approach....are you really suggesting its the best way to successfully land on the platform when somethings goes foul with your engine?

Your answer please....

And in helicopters with more than one engine......I guess your suggestion is a steep approach with little or no torque indication, lightly loaded disc is the best and safest way?

Your answer again please.

SASless

4th May 2003, 08:58

Old Man....if you want to have a real deep dish meal....lock a Bristow 212 TRE in a room with an Air Log Check Airman and an ERA-Alaska Cook Inlet Pilot....and throw out the steep vs. shallow approach or anything in between deal and watch the fur fly. When you bore of that bloody (american usage) scene....then bring in the second Bristow 212 TRE and an ARAMCO Safety Pilot and have them challenge each other's concept of takeoff techiques from offshore platforms. The only common fact to any of the arguments will be that all the companies fly the same make and model of aircraft. Each company has the unique way to Salvation and any discussion otherwise is pure folly. Why should this thread be any different.

I have been told at various times....in various standards of firmness....that my approaches were too steep...too shallow...too fast...too slow...had too much pitch attitude change....not enough change....hovered too high...hovered too low...started too far back...too far forward....should have climbed at Vx, accelerated level until reaching Vy.....and so on and so forth....depending upon who was sitting in the other seat in the "training-checking" mode. I remain totally confused.....the one thing that remained constant.....not one of the outfits wanted to hear how "we used to do it at ..........! " In that one area of concern they each were very much in lock step.

One would think the current amalgamation of international airlaws into one Joint volume would be a golden time to try to sort out some of this ?

vorticey

4th May 2003, 15:29

prune 1 says a steeper aproach. most of us are just arguing with him on that one, but a steep aproach is likely in different situations like this one. after all you have to find the balance between safety and environmental impact. just seeing the chicken coops would have altered my aproach path to probably steering around them.
i was aproaching a station the otherday and noticed a couple thousand head of cattle yarded up. as i was closing fairly fast, i initiated a split ass turning decent to tree top hight, to eliminate noise and a bit of fun, to radio in and ask for fuel. he told me the cows were mothering up, and that they would bring the fuel to the front gate.
the chances of me keeping my curent job would have greatly diminished if i had of continued in.:ok:

the wizard of auz

4th May 2003, 18:18

Struth, you blokes are a bit harsh on the old robbo pilots.
I happen to know a few blokes that will fly rings around most of you blokes, in the bigga stuff, in a robbo.
I woulda thought that bursting around in a robbo was a tad harder than than flying the twin turbine jiggers in straight lines.
Aaaah what would I know, I'm only a ringer. ;)

Old Man Rotor

4th May 2003, 18:27

I take your points................

I just want to give this Technically Inept Dork [capital D] the opportunity to explain to the world, in a technical sense, why we are doing it wrong.

He has now been asked twice....to no avail.

Red Wine

4th May 2003, 18:35

No Mate.....don't take it that way.......

You guys in the bush with Roobies certainly can do things.... that I am willing to let you do all alone!!!

Your a valuable part of the industry........But.....enjoy your swag, I'll take the Sheraton thanks.....

:O

the wizard of auz

4th May 2003, 18:58

Red wine, all right then, I wont take it that way. ;) ;) .
I certainly do enjoy me swag..... and the Sheraton, but they won't let me take me swag in there........ and thats probably a good thing coz it wont fit in the ol robbo. :D ;)

[email protected]

4th May 2003, 23:25

Sticks and stones may break my bones etc etc etc

OK PPF#1 my suggestions (which I am sure you will wholeheartedly disagree with) to your jolly demanding scenarios

Scenario 1) Approach to an oil platform that is 100' feet above the water;
Answer - either a normal sight picture approach (3 to 6 degrees) or a level approach to the hover 10-15' above the height of the deck - either could be curved to avoid obstacles/turbulence from the superstructure- most definitely not a 12+ degree approach that by its steepness might take you through the exhaust of the rig.

Scenario 2) A landing to an off-airport site 100' in diameter surrounded by tall trees;
Answer - 100' diameter site is huge but you haven't defined tall trees - if you mean 100'+ then a double angle approach initially aiming at the far side tree tops of the clearing and then once the tail is clear, steepening slightly. Or in a proper confined area an approach to the HOGE (ideally level as it requires less power) then a vertical descent once over the middle of the clearing.

Scenario 3) An approach to an airport where the designated landing spot is near the field boundary, where there are obstructions in the approach path.
Answer - a curved approach so as not to fly over the obstacles if necessary out of wind.

A confined area is the only situation that demands a steeper approach by its very nature and that is only at the end.

I know you will argue that 20 years of military helo flying into all sorts of sites (yes I've even landed on a rig!!!) does not count as the real world in your book but you are trying to advocate a steep approach for all occasions which is downright dangerous. I hope the less experienced pilots here will not listen to a word of your inaccurate, pathetically rude and personal rantings.

Hover Bovver

5th May 2003, 00:56

:D Crab,

Now you know the way you were taught to approach a rig in the military, sea level - until 200 yards from the rig and then haul back on the stick and pop up onto the pad avoiding the aerials . LOL

As someone on here once said," never argue with a fool, he will only bring you down to his level and beat you with experience!"

I am very interested however, in how the single engined helicopters that PF1 has mentioned could go into an OGE hover with 6 PAX into a rig.

BlenderPilot

5th May 2003, 00:57

Here is my opinion, AGAIN.

If during an approach to most any decent airport in the world . . . . . . you fly low enough to be within reach of a hat THROWN BY A FARMER,

YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING VERY WRONG.

P E R I O D

The nice thing about helicopters is that you can manuver a 1,000,000 ways to avoid bothering anyone or getting yourself into trouble.

If any heli pilot can't do this, or has no common sense to do this, then may I suggest flying airplanes in which common sense is not so essential since you have all those nice, checklists, SOP, approach charts, computers, autopilots, and procedures to do or tell how to do things for you.

[email protected]

5th May 2003, 01:56

Hovver Bovver, now you're talking fun - in the dark on goggles, fast roping onto rigs - I'm sure PPF1 would fly a 12 degree approach to that too!

Blenderpilot - you are absolutely correct, there are many different ways of making an approach in a helicopter - that is why so many of us object when we are told by dorks like PPF1 that we should all be flying steep approaches all the time.

