Chinooks orbiting over waterloo Tonight
 

Orbiting last week and tonight over waterloo station - familiar wokka sound...

Helilanes transit or lost enroute odiham?

Anything special going on this week?

Probably waiting for the Hook train to find his way home :E

I thought IFR for wokkas was I Follow Roads?

..maybe it's Railways now ;)

Nutloose :ok::ok::ok:

Fox3WMB, The Wokka driver I spoke to many years ago described it as IFR3 (I Follow Roads, Rivers and Railways), so they're keeping all their options open.

I did a short helicopter course once. The QHI said not long after leaving Shawbs
"You know when you fast jet jocks are wizzing around in the weeds at warp factor snot, trying to work out exactly where you are, and by the time you've done that, you're 8 miles further on and lost again?"
"...yeeees? "
He decel'ed, dropped to the hover just over a field, and we read the village name off the roadsign.
Smug B@stard

Chinooks orbiting over waterloo Tonight
 

High Spirits, quite correct, 360 orbit due to traffic conflict with LCA. Seen this many times as I used to work at Southwark Nick, once had three Chinooks holding overhead in orbit chasing each other round! Quite a sight from the roof, wish I had had my camera with me.

I once had to orbit at Westminster Bridge at 500' in my Chinny. Those in the London Eye had an extra attraction that day and the Honorable Members heard taxes being spent....especially as I used a bit more bank than was strictly necessary each time I passed over the Houses of Parliament!

Nothing like a bit of blade slap:ok:

Ahhh...Thames radar vectors...I should have guessed. It made interesting viewing for this recently retired commuter:D

Just a thought, if Mil helicopters navigate (on occasions) via roads and motorways, what happens when flying over spaghetti junction at Birmingham?

That's what the GPS is for, it tells them which lane to take :E

Surprised they need to circle when they can simply slow down or even hover.

Presumably it's to keep the engine(s) cool.

You get to wave at more people when you go around in circles :ok:

RAF Puma lands on the square at Salamanca barracks, Soest in Germany 1975. Crewroom jumps out with map in hand and asks where the f*ck the airfield is. Given that the airfield is sandwiched
between two major roads it's not that hard to find. Quick as a flash my mate tells the crewman they are having problems because the airfield is very well camouflaged. However they have just flown right over the top of it a mile back. Crewman queries the description camouflaged.

Grass strip!!!!!

Helicopters don't need a mile of runway which I suppose you could mark bomb here.

Reminds me of a second Soest tale.
Mil call sign give Soest tower a call and the duty controller launches in to his landing instruction spiel. Two minutes later a Lightning goes down the 600m grass strip with it's gear down. Gets opposite the hangar and gives it loads in an impressive climb out.

"A little short for me, thanks for the invite"

Just curious, why would you ever have to hold at 500ft on the heli routes?

A bit like the Merlin I heard on the RT, trying to go to Northolt, was held at Kew Bridge due to the police just north, and when he said he could go lower to transit underneath the Police, he was told he was low enough already, and to hold.

"The Wokka driver I spoke to many years ago described it as IFR3 (I Follow Roads, Rivers and Railways), so they're keeping all their options open".


Not just Wokka drivers, we had a USMC Pilot on exchange in 899 a few years ago, "Major Mac". When asked after a night flight where he'd been he said he followed the A303 East, until he got towards W London, ATC got "p!55ed" with him so he headed south until he found the coast. Came west along the coast until he recognised Portland Bill and then flew North to get back to VL.

Helicopter IFR Russian style ;)

http://youtu.be/g6cT3IApmBE

500' was the highest I could go as that was the cloud base!

Ok. Always curious why someone would put themselves in a position of being forced down to 500ft, in controlled airspace, trying to maintain VMC, with large obstacles around. I was under the impression that the min height in the TVAA for mil was 1000ft above urban areas.
Of course there are sections of the heli routes where you have to fly lower due to airspace or traffic above, but then you are flying in accordance with a published route. Even under Special VFR, the obstacle clearance only goes down to min 500ft.

I suppose I could tell you why I had to be there (and I certainly wasn't 'forced' down to 500'), but you'll just have to wait until the relevant documents are released....probably in about 20 years I'd guess.

I don't need to wait 20 years for you to tell us that you had picked up a bunch of swimmy Calais types and were just dropping them off at the nearest benefits office.

Or is that Opsec ?