BAD WEATHER
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BAD WEATHER
What is the worst weather you've ever flown in and what was the helo you were in at that time?. .. .I know it's easy to brag because you're anonymous, but let's try and keep it realistic, eh?. .. .I'll start:. .. .Night sea transit: Cornwall to Prestwick in a Seaking, encountered a Cb. A/c accreted ice like there was no tomorrow and at one stage we were pulling max continuous torque and still going down at 3000'/min, before it suddenly went very calm as if nothing happened...no-one spoke for a full 5 minutes.. . . . <small>[ 10 March 2002, 23:53: Message edited by: Thomas coupling ]</small>
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That sounds like a whole bunch of fun, not!!! Why do I think this thread could end up with a bunch of Sea King dits?. .. .Mine, not quite so bad - night troop move up a fjord on NVG. Inevitable snow storm arrived, so the only visual reference I had was a single sodium street light about 2 miles ahead. No viz of the surface at 150', no viz of either side of the fjord 1/2 mile to R & L, and no climb option. Fortunately, I was flying with a Kiwi bloke who was pretty cool about it all, and we made the pick up, and got out again OK.
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Hi TC,. .Mine is a little tame , but about half way thru my training, the CFi took me out in a 36 Knt wind to see if I could handle the thing, anyway after fighting nature to become stable in the Hover at about 25ft I noticed the manifold gauge showed me hovering at 15" on the gauge, God and the wind was doing the rest, brilliant day that one , followed the day after by being battered to death(almost ) by flying into a snow storm, that chilled me a little! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />
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Up the coast, forcaast was 2300 ovc and 10, actual was more like 700 and 5 and getting worse as a cold front was sweeping down. Got to west palm beach approach, and they tell me the field had gone IFR, I would have to go around the field.. .. .Well, going out over ocean in a Robbie without floatation, hehe, not! Was going to investigate going west around WPB, when he offered me that, (We were headed up to Stewart, and this is night BTW...) I asked the current weather at Stewart and he states "Stewart is VFR, 2300 ovc and 10 miles" .... .. ."But so were you a minute ago hehe ... We're turnin around...". .. .Always better to be on the ground wishing I was flying than in the air wishing I was on the ground.. .. .Someday I'll relate a EC-130Q story about collision avoidance late night with da moon. It's true! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" />
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Well, probably a small event but enough to make me realize I was not invincible...we're back in the late 80's in NZ, north island, in a H300c around 1800 hours LT. I had just ferried 2 pax back from a little island resort, Pakatoa for you Kiwi readers, to Ardmore, Low on fuel, so had refuel. Looked at the sky and could see a front coming from the sea side, but it did not register...(90 hours PIC...)so off I went again, and within 10 minutes or so, you guessed it...in the clouds, over water, and pitch black, no AH..to complement the situation, a very pretty lightning display..(NOT) I somehow kept my cool (no time to change my underpants) and kept 300 feet above water, as I knew I had to go across another small island before Pakatao's pad. The ATC officer came on the radio as he could see the helo's bleep on his radar; To this day, I believe I owe him my life as he was calm, reassuring and vectored me to the island, reminding me of height, surrounding etc. As far as blindness from lightning, I was lucky to wear a helmet and put the sun visor down. Pretty strange to be one minute in darkness, with only the red lights on panel, and next in total daylight....As I had flown the route a few time that day, I could remember where a few features should have been. I descended closer to the sea, (50' or so) and suddenly, saw the island some distance away during a lightning strike. I then spotted mast lights from anchored boats and finally landed safely in atrocious rain and wind conditions. The waiting passengers had no ideas....one came to see me as I was shutting down to ask me why we could not depart straight away....Well I went straight to the bar, and downed a few rums; I also rang the ATC officer to thank him. Lesson learned: DON'T BE a DAMN FOOL trying to impress ladies.....(my waiting passengers) <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />
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The statute of limitations should protect me from the clutches of the relevant authority.. .Flying a Jet Ranger, doing pipeline patrols. Pretty foul weather, fog, mist very low clouds. Fortunately had a very good co-pilot (building time), and we eventually ran into vis that was less than 0.25 miles and clouds were nearly down to the deck (certainly less than 200' AGL). Since there were towers ahead that were 300' AGL, we decided to land on the pipeline right of way, sort it out, and then turn around and go down through some low ground.. .And then there was the time I was hovering over the autobahn in a Polish helicopter at 75' in the fog... and did a cross-cockpit ILS since the Polish captain had never flown an ILS.. .Always have an out!!!
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For the Americal Division in Vietnam, the tactical VFR minimums were 300' and 1/4 mile days, 500' and 1/2 mile night. It was not unusual to fly missions in the flat land under those conditions. Slow down to 40 to 60 knots, and the copilot keeps one finger on the map at all times.