Heliport

5th May 2003, 06:09

TOT
Might be useful if you named the airfield (and the volatile farmer if you wish) as a warning to other unsuspecting pilots.
TC
Both PedalStop and I have a second username for joining in discussions, but neither of us is PPF#1. :cool:

PPRUNE FAN#1

5th May 2003, 06:26

Shy Torque: I have flown in two-crew situations (both PIC/SIC and PIC/PIC) and quite enjoy it. Let us realize that only a very few helis require two pilots; most can be adequately (if not legally) flown by one person. And once we're rated and properly checked-out, a mere PPL could fly just about any helicopter ever made. Even an S-76. The co-jo is superfluous. So two pilots in said S-76 is not exactly the same thing as three pilots in a 727, where you really need the two other blokes.

I agree with you that at this stage of the game I probably should not go along on ferry/delivery/personal flights with inexperienced pilots in which I was not PIC or even SIC. If I had my way I wouldn't. But in the two cases I described, I *had* to go. I mentioned that both flights were done as personal favors. Unfortunately, it was not as a favor to the new owners. Long story, and quite irrelevant. But I take your points, and do not fundamentally disagree.

Let me just say that the very few examples that I posted were but a mere snippet of the "complaints" I had about these two chaps' flying. I'm quite dismayed at what the American FAA will accept as "good enough" for a rating these days. Then again, I guess you can't legislate judgement.

To all of you: Let's keep in mind that we are talking about single-engine helis here, not twins, okay? In his original post in this thread, TOT said he was in a two-seater. By that we can assume that his procedures were guided by single-engine considerations.

Crab: What I was getting at was this: Each of the approach scenarios I posted were realistic examples of situations I have found myself in numerous times as a commercial pilot in single-engine helicopters. In each of them, I found myself having to perform steep approaches that caused me to be within the shaded area of the H-V to varying degrees. Given your adamant objection to such operations, I merely wondered what YOU would do faced with similar conditions?

Old Man Rotor: It's not that I *don't* know how to make a single-engine approach to an oil rig. In singles, we come in steeper rather than shallow. This allows us to better judge our rates of closure and descent. It allows us to load-up the rotor early. Finally and probably most important, a steeper approach lessens the chance of having to flare to kill off any excess forward speed, however small. On an oil platform or rig, your visual cues may be extremely limited, especially if the helideck is small (they always are) and is the highest thing on the platform. Even making a "small" nose-up pitch attitude adjustment may cause the tail to strike the helideck or catch-fence.

Additionally, a steeper approach offers you more of a window to turn away from the platform/rig in the event of an engine failure on short-final. A shallow approach is dangerous from that aspect.

OMR, your ignorance of these techniques is probably due merely to your inexperience with such operations. Please do not feel bad. With more flight time and exposure, these weaknesses can be addressed and corrected. (Oh, but feel free to add a "surgeon general's" warning as a postscript to any of my posts. That should make you appear nice and mature.

That BlenderPilot gets it:If during an approach to most any decent airport in the world . . . . . . you fly low enough to be within reach of a hat THROWN BY A FARMER,

YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING VERY WRONG.

P E R I O D Exactly! But TOT seemed worried that if another pilot who perhaps didn't have the benefit of his years and thousands of hours of experience encountered the same situation, the outcome might have been worse. Oh please. I suspect that even the wettest-ink Robbo pilot who was at 75 feet and saw a cap thrown by a farmer to an "altitude" of 5 metres (15 feet - why does TOT keep mixing his units of measure??) would not lose control of his heli and crash. Or perhaps TOT frets that a less-experienced pilot as himself might fly an even shallower approach? Heh. I doubt it. Even student pilots like Hilico seem cognizant of stuff on the ground.

TOT did make one admission in his original post that I found telling. He mentioned that...we were on very short final for the 31 threshold, I estimate 100 metres to run and approx 75 AGL, we were EXACTLY on the white line, I noticed some small "chicken coups" in a paddock immediatley below... "Exactly on the white line." Yes. Just like an aeroplane. As others in this thread have mentioned, the time to notice stuff like that is before you get there. But evidently TOT was too intent on flying his "airplane" approach to an airplane runway to be concerned with whether he should have altered his approach path or angle.

Hover Bovver wondered:I am very interested however, in how the single engined helicopters that PF1 has mentioned could go into an OGE hover with 6 PAX into a rig.Well mate, once you slow back below ETL you are at an OGE hover, and you do that well before getting to the helideck. I guess you've never flown a 206L-3 or 407 in the Gulf of Mexico. Ask any of the pilots who have done it on a calm summer day. They'll tell you. Then you tell Old Man Rotor and Crab. They seem in real need of an education.

Like I've said from the beginning, chaps: We helicopter pilots have to think a lot more than our plankmates. Speaking in extremes, as some of you gleefully do, only makes you out to be a fool. The *only* thing I say is that I prefer a steep approach to a shallow one, especially when there are conditions that favor one (e.g. chicken coops under the approach path) and I have the option to do so.

Some of you guys are just such twits!

SASless

5th May 2003, 06:38

Who is the Fool....the Fool or the man arguing with the Fool ?

39 posts later....uncountable paragraphs, insults, whines, snivels.......can you imagine sharing a cockpit with this guy for more than a few minutes? I would be sticking my head out the window trying to make my lips flap like a hound dogs rather than listen to him prattle on. What a smashing evening he must be in the pub on a layover......crikey....bet a bunch of his colleagues order room service!

PruneFan....you really must be taking the mickey here.....the CAA shrinks would be after you with large butterfly nets otherwise! The dufus probably has trouser clips in his flight bag wears a blue and orange nylon duffle coat on his days off....and drives a three wheeled Cushman kinda car to the market.

Tell all the nice people "Good night !" PF.

imabell

5th May 2003, 14:15

the missile could have been fired at the helicopter!!!
no such luck,

why do the approach to the threshold anyway, fly neighbourly!!

to that crab person, vortex ring state during a normal or steep approach into wind???? get real.

i'm with you ringer.(wiz).

i dropped my mobile from a 47 a few years back, one of those heavy old kind of mobiles. i got a call from a lady later that day, her husband was going to get the eggs when said phone plummeted through coup roof and took out a couple of chooks. she was nice about it. phone was ******ed.
:ok: :ok:

PPRUNE FAN#1

6th May 2003, 01:41

imabell wondered:why do the approach to the threshold anyway, fly neighbourly!!True. But sometimes the tower asks us to make our approach to the threshold. This is what TOT says he was asked to do, as a sort of interim hold point before crossing the active runway to his final destination. And evidently TOT flew that approach so that the heels of his skids would be just at the start of the pavement.

