Tackling Engine Fire After Take Off in Multi Engine Heli
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The original question was on rotation from a rig take off, hence normally no obstructions as the sea is relatively flat. Thus the priority SURELY must be to fly the aircraft (using automatics or mandraulic) then once going up fight the fire.
One thought about a hot gas leak, we pause at each movement of the SSL to confirm signs of fire and to diagnose if it is a hot gas leak. If the warning goes out at idle then likely a hot gas leak, but what now? A wise TRE suggested to me that a hot gas leak @ a couple of hundred degrees C can still cause a fire so shut it down anyway. I believe in his outlook and would rather recover one engine with much less fire hazards than to keep it going and risk further fire. This of course means you cannot restart the engine if it does indeed have a hot gas leak so it's time for a single engine landing. Not your day if that all becomes a problem.
Si
One thought about a hot gas leak, we pause at each movement of the SSL to confirm signs of fire and to diagnose if it is a hot gas leak. If the warning goes out at idle then likely a hot gas leak, but what now? A wise TRE suggested to me that a hot gas leak @ a couple of hundred degrees C can still cause a fire so shut it down anyway. I believe in his outlook and would rather recover one engine with much less fire hazards than to keep it going and risk further fire. This of course means you cannot restart the engine if it does indeed have a hot gas leak so it's time for a single engine landing. Not your day if that all becomes a problem.
Si
A wise TRE suggested to me that a hot gas leak @ a couple of hundred degrees C can still cause a fire so shut it down anyway
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HC
Edited to mention that the EC225 has a little trick up its sleeve which is that if for example you operate the training idle switch, the engine runs down to idle at the maximum rate (ie very quickly!). However, if you move the engine control switch to idle, the engine slows to idle much more gently over several seconds. Thus if on that bad day you do move the wrong switch, you get a second or so to change your mind before significant power is lost from that engine.
I think Nick said regarding fire in another thread, a long time ago, that certification regulation for FAR 29 cat A demands each engine bay to withstand something like 1100 degrees C for 15 minutes. Shawn might know.
CB
CB
NRDK - Why not mention the trick? The point is that every little helps to make the HMI more error-tolerant. The more error tolerant a system is, the less of a "big deal" it is to carry related drills out near the surface.
If you imagine that "stick to the EOP" is all that is required from a manufacturer, you don't understand human nature, which is to err.
Sorry but if you suspect that this tiny piece of information will distract you during execution of an emergency drill, I don't think you should be flying.
Collective - so that is fine provided the temperature doesn't exceed 1100!
If you imagine that "stick to the EOP" is all that is required from a manufacturer, you don't understand human nature, which is to err.
Sorry but if you suspect that this tiny piece of information will distract you during execution of an emergency drill, I don't think you should be flying.
Collective - so that is fine provided the temperature doesn't exceed 1100!
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Quick 180 turn, Look for smoke, If on fire LAND NOW. On the rig or in the sea, You have seconds, Seen an aircraft burn up in flight less than a minute, All dead, Better a controled landing now than having a smokin hole later.
I may have missed it but are there helos out there that DON't show which engine has the fire: T handles / associated fire wires/ lights?
This being the case (ie: ambiguity regarding which engine) I can understand a height climb whilst identifying the cause/source. BUT in helos which immediately indicate which engine is "on fire" why would any sane pilot climb away from the biggest fire extinguisher in the world?
Given that the a/c is designed to advertise which engine is affected, I would come off the rig at Vy and cruise at 50'/100' (day/night) whilst stabilising the fire. IF it couldnt be contained it would mean a very short trip into wind and a controlled ditching. Fires do give pilots a little time to sort their lives out, but a real (uncontained) one "probably" wouldn't allow you to get away with a climb to 500' and back again to sea level.
Something that occasionally goes unnoticed is a post shut down fire where T4/PTIT/outlet temp is rising. This is an internal fire and cannot normally be extinguished by onboard fire suppression systems as these are directed at the fire bay (external). The only way to deal with this is engine starter blow thru and hope it extinguishes the fire - or else you're back to uncontained fire.
