Chinook - Still Hitting Back 3 (Merged)

[dalek]

Baston,
No it isn't. That is why AP???? gives figures to work to. OK, average crews average conditions.
If you can guarantee accuracy, over water which is around one third of this average, you are exceptional.
Wish I was. Wish the crew were.
Regards

[bast0n]

Chugalug2

Could you please explain that bizarre statement, bastOn? I'm not trying to be clever, I really don't understand what you mean. You have regalled us with the professional way that you would have planned and flown this fatal leg using DR and airmanship that you find lacking in the crew that did fly it....and then you come out with this incomprehensible gobbledygook. Presumably the Nimrod crew are also to be similarly castigated posthumously? They accepted their aircraft as serviceable, which of course is of much greater importance than that it was unairworthy and recognised as such by the RAF! What on earth is going on in that mind of yours? Can you share it with us, for I am at a loss to know what on earth it can be.

I do so hope that you do not think that I have "regalled" you. I was as vunerable to all the vagaries and dangers of flight as all of us.

that you find lacking in the crew that did fly it.

I have never stated that I found them lacking. Purely conjecture. If an aircraft is unairworthy that seems to me to be a totally different problem to unserviceable. In my experience we knew that various bits of the aircraft were perhaps not designed or built as perhaps we would have liked. But at the moment when we accepted the aircraft for a trip we accepted that it was good enough and safe enough for the task in hand. We were after all strapped to the aluminium and if you worry about your own safety everone else on board should be OK.

I am also not trying to be clever - I just believe that to combine sensible basic training with the wonderful modern navigational aids available is a sensible way to plan even the most simple of flights - and this sortie falls in to that category. Of course DR is not the panacea but it is a damn good safety belt,

To compare this with the Nimrod tragedy is to my mind not fair.

Would you get airborne in an aircraft tht you thought was unfit for the task for whatever reason? I know that I never did. I am so sorry that you seem to misunderstand me. I mean no ill will to anyone but the facts do seem to point in a certain direction.

Dalek

If you can guarantee accuracy, over water which is around one third of this average, you are exceptional.

No - of course I am not exceptional - but your acceptable margins for error over such a short distance frankly amaze me.

I repeat - if the crew were unhappy with the aircraft why did they get airborne? (did you ever do this?). If they were VFR why did they fly into the Mull? If they were navigating with ALL the means at their disposal why did they get it so wrong?

Good evening.

[bast0n]

BOAC

Nor do we do it Baston's way, flying at night, IMC, ?below SA? towards an enemy coast - in snow - and using 'DR', heaven help us.

VFR not IMC - I am not that brave or stupid! ( and I am still here). If you have no TANS or whatever what nav aids would you use? I look forward to learning your magic system!

[Chugalug2]

bastOn, I'm still confused as to the point that you are making. I maintain that the aircraft was unairworthy, and had been for all the approx 50 hours that it was a Mk2. I do not know if it was serviceable that day, presumably the engineers who declared it to be so and the captain who accepted it as such believed it to be so. Do you know differently? There is little that the engineers or pilots could know or do about the airworthiness, other than a feeling of unease that seemed to permeate the crewrooms then by all accounts. How do you know that the aircraft that you flew/fly are airworthy? How would you tell? You may well worry, but in the end you have to put your trust in the manufacturers, Test Pilots, Civil Servants and Air Staff. In this case, as with the Nimrod and the Hercules, that trust was betrayed. Whereas with the other two aircraft some extenuating circumstances might be claimed by those responsible, here there are surely none. This aircraft was rushed into service with unseemly haste and against the express protests of BD. That the RAF then found the pilots to be Grossly Negligent, with no proof, beggars belief when it was party to the wilful negligence exhibited by the CoC in forcing this unairworthy type on the aircrews. A great wrong has been done here, probably an illegal wrong at that.

[flipster]

Baston,

I agreea= baout DR - all pilots do as it is part of basic fg techniques. However, DR needs a timing factor but there seems to be no evidence of stop-watch/chrono settings -which would, I suspect say something - of course that doesn't mean that DR wasn't done - just not recorded.

Would anyone happen to have a copy of the Annexes AB, AD and Y? Pse Pm.

[walter kennedy]

bastOn
<<If you have no TANS or whatever what nav aids would you use? I look forward to learning your magic system! >> I hope the following post helps!