Heliport politely asked TOT to state which airport this was at. But TOT probably won't divulge the location, as people who are familiar with the particular field will note that "...those chicken coops are half a kilometre from the threshold!" or something like that.

Here's another reason I prefer steep approaches. If you use a shallow approach, the entire area underneath you better be suitable for a forced landing, because if the engine quits at any point in the approach, down you go right where you are. While staying higher and utilizing a steep approach will not guarantee that you will always hit your LZ of the donk quits, it gives you a better chance of choosing a good site.

Not only this, but a steeper approach means that there is less of a transition between powered flight and autorotative flight. All you have to do is drop the collective - no cyclic pitch attitude adjustment necessary. This is not true of a shallow approach, where you might have both the nose and the collective up.

Of course, a steep/slow approach is a different kettle of fish. Depending on exactly how slow you are when the engine quits, you might have to lower the nose slightly, and there might not be much flare available. But even at 100 feet, as long as you're above ETL (20-30 kts) things should work out okay in *most* helos.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would advocate making steep approaches below ETL unless it was absolutely necessary due to terrain or obstruction considerations.

It is true that a steeper/faster approach (say, holding 45 kts all the way down) will require some sort of flare at the bottom, which many pilots seem to think is immoral and should be illegal. But airplane pilots seem to acquire the knack of flaring as they land, so I doubt helo pilots should have too much trouble with the procedure, as long as it is understood that you shouldn't flare too low, and the approach may very well terminate to the ground if the power is not there and you plan for that eventuality (as I do with all of my approaches). Hovering is never guaranteed.

The point is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Using the same approach type for every landing is the mark of a real amateur. The guys in here who have been beating me up know this intuitively and do it without thinking. Crab talks about his "curved," shallow, fast approaches, but I'll bet that he doesn't use those all the time.

And that's the trouble with helicopter flying - it's hard to verbalize what we do sometimes. Oh, you can spout procedures till you're blue in the face. But no book can tell you exactly which parameters of approach path, descent angle, airspeed and power you must use at every landing site. That only comes with experience because there are too many variables out there.

Not only that, no two pilots are exactly alike. Blender Pilot humourously related how he was always too fast, too slow, too shallow or too steep...there didn't seem to be any consistency from one instructor to another. And there isn't. Perhaps that's why we like helicopter flying, because it's so "seat of the pants"...your pants.

If you've been following this thread...and many of you must be, judging by the number of views it's received...you'll know that there are a whole bunch of pompous windbags out there - those whose egos far outstrip their ability. They try to pass themselves off as such experts, but in reality they're not. If someone comes into this forum with a dissenting viewpoint, they are labeled a "wind-up merchant" and summarily dismissed. Old Man Rotor? What a piece of work! There are a few others here who seem equally gassy and should take a major chill pill (as my kids say).

Even the true authorities of helicopter flight: Nick Lappos and Shawn Coyle...just how much actual civilian commercial experience in single-engine ships do they have? I mean, let's keep things in perspective. It's all very well and good to be a venerated Test Pilot (and in Nick's case, t.v. star and in Shawn's case, author). Not to take anything away from them. Both Shawn and Nick have extensive military backgrounds which no doubt add tremendous value to their positions and perspectives.

But it's another thing entirely to be one of the guys out "in the trenches," making those night scene landings in their EMS birds...or having to go find some dickweed's house in the country which he swears has enough room to land a helicopter (which he does, just barely...and then he shows up with eleven people when he told you on the phone that only two would be going...or flying repetitive tours in Hawaii or the Grand Canyon in an Astar.

Sure, line pilots don't get much glory (on this board, at least). But they're the ones who end up learning how to fly helicopters in the real world - not the relatively controlled world of Flight Test.

Real helicopter pilots know that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a steep approach - as long as it's done safely. We do them all the time. But there is something wrong with shallow approaches, especially when there are people/chickens/obstructions underneath you. I still believe that old TOT was much shallower than he tried to make us all believe when that farmer tried to take him out with that "missile." Hey, maybe I'm wrong.

Alright, that'll be enough for today, PF#1. Time to take your meds and let someone else have a crack. You can post again tomorrow - IF we let you. - The Mods

sarboy w****r

6th May 2003, 05:19

Anyway, we're all arguing about a situation in which a farmer's hat was thrown in greeting to a passing helicopter.

PPF1 - I'll see your pussy hat and raise you ten tons of downwash (and maybe some bladeslap if you're lucky)!:p

Barannfin

6th May 2003, 07:54

Im so very confused, in my country people throw their hats up when they are excited, usually at graduations or similar events. I get the impression this farmer was just so happy to finally see a helicopter flying over his coops instead of the usual commercial jet.:}

[email protected]

6th May 2003, 14:35

Strange....I've shut down the engine but I can still hear a loud whining.................Ah - must have PPF#1 on intercom.

GLSNightPilot

6th May 2003, 16:18

PF1, you still didn't answer Hover Bovver. I've been flying in the Gulf of Mexico for more than 20 years, most of that single-engine, & I can't recall ever flying one that could take off with 6 offshore hands, much less hover OGE. Going out any distance, 4 is the norm, 5 maybe, but it has to be very, very close. A 206B normally will carry no more than 2, if that. And you said 7, as in "with half a dozen other fare-paying passengers". There aren't that many seats, much less the available payload & baggage capacity. If the pax are service hands, I used to fill at least 2 seats with baggage in a 206L3. I don't think you've been doing all that much offshore flying.

I do make my approaches on the steep side, and rather slow, since at night with light loads in an S76A++ there are lots of things that are more likely to bite me than an engine failure. But you're obviously just trolling, and I don't know why I even rose to the bait, except that maybe I'm a little cranky at 3AM after a long night.

Old Man Rotor

6th May 2003, 20:10

I said it in private.....no answer?

Now I will say it in public........this dork is a stirrer....a non professional unemployed stirrer.

Don't let the baby go down with the bath water............