This being the case (ie: ambiguity regarding which engine) I can understand a height climb whilst identifying the cause/source. BUT in helos which immediately indicate which engine is "on fire" why would any sane pilot climb away from the biggest fire extinguisher in the world?
Given that the a/c is designed to advertise which engine is affected, I would come off the rig at Vy and cruise at 50'/100' (day/night) whilst stabilising the fire. IF it couldnt be contained it would mean a very short trip into wind and a controlled ditching. Fires do give pilots a little time to sort their lives out, but a real (uncontained) one "probably" wouldn't allow you to get away with a climb to 500' and back again to sea level.
Something that occasionally goes unnoticed is a post shut down fire where T4/PTIT/outlet temp is rising. This is an internal fire and cannot normally be extinguished by onboard fire suppression systems as these are directed at the fire bay (external). The only way to deal with this is engine starter blow thru and hope it extinguishes the fire - or else you're back to uncontained fire.
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HC.
Come on now..as a wise TRE you should know that you shouldn’t belittle a pilot for sticking to EOP’s!..... err, that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?
After TDP/Before LDP on a dark, poor viz night flight, Sticking to the manufacturers RFM procedures and Company SOP’s EOP’s and ECL drills is just what you should do. For the sake of standards and CRM. If you do and that still isn’t enough then so be it. If you don’t and it goes ‘Pete Tong’ then you’ll be hung out to dry if you survived.
I appreciate your lateral ideas as an experienced pilot and see where you are coming from. Having a good systems knowledge and ideas about how to tackle the subsequent what if scenarios is fine up ones sleeve. Just advocating a point for the sake of those lesser mortals hanging on the words of the wise.
TC..Has the right idea.
Come on now..as a wise TRE you should know that you shouldn’t belittle a pilot for sticking to EOP’s!..... err, that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?
After TDP/Before LDP on a dark, poor viz night flight, Sticking to the manufacturers RFM procedures and Company SOP’s EOP’s and ECL drills is just what you should do. For the sake of standards and CRM. If you do and that still isn’t enough then so be it. If you don’t and it goes ‘Pete Tong’ then you’ll be hung out to dry if you survived.
I appreciate your lateral ideas as an experienced pilot and see where you are coming from. Having a good systems knowledge and ideas about how to tackle the subsequent what if scenarios is fine up ones sleeve. Just advocating a point for the sake of those lesser mortals hanging on the words of the wise.
TC..Has the right idea.
NRDK - I have at no point suggested that SOPs / EOPs should not be adhered to. So I think you are finding argument where there is none.
My point had moved on slightly, and it was that thoughtful aircraft system design should consider being error-tolerant where possible, since humans are fallible. By having error tolerant system design and procedures, operating switches etc near the surface can become less of an issue.
If a manufacturer simply says "stick to the EOPs" without regard to how easy that is, and how error tolerant those EOPs are, it is failing in its duty to design good HMI. When it all goes wrong due to poor design and a pilot mistake, the bad manufacturer can then just blame "pilot error" and hope to get away with it, at least that's how it was in the olden, less intelligent, days.
I found it rather strange that you felt that any additional information over and above the bare minimum to carry out the drill, might cause you to malfunction. I am sure you didn't really mean that.
My point had moved on slightly, and it was that thoughtful aircraft system design should consider being error-tolerant where possible, since humans are fallible. By having error tolerant system design and procedures, operating switches etc near the surface can become less of an issue.
If a manufacturer simply says "stick to the EOPs" without regard to how easy that is, and how error tolerant those EOPs are, it is failing in its duty to design good HMI. When it all goes wrong due to poor design and a pilot mistake, the bad manufacturer can then just blame "pilot error" and hope to get away with it, at least that's how it was in the olden, less intelligent, days.