BOAC #5015
<<(unless, of course, you are on WK's side of a precision IMC approach to a hillside LDZ?) >>
Why the big leap from a VFR flight using a point reference for range from a limited area LZ? – even in clear weather, TACANs are used by helos approaching oil rigs and frigate heli decks as it is better to approach smartly, flaring out right on the pad to make use of the ground effect “cushion” rather than dither about, trying to get onto an elevated perch (drop offs on 3 sides), risking vortex ring starting - I gave an example some time back regarding the Australian Blackhawk that crashed on the deck of a frigate in clear, calm weather – the captain (the handling pilot in that case) ignored the copilot's warnings that, with reference to the TACAN, they were too close too fast – the captain insisted he could do it visually and got it wrong with fatal results. Imagine the converse, where the instrument is misleading you as opposed to warning you - no chance:
you are approaching a limited area with a precipitous drop off in front of it with all sorts of wind effects on a blustery day;
so you want to do a typical fast approach, smoothly slowing down but only getting down to that final flare right on the site so your rotors are cutting into clean air right until the ground effect can be counted on – accurate range judgment is critical and ZD576 did not have a radar;
the hillside beyond is fuzzy with streaking mist and the higher topography is completely obscurred – it would not at all be suitable for such an approach without the one system that helo pilots trust to be intrinsically accurate, and that is a local DME of some kind – and that is what a PRC112 is excellent as;
SF helos use this equipment all the time in all sorts of conditions for extractions and resupply – it is very useful for, say, getting to an OP and extracting a SF observer in a hurry and so, I would suggest, a demonstration of this capability would have been of interest to many of the team on board, not just a useful exercise for the crew, and therefore an exercise easy to sell to them.
The CPLS working off a PRC112 also gives approximate bearing (only to +/- 4deg using its inbuilt* UHF antennas as a DF) which could explain their turning right at the position of waypoint change (they turned onto 035 mag, judging by the track on this last leg, at this point, which went to the crash site, as was found on the handling pilot's Hor Sit Ind) – this is the long axis of that LZ and therefore the preferred approach line – referring to the annotated maps I posted some time ago, the geometry fits with a PRC112 that should have been at the LZ being ½ mile or so further up the hill which of course also explains their approaching the LZ too close too fast.
Note* The on board equipment as supplied by the manufacturers for RAF HC2 Chinooks was self contained on a pallette with minimal interface requirements so that it could be easily transferred between such Chinooks.


Dalek #5009
<< … First of all remember, we are discussing a scenario. A possible sequence of events.
In the scenario I painted, the one time that JT would have known an almost exact Vis was, on departure at Aldergrove. He was very familiar with the local landmarks.>> - as indeed he was with the LZ at the Mull having landed there himself on at least one previous occasion, and would have been aware of the difficulties of distance judgment when approaching it in even clear weather due to the ground features and topography (at their angle of approach, they were far from directly approaching the light house as I have explaqined previously)..
<<If he assessed his initial Vis as our (theoretical) 3nms, he would, without further outside influences, expect to see the cliffs at 3nms. When the TANS told him the range was 3nms he would believe it because he "knew" it was right.>> But, as I have tried to explain over so many years, Flt Lt Tapper would not have trusted the STANS to keep him clear of the fuzzy ground as close in as the position of waypoint change which was at that point only a few hundred yards off to their right front (look at the annotated map).
<<I use only the TANS in the scenario, because I have never seen any evidence of any "on land" equipment being invoved.
If it was you will never get anyone to admit it. >> That is the trouble – but I have been hoping to shame some to come forward by posting my view that the ramifications have been far more serious than a bit of embarrassment to the RAF – and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the only reasonable explanation for their actions is that they were relying upon such equipment and so the longer it is denied the worse the RAF as a body will appear when it does come out. Some degree of “damage control” could be achieved by opening up on the exercise and pointing out the individuals responsible for suggesting it and putting it together.

[dalek]

Baston,
I am very impressed by your DR Navigation skills.
How many pilots do you know that fly heading to the precise 0.1 degree and fly a precise IAS.
Planned heading 360. Flown heading 359 to 001.
Expected drift 0. Actual drift 2S to 2P. And do remember you can't get this drift from Doppler or GPS because that is feeding the TANS and would defeat the object of the exercise. No, you will have to assess it yourself using wind lanes.
Distance between Bel and the Mull 60nms. (Feel free to adjust the figures)
I see an easy cross track error of 3 nms.

Planned IAS / TAS / GS 120kts. Coast in in 30 minutes
Flown IAS 117 to 123.
Temperature / Density / Instrument variation. Actual TAS 114 to 126
Slight W/V variation GS 110 to 130.

Coast in time now between minute 28 and 32. You are up to 4nms in error along track, and you have flown to realistic degrees of accuracy.

As Walter says, tell us your magic system for reducing these margins.

[cazatou]

Chugalug 2

Re Servicability.

A very good point about not knowing if the aircraft was servicable or not. We know from the BOI that the crew had a problem with one of the nav boxes on the first sortie. NO entry was made in the F700 but 2 Avionics Tradesmen "relocated" the RX Box - they volunteered that information to the BOI. What we do not know is if there was any other possible fault that was treated the same way. If the crew had entered unservicabilities in the F700 in accordance with standard practice we would know the state of the aircraft.

[bast0n]

DALEK and others

I fully understand your concerns over DR nav but we have to remember that since helicopters arrived on the scene navaids are a relatively new piece of kit. I am sure that you and many others here flew SAR Whirlwinds around and off our coasts, lots more will have flown WX5s and 2s in the support role. The 5s particularily operating from ship to shore and ship to ship with no navaids whatsoever.(ADF excepted).We managed to find moving ships after launching from a moving ship in conditions of radar blackout,(Falklands springs to mind) and get back home again. This was not unusual and I do not recall anyone flying into the coast actually hitting it, or ditching through lack of fuel. Flying as though your navaids may fail and keeping up a good DR plot is wise. Perhaps we were a lot more nervous/careful than todays well equipped aviators. My point has always been that if this unfortunate crew had done their DR and worked in a fiddle factor on the pessimistic side, again wise, they may have slowed earlier and managed to see the coast in time to avoid it.