This idiot has insulted, wasted time and space, swore, and generally been everything we wish our industry not to be.

Not to mention, liar, inaccurate, manipulatively provocative and generally a whinging POM.

His/her use by date was yesterday.

Fix it please.

:p Well half a POM.....:D

Lu Zuckerman

6th May 2003, 22:06

In some cases there is no choice in the angle of approach. Many moons ago I was crewing an HTL-1 (early B-47) and we were returning to base from an icebreaker in Lake Superior. Our tail rotor gearbox was leaking so we landed every fifty to sixty miles to replenish the oil. I had the can of oil between my knees and I was reading the sector map. The pilot spotted a bear and told me to take a look. In moving to look I lost my grip on the can of oil and it hit the deck with a bang. The pilot thought the gearbox had let go and he started to look for a place to land. In maneuvering the rotor shaft flexed and caused the gears to growl in the transmission (this was normal). This new noise exacerbated the situation and the pilot now wanted to get on the ground as fast as possible and in doing so flew directly over a turkey farm at about 200 feet.

Turkeys being very dumb animals stampeded to the far end of their pen and many lost their lives in the crush. The pilot turned to the wind and in landing in front of a house he took out the telephone line. The owner of the turkeys and the telephone line was a veterinarian and he didn’t throw anything at us. In fact he invited us in for coffee.

:cool:

Flying Lawyer

6th May 2003, 22:17

Lu

Is this the one?

http://www.aerofiles.com/bell-47a.jpg

Thomas coupling

7th May 2003, 01:11

Old Man: he's succeeded in winching you in, hasn't he. For goodness sake can't you see it coming. Lie down, on a deserted beach and let the water gently wash over you.

Relax and watch for the next salvo..................... :cool:

Lu Zuckerman

7th May 2003, 03:23

To: Flying Lawyer

Yes but ours was on floats.

:cool:

PPRUNE FAN#1

7th May 2003, 06:04

GLSNightPilot whined:PF1, you still didn't answer Hover Bovver. I've been flying in the Gulf of Mexico for more than 20 years, most of that single-engine, & I can't recall ever flying one that could take off with 6 offshore hands, much less hover OGE.Well aren't you just the last word in Gulf Of Mexico flying! I prostrate myself at your infinite and definitive knowledge. Oh wait...oops! I guess you and Hover Bovver (Hover Bovver...what the hell???) never flew or heard of the 206L-4 then. Mine weighed 2770 and had an AUW of 4450.Going out any distance, 4 is the norm, 5 maybe, but it has to be very, very close.My platform was 16 minutes from the beach, was big enough that the blades did not overhang (50' X 70'), and had fuel on it. Going out, I could leave Sabine Pass on crew-change day with 250 pounds of fuel. You do the math, if you're not too cranky or tired.A 206B normally will carry no more than 2, if that. And you said 7, as in "with half a dozen other fare-paying passengers". There aren't that many seats, much less the available payload & baggage capacity.Well of course not! A 206B only has five seats, silly. With your extensive single-engine experience, I thought you'd know that... If the pax are service hands, I used to fill at least 2 seats with baggage in a 206L3. I don't think you've been doing all that much offshore flying.Probably not, compared to your extensive single-engine experience. I'm a skinny runt (170#). My guys were platform hands who didn't take much (if anything) back and forth each week. There was usually our welder's helper (a young, light kid), a skinny galleyhand, and one of the hitches had two women working on it. The rest of the guys were big but not apes. They knew we had to make three trips and knew how to split the loads so I never had to take more than about 1150 either way. Maybe we couldn't take six on every trip, but we could on some. But yeah, you're right, I don't know what I'm talking about. I might not have done it for very long, so I guess I don't have any offshore experience. Nope!

What a putz. You were saying? Oh yeah.I do make my approaches on the steep side, and rather slow, since at night with light loads in an S76A++ there are lots of things that are more likely to bite me than an engine failure.Would you make shallow approaches in an old A-model? What sort of approach does your company recommend for singles? Mine recommended steep, slow, stabilized approaches where just about all the power was pulled in by 200' and you just sort of crept down the rest of the way. But you're obviously just trolling, and I don't know why I even rose to the bait, except that maybe I'm a little cranky at 3AM after a long night.Well go back to sleep then. With posts like that one, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it if you stayed in your usual unconscious state.

Oh, but just a couple of other questions before you get back to nappies: You say that you've been flying in the Gulf Of Mexico for over twenty years, and most of that time has been in singles. That's very impressive! How is it then that you did not know about the L-4? Does your company not operate any? And what year did you get checked out in multis? Have you flown any other twin-engine aircraft than the S-76?

See folks, this is the reason I have so little patience with the so-called "experts" on this forum. They're so quick to jump to conclusions about which they know (evidently, in the case of GLSNightPilot) nothing or very little. They make definitive and authoritative statements like "You cannot fly offshore with seven people in a helicopter" or "helicopter pilots don't like steep approaches." And it just makes them sound so...so...I don't know...immature? Inexperienced? Stupid?

It's a big industry out there, with all sorts of people doing all sorts of things with helicopters. And with very few exception, every helicopter pilot I've ever met thought he was God's gift to aviation...the absolute authority on How To Fly...pompous twits, every one. Those who post regularly on this board are the obvious examples of a circle-jerk gone horribly wrong.

Careful, PF#1, the ice underneath you is razor thin...

I'm not a youngster anymore. With a wallet full of ratings, a logbook full of zeros and more years in this business than I care to count, I sometimes wonder how I ever made it this far without killing myself? Must be doing something right, eh what? But today I can actually see the time when I'll stop flying commercially. Meanwhile, I just do the best I can. And that includes flying in such a way that I don't have to worry about any farmers taking me out with their ballistic caps.

Kids, take whatever you read on this forum with a HUGE grain of salt. With the exception of Shawn and Nick, most of these guys don't have a clue as to what they're talking about (e.g. that sleepy, cranky night pilot from GLS).

Including me.

Except when you're in *my* aircraft. Then you better do it *MY* way.

Until I'm in *your* aircraft. Then we do it *YOUR* way.

Horses for courses...

Old Man Rotor

7th May 2003, 06:11

Yes, I think we all know the type....