I found it rather strange that you felt that any additional information over and above the bare minimum to carry out the drill, might cause you to malfunction. I am sure you didn't really mean that.
mad-jock - each engine is in its own firewalled enclosure - apart from the cowlings of course, but I guess they are dispensible! However it you look at the nature of the firewalls, they never look that substantial to me, and just behind them is the main gearbox / flight control jacks and all hydraulic systems. Just underneath them is the passenger cabin.
Of course the firewall is to an approved standard, and will deal with the "standard" fire whatever that is, but trouble is the fire doesn't know what the standard is!
I recall a rotorbrake fire back in the early 80s, caused by carrying out a groundrun with the rotor brake on. The carbon brake disc became incandescent white, the caliper softened so the pistons popped out and sprayed hydraulic fluid over the white-hot brake disc. The resulting fire caused moulten titanium to drip into the cabin. Fortunately all this was on the ground, but the pilot knew nothing about it until he was walking away from the aircraft wondering why the rotor brake didn't work when he shut down, and what the smell and fuss was. (no transmission area fire detection in the UK reg AS332L).
Edited to add that the melting point of titanium is around 1650 deg C, so the 1100 deg C "standard" fire was clearly well exceeded.
Of course the firewall is to an approved standard, and will deal with the "standard" fire whatever that is, but trouble is the fire doesn't know what the standard is!
I recall a rotorbrake fire back in the early 80s, caused by carrying out a groundrun with the rotor brake on. The carbon brake disc became incandescent white, the caliper softened so the pistons popped out and sprayed hydraulic fluid over the white-hot brake disc. The resulting fire caused moulten titanium to drip into the cabin. Fortunately all this was on the ground, but the pilot knew nothing about it until he was walking away from the aircraft wondering why the rotor brake didn't work when he shut down, and what the smell and fuss was. (no transmission area fire detection in the UK reg AS332L).
Edited to add that the melting point of titanium is around 1650 deg C, so the 1100 deg C "standard" fire was clearly well exceeded.
Last edited by HeliComparator; 18th Dec 2012 at 20:46.
Given that the a/c is designed to advertise which engine is affected, I would come off the rig at Vy and cruise at 50'/100' (day/night) whilst stabilising the fire. IF it couldnt be contained it would mean a very short trip into wind and a controlled ditching. Fires do give pilots a little time to sort their lives out, but a real (uncontained) one "probably" wouldn't allow you to get away with a climb to 500' and back again to sea level.
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On 14 July 1982 (I remember it because it was Bastille Day 
), I was in a Bell 212 departing a drill ship 60 miles north of Port Said with 2 crew, 13 passengers, 35 degrees celsius and light wind and just as I had lowered the nose and committed to departure, the number one engine ran slowly down to idle followed by the fire T handle illuminating, my heart beat increasing in inverse proportion to the Nr decrease and the anal sphincter being put under some strain . My co-pilot immediately carried out the fire drill, pulling the T-handle, shutting down the engine and broadcasting a Mayday call whilst I was trying to fly away with the Nr somewhere around 82% decreasing, less than 20 knots and descending slightly through about 20 feet. At about this point the number 2 engine chip light illuminated, and the copilot assuming I was going to ditch, manually inflated the floats. Unfortunately as our Haskel booster was not working properly, the float bottle pressure was a bit low and the floats only partially inflated, but they did look very attractive fluttering in the breeze and made an already interesting day even more interesting . Just after this, the number 1 engine fire warning again illuminated and the one remaining shot was discharged into the engine bay. Luckily, this worked and I eventually managed to gain enough airspeed and Nr to climbed to 1000 feet, though I was unable to cruise at more than 60 knots, so the flight to Port Said, El Gamil airport left plenty of time to carry out the after take-off checks and 'subsequent actions', reflecting that the whole incident had been something out of Gerard Hoffnung's monologue, 'The Bricklayer's Story' 
. Heli-Onion kindly scrambled their Alouette 3 from El Gamil and we were relieved to hear the cheery voice of Guy who arrived to escort us in and assure us that there did not appear to be any major damage, though there was paint missing.
