RAF Puma wire strike Morocco
 

http://www.ukar.co.uk/cgi-bin/ukarbo...ST;f=9;t=24917
date of the strike and reg of the bird anyone? and how did this one got home?

Wow..... bit of damage there then....Glad they got away with it....



Garage..."Reg of the Bird" ????? I thought they hit some wires, not a bird ?????

If you reproduce links from other forums pictures you may just find the answers to your questions in the same place!! :)

From
http://www.gibraltarnewsonline.com/2...ra-in-morocco/
"Three Pumas, along with Aircrew and Ground Personnel from 33 Squadron based at RAF Benson arrived at RAF Gibraltar last week, prior to their involvement with the Royal Gibraltar Regiment (RGR) in Exercise Jebel Sahara held in Morocco every Autumn.
The following day, the Pumas were fully utilised and enabled the Royal Gibraltar Regiment to practice their abseiling skills prior to their deployment to Morocco.
The Helicopters hovered at 150 feet with safety ground crews on hand whilst the RGR soldiers abseiled out of the aircraft in pairs. The Exercise, which commenced on Monday 30 October, is taking place at Ram Ram camp near Marrakech and in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
The Exercise is due to last for just over three weeks and will also involve members from the Moroccan parachute infantry unit; the 2eme Brigade d’Infanterie Parachutiste.
Two Chinooks from 18 Squadron at RAF Odiham are also due to participate in the Exercise alongside the Pumas.
The skills which the RGR and aircrew of 18 and 33 Squadrons also intend to practice on Exercise Jebel Sahara will include medical evacuations, troop insertions, troop extractions and high altitude operations similar to those performed regularly in Iraq."

TRAINING, they were f*****g TRAINING to fly in an environment like the high places in Afgan. I appreciate the irony, I really do, but people have to learn. Jeeeeeeeez.

Sev

Sorry for the rant.

Exactly....we should be grateful that rather than needlessly lowflying around Hampshire and wilsthire, someone has had the sense to provide training in a realistic and (relatively) safe environment.

Nice to see the new logo on the door though.:eek:

There is mention of wire deflectors. Where are these situated on the Puma? Are they they just in front of the head or before the intakes, having trouble seeing them in those pics.

Great recovery BTW, good skillz! Change of pants required no doubt and back for tea and medals at 1600.

Vecve, I mean the registration of the Puma dear

The last time something similar happened (before the reinforcement had been fitted to the canopy, around 1982) the cables took one speed select all the way back and the second one halfway. Gave Mike L. a few heart stopping moments before doing a single engine landing in Hampshire! So, looks as though the mod works!

I can remember years back we had the remains of the Rhodesian Puma crash in out hangar where he was doing ultra low level down a road when the phone lines crossed over to the other side, none unfortunately survived and the phone cables where found wrapped around the rotor mast.

They also trialed a system for detecting cables with current flowing through them, it consisted of a circle of lights that lit up to show the position of the power cables in relation to the aircraft, they I believe had probs as the frequency was similar to that given off by the rotors. but after a succesful trial flying towards power lines they were returning to base and the good old electricity board had turned off the juice for repairs, they cleaned the aerials off the bottom of that one if memory serves me right.

Now, been sometime since I last flew the mighty Puma, but I'm sure it had throttles and not speed selectors! A 'handle' of 'OverTq' sounds like a Wessex man - now that did have speed selectors. (Technically you couldn't over-torque a Puma, only over-pitch it!!)

Anyway, great pictures of the cab afterwards, and I love photogenius's sarcastic comment about the poor viz from the shattered windscreen!!!

Does the Puma now have any form of wire deflectors/cutters? It didn't in my day.

H Peacock

Only 3000hrs Puma, but, yes, I've flown the Wessex since those days! You are quite right, of course, but the effect was the same!

Didn't the South Africans mod their Pumas so that the throttles/thrust levers/speed selects (delete as required) were forward for idle and aft for max...so when a flamingo or something came through the windscreen it wouldn't retard the engines?

The SAAF Pumas had a wire grill on the outside of the canopy, just in front of the levers. The "wire" was about 1/8inch thick.

No cutters, just deflectors. You can see them quite well in the first photo. They're the square section bent metal bars at the top of the frames either side of the centre screen.
It's nice to see that they work. I worked on 33 sqn for ten years and always dreaded seeing a big strike as I was sure that it would just deflect the wires up, rip off the intakes (a very flimsy bit of kit) and throw them up into the disc. Glad to see I was wrong.
The wire cutter issue was put forwards years ago. It got to the point where some civvies came to Benson and covered the nose in white stickers and then took photos. This was for modelling the front on a computer and then simulating strikes to find the best location for the cutters.
It died a death shortly after (money I assume).:mad:
Incidentally, the square plate with the hole in it between the deflectors is known as the 'duck plate'. It is name after the breed of bird that came through the screen and knocked both engines back to idle many moons ago. The hole gives some visibility but is slightly smaller that the gap between the throttles.

I can't see how the deflectors did anything at all to help with the initial impact which would appear to be across the face of the intakes. Surely if the wire had hit the canopy and slid up the deflectors, it would not have then managed to impact the front face of the intakes and would have caused more damage to the fibre glass structure underneath the intakes?

I guess it depends on the number of wires.

The lower cockipt damage looks co-incident with 'backing out' from said wires.

Check out Ex Jebel Sahara 06 parts 1 to 6, also on UKAR .

LXGB

Here are some pictures of the SAAF Oryx
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...DSC_0240-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...t/DSC_0388.jpg

"I can't see how the deflectors did anything at all to help with the initial impact "

I don't think those are wire deflectors. They look more like supports for the weight of that overhanging intake filtery stuff. Besides, any wire hitting them would ride up and over them and catch in that rather nice trap just below the "duck hatch". Also the front of the cab has too many other unprotected wire catchers, e.g. the windscreen wiper posts.