My real concern is that inaccurate, uncorrected information can and does turn into "fact"....and could be taken up by people looking for answers.
I would not like to see that happening here. Normally here on Prune, when someone asks a question or makes a statement they are normally made aware of the answer, or their statement is corrected by folk with an educational bend or technical knowledge.

But we all understand that Wrinkly Prune, just wishes to challenge all, and in doing so someone may just listen to one of his/her ramblings and confuse that with fact.

He / she does open up some interesting aspects that does deserve better dialogue......

But its just not worth it.....I would rather lay in the sun.
:\

PPRUNE FAN#1

7th May 2003, 13:12

Oops! Almost missed this...

Old Man Rotor:Heliport.....
I said it in private.....no answer?

Now I will say it in public........this dork is a stirrer....a non professional unemployed stirrer.

Don't let the baby go down with the bath water............

This idiot has insulted, wasted time and space, swore, and generally been everything we wish our industry not to be.

Not to mention, liar, inaccurate, manipulatively provocative and generally a whinging POM.

His/her use by date was yesterday.

Fix it please.Hmm........private message to Heliport? Which you then decided to post publicly? And I take it that the "fix it" remark really meant "ban him"?

Old Man Rotor: "WAAAAH, WAAAAAAH! Mister Moderator, that mean old PPRUNEFAN is saying things I don't like. Censor him!! Censure him!! Ban him!!! Make him stop!!!

Have you tried threatening to hold your breath until you turned blue? What a childish little snot. God, you are such a baby. Did anybody ever tell you that? YOU, Old Man Rotor, are the "dork." I am not unemployed, nor am I a liar. However, I may be all of the other things you accused me of. Oh well.

In any event, sorry to say, the moderators will probably not ban me. Just look at the popularity of this thread. Webmasters like traffic. This board was pretty dead up until now. But this thread has people "talking" and, hopefully, thinking. It addresses relevant techniques applicable to all helicopter pilots.

Not only that, the moderators know that I'm right. I've never advocated doing anything dangerous. Quite the opposite, in fact. I always preach conservatism and safe flying. Heliport asked TOT to divulge the airport he wrote about, and guess what...no response! Just how far were those chicken coops from the end of the runway? Kind of makes you wonder, hmm?

Finally, even if I did get banned, the moderators know that people subscribing to certain ISP's get new IP addresses every time they log-on. All one need do is come up with a new screenname and voila!...back on PPRuNe. Easy as pie. Good-bye FlareDammit, hello PPRUNEFAN#1.

So I'd like to echo Thomas coupling's suggestion that you do go out and lie in the sun, OMR. In fact, take as long as you want.

Okay, PF#1 you are really trying our patience. We've taken a vote and YOU'RE BANNED! Take a hike. Hit the road. We don't need the likes of you around here. You need to be out of town by sundown, pard. Or else.

Thomas coupling

7th May 2003, 22:31

I think it's Danny himself?

Or someone in his office!!!

Old Man Rotor

7th May 2003, 22:55

ssssshhhh.......

You will be shot at dawn with such revelations.....

However one can't forget how silent and slow it was until Wrinkly Prawn came along................

Is Danny into cross dressing?

arm the floats

7th May 2003, 23:26

I'm surprised and disappointed.PPrune fan should'nt have been kicked out.

PPRUNE FAN#1

8th May 2003, 00:54

arm the floats:I'm surprised and disappointed.PPrune fan should'nt have been kicked out;)

Heliport

8th May 2003, 07:42

arm the floats

Do try to keep up. :rolleyes:

Heliport

BlenderPilot

8th May 2003, 12:21

One thing remains a fact . . . .

Among PF1's angry words there was a lot of truth to some of the things he said, his words can't be completly discarded as nonsense.

He had some good points and info, too bad he didn't know how to make his point without insulting anyone, and losing control.

Heliport

8th May 2003, 13:47

http://www.ogmoreriver.com/images/spo01.gif

Thomas coupling

8th May 2003, 16:50

Heliport:

Am I right, or am I right on.........................................:ok:

Heliport

9th May 2003, 14:36

Right that PF#1 was fishing. Wrong that he's one of the Mods.

Old Man Rotor

9th May 2003, 15:36

Thats because he's both Mods.

PF#1 said (on another thread) that he used to be "Flare Dammit!" but changed his username.
I can't vouch for that, but have no reason to doubt it.
He is not a Mod.

Heliport

OK Dad..........we believe you....:O

[email protected]

10th May 2003, 03:37

Pprunefan#1 – since you seem to love quoting others so much I thought we’d have a recap of some of your comments:

In the category ‘It’s not what you say it’s the way that you say it’ ;

Quote

Some pilot comes on here admitting that he and another 5000+ hour goofball were so low so far out on finals to a runway that a farmer thought he could hit him with his cap, and we're all supposed to go, "Oh yeah, terrible farmer"?!

Heh- and you still screwed up! Maybe you should stop thinking that you've learned all there is to learn, you pompous twit.

Oh dear, it gets this way every time I have a discussion with a group of helicopter pilots - I come away with such a splitting headache! Some of you are truly dense...or maybe daft. Or maybe narrow-minded

But dear Lord, some of you are so insufferable. So many assumptions on such scant information! I have very little respect for any of you lads. As for my "mysterious" identity, 007 has nothing on you lot!

Cap in hand? Not bl**dy likely! You all (including the mods) can kiss my a**. Cap in hand, oh please. You must be mistaking me for someone who cares about being banned from this board (don't any of you have anything serious to do with your lives?).

Oh shut up. Just shut the hell up. I notice that *you* Thomas did not add anything constructive to the conversation. So shut up, mm'k?

Finally, let's go right back to the horse's...er, mouth. I'm speaking of course of TOT, who started this melee

Oh, and real helicopter pilots do NOT refer to them as "choppers," which tells us all we need to know about TOT.

I call you an R-22 pilot because that is the way you come across in this forum: inexperienced and of limited intelligence. Not everyone flies SAR - some of us have real jobs, doing real things with helis that have to make money

Old Man, the fact that you pose this question tells me two things: 1) You have never flown in the offshore environment, and 2) You would not believe me if I told you. So I'll offer this bit of advice. Go find a real heli pilot (e.g. one who is not you) who actually flies offshore, and ask him whether he uses a steep or shallow approach. Then get back to me with your apology, you fatuous cock.