After safely landing, for some inexplicable reason, I slipped whilst disembarking and ended up sitting on my bruised bum on the taxi-way with lots of chalk dust from the floats on my trousers! One of our Newfie passengers produced a bottle of Seagram's VO and poured a large slug into my coffee to help revive my spirits
. That evening, being Bastille Day I attended a party at the Forasol base manager's apartment, where after imbibing plenty of celebratory draughts of deliciously refreshing Cypriot Keo Othello red wine, then moving on to the slightly less refreshing Retsina and ouzo, our host revealed his tour de force; a case of French champagne, his sabre à champagne and educated us in the art of opening the bottles by sabrage 
. It took me some days to recover my composure .
However, I digress. There was obvious fire damage to the aircraft, with paint having burnt off the engine and gearbox cowlings. It was subsequently discovered that the locking nut on the engine oil filler cap had sheared off its thread and the filler cap at some stage during the take off had come off. The lack of lubrication caused the engine to run down and shortly after, the oil on the outside of the combustion chamber must have reached its flash point. Evidently, although the first shot of the fire bottle had extinguished the initial fire, there was still enough oil to start a second fire.
I've always treated engine fire warnings seriously since then
. One excellent outcome was being presented with a beautiful engraved silver tankard tankard by Alan Bristow, which made the whole episode most worthwhile 
), I was in a Bell 212 departing a drill ship 60 miles north of Port Said with 2 crew, 13 passengers, 35 degrees celsius and light wind and just as I had lowered the nose and committed to departure, the number one engine ran slowly down to idle followed by the fire T handle illuminating, my heart beat increasing in inverse proportion to the Nr decrease and the anal sphincter being put under some strain . My co-pilot immediately carried out the fire drill, pulling the T-handle, shutting down the engine and broadcasting a Mayday call whilst I was trying to fly away with the Nr somewhere around 82% decreasing, less than 20 knots and descending slightly through about 20 feet. At about this point the number 2 engine chip light illuminated, and the copilot assuming I was going to ditch, manually inflated the floats. Unfortunately as our Haskel booster was not working properly, the float bottle pressure was a bit low and the floats only partially inflated, but they did look very attractive fluttering in the breeze and made an already interesting day even more interesting . Just after this, the number 1 engine fire warning again illuminated and the one remaining shot was discharged into the engine bay. Luckily, this worked and I eventually managed to gain enough airspeed and Nr to climbed to 1000 feet, though I was unable to cruise at more than 60 knots, so the flight to Port Said, El Gamil airport left plenty of time to carry out the after take-off checks and 'subsequent actions', reflecting that the whole incident had been something out of Gerard Hoffnung's monologue, 'The Bricklayer's Story' . Heli-Onion kindly scrambled their Alouette 3 from El Gamil and we were relieved to hear the cheery voice of Guy who arrived to escort us in and assure us that there did not appear to be any major damage, though there was paint missing.After safely landing, for some inexplicable reason, I slipped whilst disembarking and ended up sitting on my bruised bum on the taxi-way with lots of chalk dust from the floats on my trousers! One of our Newfie passengers produced a bottle of Seagram's VO and poured a large slug into my coffee to help revive my spirits
. That evening, being Bastille Day I attended a party at the Forasol base manager's apartment, where after imbibing plenty of celebratory draughts of deliciously refreshing Cypriot Keo Othello red wine, then moving on to the slightly less refreshing Retsina and ouzo, our host revealed his tour de force; a case of French champagne, his sabre à champagne and educated us in the art of opening the bottles by sabrage . It took me some days to recover my composure .However, I digress. There was obvious fire damage to the aircraft, with paint having burnt off the engine and gearbox cowlings. It was subsequently discovered that the locking nut on the engine oil filler cap had sheared off its thread and the filler cap at some stage during the take off had come off. The lack of lubrication caused the engine to run down and shortly after, the oil on the outside of the combustion chamber must have reached its flash point. Evidently, although the first shot of the fire bottle had extinguished the initial fire, there was still enough oil to start a second fire.