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Keep 'em coming, like the one about statute of limitations where you could really tell it like it is without come back.... .. .How's this one then:. .A five ship formation display team (early 80's), en route back home split up due to weather. Weather at base 300' in poor viz. All 5 a/c vectored to same airspace above cloud where we joined up in 'vic' and did a close formation GCA to decision height. Only things visible throughout were the anti-colls on the tail. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
5 ship formation with press-on-itis launch into sunset with 3.5 hour over ocean transit to third world airport rather than hit the bar and try the next day. Less than 1 hour later we are doing the unaided formation thing (oh for a set of NVG's) in the blackness when we go inadvertant IMC and lose contact and do the formation break. The thought of the 4 other machines moments ago at 1 - 2 rotors, now unseen in the black gloop around you instantly crystalised the formation break procedure and the hope that everyone was listening to the brief!! . .. .15 mins later at different hieghts, someone stupidly says he can now see the anticols of the aircraft in front, so the boss orders a rejoin. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> . .. .After another hour or so, it happens again!!. .. .And then ANOTHER rejoin.. .. .Finally a formation unaided ILS into said ****hole through light cloud and rain to land at nearest short changing bar. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="rolleyes.gif" />
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Maybe this doesn’t count because it relates to a bad weather incident in a fixed wing aircraft. (PBY-5A). I was flying as the flight engineer on a SAR looking for a tug that exploded in Lake Erie near Buffalo. We were accompanied by an Air Force SAR B-17. The fog was almost at lake level and we were flying about 50-100 feet over the surface of the lake. The B-17 returned to Selfridge Field knowing that there was no chance of locating the tug or survivors. We had been up for about 14 hours and returned to Buffalo to tank up. I was relieved for the flight back and I immediately hit the sack.. .. .I was so sound asleep that I missed out on the following. On the way back we encountered severe icing and the pilot turned on the de-icing pump putting alcohol on the props. The pump caught fire and the crew was trying to extinguish the fire, which was encroaching on the fuel tank for the APU. All of this was taking place about four or five feet from me and I was totally unaware. The pilot turned off the pumps and the props started to ice up. The props went out of balance and the ice broke off and hit the navigators sighting window destroying it and peppering the fuselage making a terrific racket and I not only did not notice the vibration and noise but I did not notice the drop in temperature. The pilot had hit the bail out bell and I didn’t hear that either. One more ring and we would have had to go over the side. Our wings and tail were also icing up and the wing warmers and the tail heater could not keep up.. .. .When we landed they woke me up and told me to open the hangar doors and they would just taxi into the hangar. I opened the doors and turned on the hardstand lights and what I saw amazed me. Two antennae had broken off and were hanging over the tail, the left side of the aircraft looked as if a ball peen hammer had been used to hit the skin of the aircraft and the whole aircraft was covered in ice. The pilot stated that if our base were twenty miles further we would have crashed.. . . . <small>[ 15 March 2002, 04:26: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]</small>
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On tactical missions in the 300 to 500 foot ceiling days, we had trouble shooting from a Snake, because the targets were sometimes up hill a bit, in the soup. I had one mission west of Chu Lai where a company was under attack, and we were called out to help them. It took a while toget out there at 60 knots, weaving around all the terrain. When I got out there, their grids were up in the overcast, several hundred meters into the clouds,at about 500 foot MSL. We could only get about 300 before we were IMC. .. .I lined up carefully with some distinct tree lines and tossed a few rockets up in the general direction, but purposely wide of the friendlies. They walked the rounds in on the Fox Mike as I made each run. By the fourth run, the rounds were on target. My wingman then joined in and we fired for about 1/2 hour, as the troops pulled back under our covering fire. Everybody got away on that one, as they walked down from the overcast to our slicks.. .. .That was the only time I ever heard of GCA IFR shooting.
Avoid imitations
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Forced down by freezing fog, to find ourselves over the EderSee, hover taxying across the water, our downwash making our own freezing rain and then finding we had to cross over a set of electricity wires. Almost IMC, as we went over them to reach the bank we noticed we were also UNDER another set of HT cables very close above us <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="rolleyes.gif" /> .. .. .Still wake up sweating about that one.
Nick,. .. .The mind boggles! I trust they bought you a drink or three later, how did you exit the gloop after the break, and reform?. .. .Questions, questions.
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In a Gazelle at night with a new "pilot" showing him the ropes on NVG and experimenting with the new unstabilised thermal camera. Suddenly fly into a cb and snow, unforecast as the best ones always are, at about 1500 feet in hilly country! Not enough fuel for an IFR recovery not that I considered that for too long with the turbulance and icing potential. The pilot reverted to instruments (he was Amber rated with about 20 hours experiance). I turned him on to a DR heading for a valley and started to descend, at 1000 feet the glow of a village appeared in the NVG but nothing to the naked eye. The village was identified in the TI so I trimmed the camera to the center of the village and set it at 3 degrees down and started to talk the pilot down. At about 500 feet a known landing point was identified on the TI, still litle more than a glow on the NVG, so I continued the talk down. At about 200 feet the landing site lights were visible on the NVG so I took control and landed. After shut down we clambered out to be met by the residents of the site who wondered what we were doing as we were not expected!! We were also standing in 2 inches of snow that had fallen in about 10 mins. After shaking hands, thats shaking hands whilst shaking, we discussed what we had done in rather high pitch voices and went to find a bar. Damn thing was shut, well it was 1 o clock in the morning, so we found a video and pressed play. The vid was Black Adder "Private Plane", just what we needed. . .. .If you are out there Nick, I hope you remember how much we both learnt that night. Good luck.
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Thomas C,. .. .The best way to identify bad weather is NOT to wear goggles. They will lead you into it if you don't take care, giving you no option but an IFR recovery.
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Beg to differ on that one Shy Tq. With proper training and a small amount of experience you can detect deteriorating weather conditions. It's only when you start using the goggles to push the weather limits that you will find yourself aiding an inadvertant IMC experience.
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Flashman,. .. .I don't think we are differing at all, my cautionary note is to avoid the pressing on bit!. .. .The problem is potentially worse with the newer generations of NVG that use the near-infra red end of the visible light spectrum. They can see into cloud and poor vis far better than the earlier versions and tempt the user onwards....whereas the old Gen 1s were very prone to snowflaking and so didn't allow pilots to operate in such poor conditions because they didn't see into cloud at all well.. .. .Some SOPs require users to regularly check OFF goggles that the weather is still OK. If it's not, an early decision has to be made to go home.. .. .I think we are talking UK police ops here. It should be borne in mind that not all police pilots are fully instrument rated, leading to a potential problem if the visual contact limits are pushed too far.. . . . <small>[ 19 March 2002, 13:48: Message edited by: ShyTorque ]</small>