OMR, your ignorance of these techniques is probably due merely to your inexperience with such operations. Please do not feel bad. With more flight time and exposure, these weaknesses can be addressed and corrected.

If you've been following this thread...and many of you must be, judging by the number of views it's received...you'll know that there are a whole bunch of pompous windbags out there - those whose egos far outstrip their ability. They try to pass themselves off as such experts, but in reality they're not

It's a big industry out there, with all sorts of people doing all sorts of things with helicopters. And with very few exception, every helicopter pilot I've ever met thought he was God's gift to aviation...the absolute authority on How To Fly...pompous twits, every one. Those who post regularly on this board are the obvious examples of a circle-jerk gone horribly wrong

Kids, take whatever you read on this forum with a HUGE grain of salt. With the exception of Shawn and Nick, most of these guys don't have a clue as to what they're talking about (e.g. that sleepy, cranky night pilot from GLS).

Unquote.

On the subject of approach angles:

Quote

I don't think anybody in their right mind would advocate making steep approaches below ETL unless it was absolutely necessary due to terrain or obstruction considerations.

Well mate, once you slow back below ETL you are at an OGE hover, and you do that well before getting to the helideck. I guess you've never flown a 206L-3 or 407 in the Gulf of Mexico. Ask any of the pilots who have done it on a calm summer day. They'll tell you.

It is true that a steeper/faster approach (say, holding 45 kts all the way down) will require some sort of flare at the bottom, which many pilots seem to think is immoral and should be illegal. But airplane pilots seem to acquire the knack of flaring as they land, so I doubt helo pilots should have too much trouble with the procedure, as long as it is understood that you shouldn't flare too low, and the approach may very well terminate to the ground if the power is not there and you plan for that eventuality (as I do with all of my approaches). Hovering is never guaranteed.

It allows us to load-up the rotor early. Finally and probably most important, a steeper approach lessens the chance of having to flare to kill off any excess forward speed, however small. On an oil platform or rig, your visual cues may be extremely limited, especially if the helideck is small (they always are) and is the highest thing on the platform. Even making a "small" nose-up pitch attitude adjustment may cause the tail to strike the helideck or catch-fence.

It's not that I *don't* know how to make a single-engine approach to an oil rig. In singles, we come in steeper rather than shallow. This allows us to better judge our rates of closure and descent.

My advice to my pilots is that they fly steep rather than shallow approaches. It lessens the pitch-attitude change at the bottom, and gives better control of the aircraft as you near your "aim point"

Now before all of you self-proclaimed "experts" jump on me, let me say this. A steep approach (say 8 to 10 degrees) allows you to dissipate your forward speed without any appreciable flare. Just squeak in a little collective and the ship should settle nicely into a hover (if you've done the rest right).

Helicopters should make steeper approaches than airplanes. Why? Because we can.

Well, we've certainly beaten this topic to death. Just in case anyone missed it, I avoid shallow approaches in helicopters if I can.

Mine recommended steep, slow, stabilized approaches where just about all the power was pulled in by 200' and you just sort of crept down the rest of the way.

The point is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Using the same approach type for every landing is the mark of a real amateur.

For the record, I do avoid approaches shallower than 10 degrees. I think they're unnecessary. Helicopters do very nice, very safe 10-12 degree approaches. Steeper than that? Sure, if the conditions warrant.

Let's clean up some loose ends and revue: I recommend steep approaches. There, is that so hard

My dear fellow, it was *YOU* who leapt to the preposterous conclusion that I advocate steep approaches all the time. I believe that if you read some of *my* posts, you'd realize that is not the case.

Unquote

So to summarise – You like - a. insulting people and b. steep approaches only
You dislike – a. helicopter pilots and b. moderators

Your experience with oil rigs ( and btw does 16 minutes flight time from the coast really qualify as offshore?) seems to be based on once carrying 6 skinny people with little fuel to a helideck that you flew a steep approach to an OGE hover when you knew that hovering is never guaranteed. Your paranoia with striking the tail due to flaring at the end of the approach is endearing as anyone who claims to be as great as you would just come to a slightly higher hover. Oh yes I forgot since hovering is never guaranteed it is much better to pull to max power at 200’ and let it waffle in hoping that ground effect will save you. Does your helo not have performance graphs or do you disregard them as they are not in the limitations section?

Old Man Rotor

10th May 2003, 16:02

A good post Crabby.......he is seen to be a larger dill than expected when his/her efforts are laid out for all to see.

From a few years of flying, training, checking and being checked.......one thing I have learnt...

A big mouth is always associated with a small brain.

PPRUNE FAN#1

10th May 2003, 20:27

Old Man Rotor:From a few years of flying, training, checking and being checked.......one thing I have learnt...

A big mouth is always associated with a small brain.And in your case, OMR, that is so clearly true. SOOOOOO clearly true. (Aren't you supposed to be out somewhere working on your skin cancer?)

Too bad Crabby's reading comprehension skills aren't as "good" as his cut-and-paste skills. (Crab, really, get some 12 year-old to demonstrate how to put quotations in html.) And Crab? If there's anything more boring on the planet than reading *your* drivel, it's being forced to re-read my own. So to summarise – You like - a. insulting people and b. steep approaches only
You dislike – a. helicopter pilots and b. moderatorsYes, no, yes and yes. I never said that I like steep approaches "only." I said I prefer steep approaches to shallow in general, but that there are too many variables in flying to make any hard-and-fast rules. How did you miss that?
Your experience with oil rigs ( and btw does 16 minutes flight time from the coast really qualify as offshore?) seems to be based on once carrying 6 skinny people with little fuel to a helideck that you flew a steep approach to an OGE hover when you knew that hovering is never guaranteed. Your paranoia with striking the tail due to flaring at the end of the approach is endearing as anyone who claims to be as great as you would just come to a slightly higher hover. Oh yes I forgot since hovering is never guaranteed it is much better to pull to max power at 200’ and let it waffle in hoping that ground effect will save you. Ahh yes old bean, absolutely right! I only ever went to ONE platform offshore once, never to any others. And I only ever went to that ONE platform once in perfect weather. Crab, your post shows how little you really know about offshore flying. So just stick to what you *do* know, okay....umm, what was that again?

