Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)
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BastOn
The point you raise on competant DR rather depends upon how critical the position is - neither DR nor the SuperTANS should have been relied upon to get as close in as the position of waypoint change while still at speed and closing with the fuzzy coast.
Either would have been ok if they were just route flying by the Mull – the sea crossing was not that far – but they would have had to allow a margin for error a lot more than the few hundred yards that was between waypoint change and the nearest coast (remember the oblique angle of approach).
It seems unlikely in the extreme that they had had control problems before the position of waypoint change or they wouldn't have bothered with the change and anyway if they had any sort of problems it would not have made sense to dump the one reference point in the nav system that would have been of use to them.
They were either incompetant or they had a reason to approach the coast so closely and with a method in which they had confidence.
The point you raise on competant DR rather depends upon how critical the position is - neither DR nor the SuperTANS should have been relied upon to get as close in as the position of waypoint change while still at speed and closing with the fuzzy coast.
Either would have been ok if they were just route flying by the Mull – the sea crossing was not that far – but they would have had to allow a margin for error a lot more than the few hundred yards that was between waypoint change and the nearest coast (remember the oblique angle of approach).
It seems unlikely in the extreme that they had had control problems before the position of waypoint change or they wouldn't have bothered with the change and anyway if they had any sort of problems it would not have made sense to dump the one reference point in the nav system that would have been of use to them.
They were either incompetant or they had a reason to approach the coast so closely and with a method in which they had confidence.
Go to the VC10 website and read the article re-produced from an Air Clues report in 1969 regarding the RAF VC10 that missed America. I do not mean it missed the USA. No, it missed America - all of it: South America, Central America and North America and was finally located over Greenland heading North in a gentle turn to the right.
They were a "very competent crew" - the Nav had some 8000 hrs under his belt.
They were a "very competent crew" - the Nav had some 8000 hrs under his belt.
Wg Cdr Spry later commented:
This navigator had a total experience of getting on for 8000 hrs. Yet when his log and chart of this trip were examined afterwards by a highly-qualified examiner, an appalling number of errors, omissions and deficiencies were brought to light, not the least being the fact that his astro-fixing was woefully inaccurate.
This has no relevance to the Chinook accident. The cause of the accident, despite many red herrings about truckie breakfast policy or little green SEALs scurrying about on the Mull with wacky wirelesses, is unknown.
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Caz,
In that case I have nothing further to add ( to you anyway).
I believe that the crew were operating within their flight authorisation on the Mull approach.
I also believe that weather may have been a factor in their reluctance / inability to climb.
We will just have to agree to disagree.
In that case I have nothing further to add ( to you anyway).
I believe that the crew were operating within their flight authorisation on the Mull approach.
I also believe that weather may have been a factor in their reluctance / inability to climb.
We will just have to agree to disagree.
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My point was and is - the aircraft was flying VFR.(I do hope that no-one thinks they were flying IFR at that height).One pilot would have been flying the aircraft and looking out of the window. He would have seen either land/sea or fog. If he saw fog he should have done something pretty damn quickly as he would have confidence in his DR/TANS nav and knew he was extremely close to the hard stuff. If no-one was looking out of the window but were heads down in the cockpit dealing with some unknown problem, that is wrong. One person in the cockpit should always FLY the AIRCRAFT in a safe and proffessional manner no matter what distractions there are elsewhere. The recent crash of a Turkish airliner at Schipol seems to be a classic case of no-one flying the aircraft.
I do hope that this is not rude! Seldom ,I am sorry if you feel that quoting you is rude - it is certainly not meant to be.
I do hope that this is not rude! Seldom ,I am sorry if you feel that quoting you is rude - it is certainly not meant to be.
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Sir,
In the context of this thread I think I have highlighted the important words
"My point was and is - the aircraft was flying VFR.(I do hope that no-one thinks they were flying IFR at that height).One pilot would have been flying the aircraft and looking out of the window. He would have seen either land/sea or fog. If he saw fog he should have done something pretty damn quickly as he would have confidence in his DR/TANS nav and knew he was extremely close to the hard stuff. If no-one was looking out of the window but were heads down in the cockpit dealing with some unknown problem, that is wrong. One person in the cockpit should always FLY the AIRCRAFT in a safe and proffessional manner no matter what distractions there are elsewhere. The recent crash of a Turkish airliner at Schipol seems to be a classic case of no-one flying the aircraft.
I do hope that this is not rude! Sir ,I am sorry if you feel that quoting you is rude - it is certainly not meant to be.