I've always treated engine fire warnings seriously since then
. One excellent outcome was being presented with a beautiful engraved silver tankard tankard by Alan Bristow, which made the whole episode most worthwhile
Last edited by soggyboxers; 2nd Jan 2013 at 06:44. Reason: Compass swing carried out
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I know this topic is going to be like a can of worms with each of us coming up with his own views and experiences. Now , if we are to write some thing in black and white in the company ops manual for EVERY PILOT to follow that is going to be very different. Some sort of figures has to come out. Most of the Cat A profile take offs ( at least for EC 225) calls for climb at V toss to 200 ft AGL then accelerate to Vy maybe I should say we proceed with the Fire Drill after 200 ft and above Vy might be a good idea.Of course very good CRM has to be displayed to prevent shutting down the wrong engine.
I did a very naughty thing at Helisim on the EC 225 sim recently. I asked for a Eng Fire emergency and did NOTHING about it while continuing with the other ex excises. Can anyone guess how long it took for the sim to crash?
I did a very naughty thing at Helisim on the EC 225 sim recently. I asked for a Eng Fire emergency and did NOTHING about it while continuing with the other ex excises. Can anyone guess how long it took for the sim to crash?
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Tackling Engine Fire After Take Off in Multi Engine Heli
Soggy,
Great story.......
One of our Newfie passengers produced a bottle of Seagram's VO and poured a large slug into my coffee to help revive my spirits ......
Mmmm.... Enroute through main base en route Newfieland and time off.....too funny but yep, typical Newfie, they haven't changed, I'm an honoury Brit Newfie ha ha....live in StJohns, love it......
Great story.......
One of our Newfie passengers produced a bottle of Seagram's VO and poured a large slug into my coffee to help revive my spirits ......
Mmmm.... Enroute through main base en route Newfieland and time off.....too funny but yep, typical Newfie, they haven't changed, I'm an honoury Brit Newfie ha ha....live in StJohns, love it......
Can anyone guess how long it took for the sim to crash?
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...pdf_503163.pdf
I believe the MGB was collapsing through the roof within 3 minutes of the initial warning, but others here will be nearer the detailed facts I'm sure.
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Hi all,
as an engineer
I can appreciate all POV's from aircrew's regarding fires.
A visual aid would be of great help in these types of testing times for example.
I work with a fleet of AW139's and they all have a camera mounted on the verticle fin, so gives a great view looking forward from the tail and can be easily accessed via the displays in the cockpit. Would be a useful visual aid when presented with a fire warning.
I would think that from a commercial POV that this type of kit (which is a kit from the manufacturer) would possibly lower insurance premiums...and/or pay for themselves so to speak?
Just a thought.
as an engineer
I can appreciate all POV's from aircrew's regarding fires.A visual aid would be of great help in these types of testing times for example.
I work with a fleet of AW139's and they all have a camera mounted on the verticle fin, so gives a great view looking forward from the tail and can be easily accessed via the displays in the cockpit. Would be a useful visual aid when presented with a fire warning.
I would think that from a commercial POV that this type of kit (which is a kit from the manufacturer) would possibly lower insurance premiums...and/or pay for themselves so to speak?
Just a thought.
Gnow, I suggest that if you want to tie this down, you just require the airspeed to be above Vtoss before actioning the fire drill. If coming off a rig you clearly don't want to shut down the engine until you reach OEI climb speed, and getting to that speed and starting to climb is the critical flight period. After that, what difference does it make whether you are at 200 or 100'? The aircraft will be flying itself, and carrying out the fire drill on the wrong engine would be a disaster whether at 100 or 200'.
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212man you are right the time elapsed was about 3 minutes as I recall also, scary and the crew did a good job to land on an MOD playing field thus allowing MOD police to instantly secure the area. Thankfully no one was playing at the time.
Si
Si
I work with a fleet of AW139's and they all have a camera mounted on the verticle fin