As for approach angles offshore- it wasn't just me. The outfit I was flying for did not like shallow approaches. They had enough tail strikes and hard landings to know that steeper is better. On a checkride, they'd get their knickers in a twist if you came in shallow. No instructor that I ever flew with *ever* said that I was coming in too steeply. A whole book could be written on single-engine offshore flying. Shawn and Nick couldn't write it- they don't have experience in that arena. Perhaps that cranky night pilot from Galveston will stay awake long enough to write it?

Out in the Gulf Of Mexico, you might find yourself landing on a helideck that is only 24 feet square. Your rotor however, is 37 feet and round. This means that your blades will extend out over the edges of the deck by a bit. This also means that you may not have much ground-effect if the wind is calm. The company I flew for only had a vague reference to this in our Operations Manual. It said that operations to and from such helidecks may require reduced gross weights. By how much? It didn't say. Too many variables.

Hoverman:Think you'll find PF1is a 206 pilot. I proudly state that most of my flight time is indeed in single-engine helos. However, I would wager that my total flight time well exceeds that of most of the people who routinely post here (unless you all have 10,000+ hours, I guess). And if being *just* a 206 pilot is something bad...well, so be it.

SASless

11th May 2003, 00:31

Yes PF....reading your drivel is boring...re-reading it is really boring...and re-re-reading it is dreadfully boring. Will someone lend me a pistol.....I need to put myself out of my misery. Somehow the empty drum theory applies here me thinks!

Thomas coupling

11th May 2003, 04:02

Pprune N0#1 fan:

Sarcasm aside:

Calm down, for just a little while in your very experienced life...

It's not what you are saying, it's the condescending way you say it. You make out that you are above everyone. You don't know anything about the people behind these 'handles'.
I would hazard a guess that several are better people than you. They have seen more done more experienced more, but you have chosen to ignore this and have deliberated over this thread [and unfortunately most other threads where Pprune/Flare dammit, is involved], as if you were God's gift to helicopter flying.

You might be a very solid, professional pilot when it comes to 'hands on', but your "bedside manner" leaves us no choice but to ostracise you....now and forever, I'm afraid.

It must be very cold out there for you...

I hope you'll look to yourself while you still can, in retirement, and try to understand where this bitter twisted outlook first took hold. It is the first step to addressing your shortcomings and repairing your damaged personality.

If you do choose to change your handle again...make it a fresh start, let bygones be bygones.

Good luck in your retirement.

[email protected]

11th May 2003, 04:08

24 feet square ha ha ha.. I wish I had that much to land on when embarking on one of Her Majesty's grey funnel liners in something a good bit bigger than a 206. And they make it pitch roll and heave just for extra fun - and then the icing on the cake is to do it in the dark!

Crikey PF1 you make landing on a chuffing great, rock solid rig sound like the most difficult thing on earth, your 10,000 plus hours have obviously been spent earning easy money.

As for the 'bigger the mouth the smaller the brain' argument, well judging by your verbage on this thread which is notable for both it's prevalence in quantity and its paucity in quality - yours must be the smallest brain since microbes were discovered.

SASless

11th May 2003, 04:27

Crab,

If we continue to rattle his cage...he will merely continue boring us.....be the good chap and let a sleeping dog lie please. Also...I have been trying to forget the unstable deck night landings thank you....along with some of that other character building stuff I have done. Could we chat about some of the boring things....like tourist rides on Sunday....dodging sheets of Pierced steel planking as it falls from the sky after a nice sized boom-bang....Rappelling to roof tops on goggles....winching off the back of a Sub in the sound north of Kyle at night....night IFR slingloads out of Deadhorse.....all that fun stuff. After all...landing a 206 to a helideck can get kinda sporty in the daylight and VMC weather....dodging RPG's.....and .51 caliber tracers....we really should tip our hats at PF.....and thank him for his fatherly advice and guidance.

He talks down to folks here that have more time on base leg than he has flying.....I bet some got more hours geeking on Huey Tailbooms than he has flying....but we can all learn something from him.....not much but something.

Blue Rotor Ronin

11th May 2003, 05:08

You know what they say about petulant No. one fans..........
Animals regardless of type tend to learn very quickly whats scary and tend not to react at all(fast jets excluded). Throwing things at flying things is inexcusable........ However if he wishes to throw things at helicopters, let it be a chicken..... with some noodles and chinese veg and let the boys have a stir-fry.

Red Wine

11th May 2003, 07:56

But has his 10,000+ hours been 10,000+ hours....

Or 1 hour 10,000+ times.

There is great and obvious difference.......

And akin to TC and Sasass............I too have put this dude on bypass. [Join us Crabs]....

PPRUNE FAN#1

11th May 2003, 12:50

Oh, dearie me. I was moping around in a blue funk all day, depressed beyond words. Some of the "elders" on PPRuNe had "ostracized" me! Gee, did they put me on "ignore"? Whatever will I do now?! I was beside myself with grief (but at least I had someone interesting to talk to).

You stupid gits. You great pompous, heaving nitwits. I wonder if you guys even realize how childish and immature you look? "Oooh, Crabby, let's ignore him!" Yeah, that'll show me.

What are you guys, teenage girls?

See, my posts are certainly ascerbic. I make no bones about disliking your sort (Crab, Tc, OMR, Red Whine and a few others). Please feel free to *not* read them! But along with my personal jabs, I offer solid information. Said info may not be to your liking. But instead of rebutting it, you just rant on and on about what an awful person I am or must be because I don't give you guys the respect you guys say you deserve...that you jolly well demand! Why, the very nerve of that PF#1 person! Well screw you guys.

I'm sorry if I bore you people. Well, actually I'm not sorry, I really don't care. But somebody must be reading my posts, judging by all the views that this the the other "So It Was Kemble" thread have gotten. Obviously, people are interested in this topic and I'd wager that it's not simply because they enjoy seeing me self-destruct in public. My posts are carefully (some might say "lovingly") constructed and provide the viewpoint of a very experienced helicopter/airplane pilot. Yet the responses to my posts range from Old Man Rotor's "You're a bl**dy POM!" to Crab's eloquent, "Yeah, what he said!" A few intelligent individuals have noted the merits of my posts and have said so (thank you Blender and others). I rather suspect that there are still many others who are too fearful of incurring the wrath of the Chosen Few...you know, the hall monitors and Manners Nazis, the ones who bludgeon us with all of their supposed experience and knowledge, the ones who claim to have the Last Word in helicopter flying. Spare me.