As always

[pulse1]

they may have slowed earlier and managed to see the coast in time to avoid it.

And absolutely no-one knows that they didn't see the coast it time. The only relevant evidence (Mr Holbrook) suggests that they could have done.

[tucumseh]

When discussing visibility, one should of course ignore the claims made by MoD, especially the ROs, in the immediate aftermath. I seem to recall the latter making a presentation implying cloud projected from the Mull a huge distance.


Even in early 2004, MoD claimed;

“Shortly afterwards (i.e. after waypoint change) the helicopter entered cloud about 850 metres from the Mull”.

Then, in an inexplicable surge of honesty not normally associated with MoD, in May 2004 Min(DP) admitted;

“Unfortunately, we are not able to say, even approximately, how far the cloud extended over the sea”.

A major uncertainty then, on a not insignificant point.

MoD has always refused a review, citing lack of “new” evidence. It seems they found some evidence and had to admit it drove a bus through the “facts” that helped underpin the verdict. Just how much evidence do they need to acknowledge doubt?

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Originally Posted by cazatou

Chugalug 2

Re Servicability.

A very good point about not knowing if the aircraft was servicable or not. We know from the BOI that the crew had a problem with one of the nav boxes on the first sortie. NO entry was made in the F700 but 2 Avionics Tradesmen "relocated" the RX Box - they volunteered that information to the BOI. What we do not know is if there was any other possible fault that was treated the same way. If the crew had entered unservicabilities in the F700 in accordance with standard practice we would know the state of the aircraft.

Every now and again I read something that simply cries out "has this person ever actually been involved in military aviation".

I can think of at least two sandy places where that sort of simplistic idiocy would have grounded aircraft for days on end, with the loss of valuable sorties and a real risk to lives on the ground.

I spent many years as an avionics tech and re seating boxes was a standard technique and an extremely pragmatic way of keeping valuable assets in the air.

We have had no breakfast, not drawing lines on a map and crew duty as the reason for this tragic accident and now we have failure to raise a SNOW as the cause, what on earth will come next

[8-15fromOdium]

SFFP wrote:

I spent many years as an avionics tech and re seating boxes was a standard technique and an extremely pragmatic way of keeping valuable assets in the air.

Got to agree with you there, indeed if we had insisted on raising a snag every time there would have been charges of 'working to rule' flying around.

Caz, can you hand on heart tell us that you raised a 707 every time there was a fault?

[cazatou]

8-15 from Odiham

Civil engineers at Northolt - very hot on paperwork (It justified the overtime).

Sorry, couldn't resist that.

The point is quite simple; Tapper & Cook did not formerly raise any defects after the first sortie, but we know that work was carried out by Avionics Tradesmen at their request. Was any other work carried out that we do not know about? If there was - could it have a bearing on the crash?

This is only an issue because Tapper and Cook requested investigation into an avionics problem without raising the appropriate paperwork. If they had formerly placed the item unservicable then there would have been an identifiable chain of investigation and rectification to cure the fault. It is possible that other work we know nothing about was also carried out and that such work could have a bearing on the accident.

[cazatou]

pulse1

If you are going to refer to the evidence of the Yachtsman in respect of the weather conditions it would help if you mentioned which version you are referring to: BOI evidence, FAI evidence or HOL evidence.

[tucumseh]

Faults & reporting

Agree with SFFP and 8-15.

One must also view the reporting of faults (on MF760) in the light of RAF (not MoD) policy of the day.

In 1991 they started refusing funding to conduct routine avionic fault investigations, instructing EAs to save them up and submit an omnibus; but safety-related were funded.

By early 1993, even safety-related were not funded.

While in an ideal world Caz is correct, because a 2 Star oversaw these policy changes and supported his staffs who zealously implemented them – to the extent he personally carpeted civilian staffs who dared mention the “A” word and threatened them with the sack if they persisted - it was always highly unlikely MoD would dwell on this point. For the simple reason 2 Star and above are protected species.

[pulse1]

caz,

In the context of my reference, either will do.

[Chugalug2]

SFFP:

We have had no breakfast, not drawing lines on a map and crew duty as the reason for this tragic accident and now we have failure to raise a SNOW as the cause, what on earth will come next

Whatever you do, don't mention Yellow Fever certificates. I just have, but I think I've got away with it....

[tucumseh]

Mr Holbrook

If you are going to refer to the evidence of the Yachtsman in respect of the weather conditions it would help if you mentioned which version you are referring to: BOI evidence, FAI evidence or HOL evidence.

MoD response to House of Lords report, dated 22nd July 2002, discussing a minor difference in statements made many months apart…….….

We believe this is understandable, and are not matters for which Mr Holbrook can be criticised.

If even MoD can’t criticise Mr Holbrook, what right has anyone here? End of. Next………..

[8-15fromOdium]

Caz,
I ask again - Can you hand on heart tell us that you raised a 707 every time there was a fault?