In the context of this thread I think I have highlighted the important words
"My point was and is - the aircraft was flying VFR.(I do hope that no-one thinks they were flying IFR at that height).One pilot would have been flying the aircraft and looking out of the window. He would have seen either land/sea or fog. If he saw fog he should have done something pretty damn quickly as he would have confidence in his DR/TANS nav and knew he was extremely close to the hard stuff. If no-one was looking out of the window but were heads down in the cockpit dealing with some unknown problem, that is wrong. One person in the cockpit should always FLY the AIRCRAFT in a safe and proffessional manner no matter what distractions there are elsewhere. The recent crash of a Turkish airliner at Schipol seems to be a classic case of no-one flying the aircraft.
I do hope that this is not rude! Sir ,I am sorry if you feel that quoting you is rude - it is certainly not meant to be.
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BEagle
"Truckies" were in 1 Gp and Support Helicopters were in 1 Gp; same GASO's and STCASI's applied to them all - as did Command Catering Instructions.
If you were tasked for a day's flying requiring the use of maximum crew duty time - how many of your Flight Deck crew would have attended Met Brief?
Would you accept someone else's planning for the sortie without checking that planning?
The VC10 in 1968 that "missed America": even when the CCWR had a return that showed them approaching the southern part of Greenland on a Northerly track they dismissed it as "pack ice" and kept going.
"Truckies" were in 1 Gp and Support Helicopters were in 1 Gp; same GASO's and STCASI's applied to them all - as did Command Catering Instructions.
If you were tasked for a day's flying requiring the use of maximum crew duty time - how many of your Flight Deck crew would have attended Met Brief?
Would you accept someone else's planning for the sortie without checking that planning?
The VC10 in 1968 that "missed America": even when the CCWR had a return that showed them approaching the southern part of Greenland on a Northerly track they dismissed it as "pack ice" and kept going.
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Seldom
Quite!
If he saw Land/sea he would not have hit either of them. So he saw fog and did not react quickly enough or or he was not looking out. Both wrong.
I popped the red in to save you having to do it!!
Quite!
If he saw Land/sea he would not have hit either of them. So he saw fog and did not react quickly enough or or he was not looking out. Both wrong.
I popped the red in to save you having to do it!!
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Sir,
"If he saw Land/sea he would not have hit either of them. So maybe he saw fog and did not react quickly enough or maybe he was not looking out. Both wrong, if this was in fact the case.
I popped the red in to save you having to do it, and I popped the words in green in just give the post some accuracy!!
"If he saw Land/sea he would not have hit either of them. So maybe he saw fog and did not react quickly enough or maybe he was not looking out. Both wrong, if this was in fact the case.
I popped the red in to save you having to do it, and I popped the words in green in just give the post some accuracy!!
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Seldom
Well if he could, why did he hit it?
Please no red on the ifs! Lots of ifs lead to me thinking that we are running out of them, and one of the careless scenarios below must be true.
If he flew into the terrain that he could see, he was very careless. If he flew on into fog and took no remedial action, he was also very careless. If he had his head in the cockpit at this stage of flight, close to land and at relatively low level, he was again very careless. What other scenario can you come up with?
Polite, eh?
Well if he could, why did he hit it?
Please no red on the ifs! Lots of ifs lead to me thinking that we are running out of them, and one of the careless scenarios below must be true.
If he flew into the terrain that he could see, he was very careless. If he flew on into fog and took no remedial action, he was also very careless. If he had his head in the cockpit at this stage of flight, close to land and at relatively low level, he was again very careless. What other scenario can you come up with?
Polite, eh?
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Sir,
No need for any colours as you have hit the nail smack on the head.
"Seldom
Well if he could, why did he hit it?"
That Sir is the $64,000 question which not a single one of us has the actual answer to, do we Sir?
No need for any colours as you have hit the nail smack on the head.
"Seldom
Well if he could, why did he hit it?"
That Sir is the $64,000 question which not a single one of us has the actual answer to, do we Sir?
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jayteeto
Everybody is aware that you didn't all go to Station Briefing Room, whether you were flying or not, as if it was an FTS.
I flew multi engined passenger carrying aircraft for some 19 years of my Service and all Flight Deck Crew (except Air Engineers and Signallers if carried) went to the Met Office for a face to face briefing with the Met Man prior to the Task. If necessary, when operating from some of the smaller or less 'Advanced' Countries, one would arrange for the requisite Meteorological Forecasts and winds to be faxed to the Handling Agent or even signalled to the Air Attache. As a last resort we used the HF via Upavon.
Now, when Flt Lt Tapper went to Met by himself in the morning of the 2nd June 1994 did he also satisfy himself, as the Detatchment Commander who had allocated the least experienced Pilot on the detatchment to the evenings VIP Task, in respect of the weather in the vicinity of the Mull and the Great Glen en route to Inverness? After all, it would have been his duty, as the Detatchment Commander, to ensure the the Crews allotted to tasks had the requisite qualifications to perform those tasks.