For the record, I never said that landing on an offshore oil platform was the hardest job in all of aviation. I never even implied that it was. It's just yet another hazardous operation that, when performed by single-engine helos, is done with very little margin for error and very high skill-level demanded. Often, there is no wind at all out there and it's hot as blazes to boot. If you think that landing a max'ed-out 206 to a small offshore platform in such conditions is a piece of cake, then YOU don't know what you're talking about.

The reason I mentioned the 24-foot deck is because of how it shapes the way we do things. Quick Lesson: As you come over the helideck, you want the mast to end up "centered" as much as possible. This means that as you terminate, the cockpit will be pretty close to the windward/forward edge. Visual cues will be scant. This is not the time to be in a nose-high condition. This is not the time to be at a high hover. This is not the time to be jockeying the power.

Some pilots have a hard time adjusting to such pinnacle landings where you end up surrounded by blue water with only a tiny corner of the "pinnacle" in sight out your door or the corner of the bubble. Initially, many pilots come in too shallow. Eventually, they realize that steeper is not only better, it's easier. Hence, it's "safer," even though the approach may transgress the dreaded "shaded-area" of the H-V chart. (But a shallow approach will too because remember, you're making a point-in-space approach, and that "point" is 100 feet or so in the air.)

I don't devalue the experience of you guys, especially you military chaps (except that Crab really does come off as an R-22 pilot with his pedantic rants). But just as I don't comment as an "expert" on what you military guys do, please don't comment on offshore flying unless you actually *have* done it. And no, it's not the same as every other type of flying. There are techniques and considerations that are peculiar to the offshore world.

I'll close with that. I'm sure that the "usual suspects" have not read this latest PF#1 post anyway. They most assuredly do not find these epistles amusing. But I would definitely be interested in hearing an alternative viewpoint from another commercial/professional pilot...someone else with a lot of heavy current single-engine time. You know...maybe I have been doing it wrong all these years! Maybe the company I worked for in the Gulf Of Mexico had it all wrong! Maybe I really don't know what I'm talking about!

On the other hand, maybe this forum is dominated by a bunch of pompous ass*s.

P.S. Personal note to Thomas coupling: You don't have to double-post. I read your "Good-bye to PF#1 - you're ostracized, baby!" post in the other thread." I will be ignoring it there, too.

SASless

11th May 2003, 22:32

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ !!!

Thomas coupling

12th May 2003, 01:08

He's still slagging R22 pilots off:mad:

Does anyone think they have met or seen or come across this individual in real life?

His profile suggests he's been it done it all, yet no-one knows him.

Shame eh. Wonder if he behaves like this in the flesh.....

probably a shy unassuming pup, who was abused by his CFI / chief pilot early in his career...looking for pay back. :) :)

Vfrpilotpb

12th May 2003, 01:57

Hey Chaps,

Whilst your all fighting each other you must also remember that some chicken farmers can, and Do throw their hats a BLOODY long way, but if your getting on a little, he'll miss you every time!!:confused: :ouch:

[email protected]

12th May 2003, 02:59

Hahahahahahahaha.. that was fun .......please can I bait him again Sasless pleeeeease

Stow-thy-Bug

14th May 2003, 07:28

Hello all,

would like to say that as a military pilot low and fast approaches are the safest from our point of view but only for tactical reasons. The avoid curve is based on so many factors that it is impossible to comment on said situation but alternatives in a helo are not just steeper approaches in order to reduce noise abatement etc. A possible alternative was to approach from different direction turning into wind before reduction in speed to below single engine
(or equiv to type) and request a landing spot in more suitable area to suit approach. I am surprised at many posts favouring steeper approaches which may place an inexperienced or overloaded pilot in vortex ring conditions or limited visibilty or landing site. No-one is an expert and I am sorry to be a bore but what do you all think.

PPRUNE FAN#1

14th May 2003, 14:00

Stow-thy-bug asked:A possible alternative was to approach from different direction turning into wind before reduction in speed to below single engine
(or equiv to type) and request a landing spot in more suitable area to suit approach. I am surprised at many posts favouring steeper approaches which may place an inexperienced or overloaded pilot in vortex ring conditions or limited visibilty or landing site. No-one is an expert and I am sorry to be a bore but what do you all think.You're not being a bore, Stow. Different viewpoints are always welcome, as are yours.

And you're right, of course. Helicopter pilots must be flexible. We're not locked into straight-in finals. Sometimes we have to suggest alternatives to ATC. However, this also means that we have to be creative enough to come up with them.

But if the airport in question really was Kemble, there may not have been an easy or workable alternative to simply lining up with and approaching the threshold of the inactive runway before being cleared across the active one. There are three huge buildings just to the left of the approach end of runway 31, and the land to the south of the airport is very noise sensitive. And we don't know what the wind was.

Check this out to see what I mean:
http://www.kemableas.plus.com/airfield.htm

The pilot(s) in question were certainly not low-timers. Both had "5000+" hours...supposedly. So they should have been up to the incredible task of performing a steep approach...and of course the need to perform one.

I am amused at how many pilots equate steep approaches with s-l-o-o-w approaches and with the possibility of vortex ring state. Just how steep and/or slow are we talking here?! Review the parameters for the possibility of vortex ring state - we need not repeat them here. An approach would have to be virtually vertical in a calm wind, or nearly vertical with a tailwind. Or the approach would have to be made at zero indicated airspeed. Is there no compromise between a "normal" approach and a vertical one or one at zero airspeed? Evidently not, according to some people here.

Do we imagine low-time PPL's coming to an OGE hover and coming in so steeply to a site that they can't see it merely because they heard that another pilot generally prefers steep approaches? Are we really that worried that their skills are so lacking?

I am also fascinated by this obsession of those in this forum with preventing "inexperienced" pilots from trying anything even remotely challenging to their meager skills. Are we saying that steep approaches are dangerous for low-timers? Are they not part of every flight school curriculum (not to mention checkride)? But apparently, such scary "advanced techniques" cannot even be discussed here because of the effect it might have on impressionable young pilots

If a poor PPL is daft enough to perform a steep approach downwind based on something he read about on a stupid internet forum, then he deserves what he gets if he crashes. Well I give people more credit than that. I don't think PPL's take what they read here as gospel.

I certainly don't.