It was the opposite in South Arabia, Nutty. I believe there were problems with vapour locks in the fuel lines above +40, so they didn't normally fly after mid-morning. Also happy days. ;) (I think)

We landed our Puma very early one cold wet morning at St Angelo for a task briefing. As we began to walk towards the guard post, the overnight Gazelle crew (green one) were about to start the rotors of their aircraft, about 50 metres away. The engine was already running and the observer was standing ahead of the cockpit, outside the rotor disc with the fire extinguisher, as per SOP.

As I got closer and the rotors began to turn I could hear shouting. It was the soldier in the guard tower, who appeared to be shouting at the Gazelle observer. He then turned and began shouting something to me. I looked at him and saw he was pointing at the Gazelle. I looked across and realised the aircraft didn’t look quite right (I used to instruct on the type). I then saw that the aircraft was still wearing a main rotor gearbox cover (a wraparound, waterproof fabric cover, held on by straps and metal buckles). The guard was trying to alert its crew.

All three of us began waving our arms to attract the attention of the crew, but they were oblivious and continued with the rotor start. As the rpm increased, the cover then began to remove itself, with its straps (complete with metal buckles), began flailing around under the rotor disc, one of the straps getting longer and longer….. I realised this wasn’t going to end well so I’m afraid I went into self preservation mode and ducked off to one side at the corner of the guard post wall. There was a sudden loud bang and a rattle as the cover came off, went up through the rotor disc and was flung in pieces off to the far side of the aircraft, thankfully without harming anyone. The pilot chopped the engine and shut down. He appeared shortly after, looking very dejected and asking to use the radio….

It was obvious that the crew were suffering from fatigue. They had diverted in to St Angelo the night before due to very poor weather (hence the MRGB cover having been fitted) and had been trying to sleep overnight in the cold, unheated guard post.

Re Scamps post #773 and the departure of GS/ handover to BS, that would partly explain BS' insistence on going back to his RN exchange-tour days and trying to put on a "balbo" around the Province. The weather did its usual trick and we ended up being the Chinook at the back of a mass hover-taxi around Lough Neagh; biggest waste of AVTUR I ever had the misfortune to witness/participate.

Shytorque when I left the RAF and went to a company as a contract engineer, i was watching a Gazelle burning and turning outside the open hangar doors, it was there for ages, asking what was happening I was told it was out on a ground run..I stood there in awe...

When the occupants came in ( two engineers) I asked them politely what they would have done if they had got ground resonance... their faces glazed over as they asked me "what's that?"
Needless to say I suggested they read up on it and ceased doing the turning part of the equation for all our sakes, I had visions of rotor blades bouncing in through the open doors..

BTW in the USA you can get a helicopter licence simply for hovering only, designed for engineers I believe doing ground runs etc.


​​​​​​…

I was once tasked to carry out a post maintenance air test on a Blackhawk (obviously not in NI). Having signed the tech log we walked out to it. As we got closer, we realised that the APU was running and assumed an engineer was still carrying out some unknown check inside. However, the aircraft was totally unmanned!

We shut it down and went back to the engineers’ office to find out what was going on. The duty engineer had previously been carrying out some systems checks and subsequently seemed to think that it was perfectly acceptable to leave the APU running unmonitored and go inside. Discussion ensued. He (and his line boss) were mistakenly under the impression that the APU was fully automatic and would shut itself down in the event of any problem. We pointed out that would only shut down in the event of it sensing its own oil pressure failure but NOT if it caught fire. They went rather sheepish.

A Trident burnt out having been left with the apu running at LHR.

Hmmm...extremely unlikely in a skidded helicopter.

Not as unlikely as you think.
AS-350, As-355 and Hu-300 were prone to it to name just 3.
The AS-350 and AS-355 on fixed floats loved to dance!
Not used perhaps in The RAF / RN true.
Never heard of it on the Bell 47, 204, 205, 212.
Seems to occur on 3 bladed of more aircraft…which, by definition makes sense.

crikey.

No it's not!!!


The AS350 skids have metal springs at the rear to dampen potential GR.

The Lama could be bad for GR as well

Just discovered this thread.
What a bloody hoot :-)

Been on it since just after 10.00.

Able now to put character to some of the Pprune names.

Respect ! :}

El Grifo

Sad to announce that Neil Mitchell (Wg Cdr ret’d, ex Whirlwind and Puma QHI) has very recently passed away.

In the mid 1970s, Neil suffered a tail rotor drive shaft failure in a Puma in NI whilst flying at speed at very low level. He successfully put the aircraft down, albeit on its side, thankfully resulting in everyone surviving.

A true gentleman. Sadly missed.

Damn, I used to baby sit his kids at Odiham, will raise a glass to him tonight, a true gent.

Not impossible, but extremely unlikely.