Everybody is aware that you didn't all go to Station Briefing Room, whether you were flying or not, as if it was an FTS.
I flew multi engined passenger carrying aircraft for some 19 years of my Service and all Flight Deck Crew (except Air Engineers and Signallers if carried) went to the Met Office for a face to face briefing with the Met Man prior to the Task. If necessary, when operating from some of the smaller or less 'Advanced' Countries, one would arrange for the requisite Meteorological Forecasts and winds to be faxed to the Handling Agent or even signalled to the Air Attache. As a last resort we used the HF via Upavon.
Now, when Flt Lt Tapper went to Met by himself in the morning of the 2nd June 1994 did he also satisfy himself, as the Detatchment Commander who had allocated the least experienced Pilot on the detatchment to the evenings VIP Task, in respect of the weather in the vicinity of the Mull and the Great Glen en route to Inverness? After all, it would have been his duty, as the Detatchment Commander, to ensure the the Crews allotted to tasks had the requisite qualifications to perform those tasks.
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Sir,
I think
"Any possible scenario ends up with a very unfortunate and completely undetermined cause annotation"
sounds more factually correct, would you not agree Sir?
I think
"Any possible scenario ends up with a very unfortunate and completely undetermined cause annotation"
sounds more factually correct, would you not agree Sir?
and all Flight Deck Crew (except Air Engineers and Signallers if carried) went to the Met Office for a face to face briefing with the Met Man prior to the Task.
Anyway, I'm sure that truckie-feeding habits and other ME irrelevances had nothing to do with the conduct of this RW flight.
Avoid imitations
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How many more times?????? There was not/never a met brief, crews started at all times of the day.
I'm afraid Cazatou, you continue to show total ignorance of the way things had to be done by SH; you must have no idea of the pressure crews were placed under to complete a mission. I repeat the word mission. It was an operational theatre in all respects and by no means unusual to fly in appalling weather; well below normal peacetime VMC limits and well below what your operation would be allowed to fly in. Our job couldn't be done under IFR. Don't forget, we were delivering live armed troops into a terrorist zone. My first job out there (I'll never forget it) was to take troops to clear an area after a civilian had been shot by terrorists in his own back yard. We got there in a 300 foot cloudbase.
Without wanting to drift the thread too far, here's another example to put this in perspective. Some night tasking crews (including my crew, we flew mainly by night) often had to recover to Aldergrove in the early hours of the morning with no chance of a formal IFR recovery and with no chance of reaching a diversion airfield such as Valley due to insufficient fuel capacity for a reserve. The only letdown was an SRE approach and ATC were civvies who often went home before we took off; the civvie side of the airfield was totally closed for the night. I'm not going to let on how we sometimes recovered to the airfield in IMC when the weather was really poor, but let's just say it would make any pilot uncomfortable and a fixed wing aircraft couldn't do it.
Crews had to accept that there had to be an increased level of operational risk and that they might just go home one day in a wooden box; I know I came to accept that. I thought about it every day as I was loading my weapons by the station armoury before going to Squadron Ops; thankfully I kept safe. Some certainly didn't - and I don't just mean this unfortunate Chinook crew. I came away from that theatre somewhat drained and suffering from recurring bad dreams and I was extremely glad to go back to my cosy little fixed wing job on the mainland for a while.
Cazatou, you obviously led a comfortable, highly regulated existence as a VIP fixed wing pilot. You should try to accept that SH had never operated under a framework like the one you had and although I'm well out of date, it probably still doesn't. I must be careful what I say here, but in the NI theatre in my particular role we were sometimes not even being tasked by the normal RAF hierarchy. To put that in perspective, a new OC RAF Aldergrove wanted to come along to see how we operated. Dispensation for a one-off flight was granted but we were not allowed to tell him what we were doing although it must have become obvious to him. He told us afterwards that he was somewhat awe-struck, despite having flown as an operational pilot, as a flight commander and if I'm not mistaken, as a squadron commander IN THAT SAME THEATRE. Think about that, please, before continuing to criticise this unfortunate crew for failing to attend a formal met brief or not eating enough cornflakes from a porcelain bowl in the officer's mess.
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BEagle,
I hoped that I would never have to post this; but your last post (with its cheap jibe of "corgi carrier") diminishes severely, in my opinion, what was a well deserved reputation for balance and objectiveness.
If you wish to remove that post then I am willing to let that be the end of the matter.
If you are not willing so to do then any reaction to that decision is on your head.
I hoped that I would never have to post this; but your last post (with its cheap jibe of "corgi carrier") diminishes severely, in my opinion, what was a well deserved reputation for balance and objectiveness.
If you wish to remove that post then I am willing to let that be the end of the matter.
If you are not willing so to do then any reaction to that decision is on your head.