Deck landings

[CyclicRick]

Any nice little tips on deck landings from you naval types out there?
Yes, I've drawn the short straw and have to take a 206 down to Egypt this week for a month which will involve landing on bloody great tankers full of the black stuff.

Ta!

[sandy helmet]

We do occasional tanker support using an Astar, and its not too traumatic.......

1. The shipping company or agent will provide ship's details on request beforehand, to determine the deck setup - whether the landing is to port or starboard etc. Usually the helidecks are on the forward third of the ship.

2. Marine VHF is very helpful. Call up to determine winds across the deck, and how much, if any, of pitch, roll and heave the ship is experiencing.

3. You can request the ship turn to a heading that will allow you to make an into the wind landing.

4. Typically, the approach procedure is to circle the ship, and make your finals from astern at an oblique angle (in case you need to go around). In the case of skidded helicopters, remember that the deck itself may be sloped or angled, and sometimes slippery, so beware of ground resonance or sliding across it.

5. Your ships crew, if there is an approved helideck, should be well trained in helicopter movements - our company does like to take one of our own trained ground crewmen whenever we can.

6. For departure, pull to a high hover, if possible back away and align the helicopter with the direction of ships travel, which will mean accepting a right or left quartering wind, and depart over the water, keeping away from the ship. (Captains aren't very keen on take offs over their decks or superstructures).

Some other points - Personally, I like to plan my fuel very carefully, as I like to have as much available power as possible, especially in a single.
There may be lots of bollards, stanchions, pipes and rails which can make you slightly uncomfortable in a good wind, but just keep your eyes open.
If the ship is under way, there maybe a brief visual clue transition from a stationary to a moving horizon.
If you have to be sat on deck for a while, and there is a noticeable swell, there is a chance that you may get seasick - this happened to me once.

Hope this helps, and good luck!!

[KENNYR]

Everything Sandy said plus........if the boat has an experienced heli handling crew then obey their signals/commands unless you feel that the aircraft is in danger by doing so. You will soon know if the crew is experienced! Time your landing, especially in a skidded machine to coincide with the boat reaching its highest point on the swell (does that make sense?). DON'T touch down as the boat is rising!!!

[Moneyshot]

Deck landings.. Where do you start??
Sandy has covered quite a lot of it. I've never landed anything as small as a 206 on a pitching, heaving deck before, being an ex Sea King driver.(I would expect the 206 to twitch rather than wallow in the lee of the super-structure).
Things to watch out for would be turbulence in the lee. Try to give yourself a red 45 degree relative wind and approach from the left.
Be ready to go around if the turbulence gets beyond your own personally set limits (avoid pumping the lever and over-torquing).
You're landing with wind from the left so think about pedal limits and yaw control in turbulence (power off in the 206 I think so should have spare pedal to play with).
Smoke from the stacks might come into play at some point so stay low as you move over the deck.
Salt-spray ingestion might be a problem if you spend too much time hovering along side.
Let the ship's movement settle before moving over the deck. It may look rough at first but it WILL settle 'trust me.'
Whilst along side pick your 'bum-line' (Probably one marked) and your 'eye-line' (possibly marked on the ship ahead of the flight deck). Without conning from the rear you will need these for visual references as you lose sight of the deck beneath you (talking mainly large helo here).
In turbulence, dont be afraid of making a firm landing. Avoids those pesky rollover problems.
If your machine has a stab/SAS etc, disengage it immediately after landing as it will try to compensate for deck movement. Likewise leave it till last before taking off.
Avoid looking at the propellers as they come out of the water I guarantee it will put you off.
Have a plan for in case you ditch.
These are some of the more extreme problems you might face but if it's a nice day and the sea is smooth, you'll walk it, Enjoy!!

[burger]

As an add-on to all the rest of very good replys ...............

I plan to overfly the ship at 1000' 80kts to insure the hatch is clear and to identify it. Fly a right hand ctt (B206) reducing to 60kts by end of down wind leg turn right for the base leg arm floats and start a 500' rate of decent aimimg for the first gate of 500' 60kts turn final and reduce rate of decent to 300'/min 45kts.

You'll find in this configuration the aircraft will fly it's self to the touch down point nicely with no large pitch pull at the bottom. As was said before stay ahead of the aircraft at all times incase the noise stops as your reaction time is critical for a successful auto.

Be aware of where your tail rotor will be on landing as some decks have limited access points and of course obsticals (railings beside ladders) etc..........

I use this for night ship transfers as well.

On departing lift to hover, last instrument check, pull smoothly to 100% confirm positive rate of climb, nose over to 5-7% wait for airspeed to increase to 60kts check rate of climb is always positive and maitain this till 1000' then reduce power to cruise and turn homeward unarm floats.

Doing night take-offs from a ship on a moonless night in a B206 is something else! Safe flying

[zalt]

As Burger has said - some top quality advice.

Don't forget to watch the ship's crew like a hawk when rotors running and if on the deck for some time remember that changes in wind-over-deck direction can build up subtly (its difficult to spot a VLCC changing direction).

[Arm out the window]

Re the fuel planning - consider emergencies like hydraulics; it's good to have a land-based diversion available.

[Lu Zuckerman]

In days of old when pilots were bold.

I posted this on another forum in response to the same question.


I can’t speak from pilots’ perspective but I rode as a passenger or, I directed the landing from the flight deck. I operated off of the CGC Mackinaw on the Great Lakes and the CGC Eastwind off the coasts of Greenland and Northern Canada. On the Mackinaw the pilots could come in from the left or right of the after deck or, they could come in over the stern as there were no obstructions and the beam of the ship was around 74 feet at the after deck area. The Eastwind was another story. It was very seldom that the helicopters (HO3-S 1G and Bell HTL-1 B-47) could land on the centerline coming in over the stern. In most cases they had to land athwart ships trying to maintain a track with the moving ship and trying to dodge a big crane and or, cable stays for the main mast. The Captain of the ship would not adjust his course to allow an over the stern landing and this was true especially if they were breaking ice. Breaking ice also introduced another problem. The ship was equipped with very large water tanks and very powerful pumps. During ice breaking the pumps would circulate the water to the various tanks around the ship. This would cause the ship to pitch up or down and / or roll at a very rapid rate so that even though the helicopter was level and moving along a sideward track the pilot had to thread the helicopter through the obstacles to hit a moving deck. This was further complicated by the turbulent airflow coming down the center of the ship. To make matters worse the HO3S only had parking brakes and those were not very effective with a rolling ship and a helicopter whose rotors were still turning. We had to capture the helicopter as soon as it touched the deck and place tie downs to secure it to the deck.

During take off they would lift off vertically and move to the right while climbing. On one occasion the HTL lifted off and allowed the ship to move out from under the helicopter. Over the flight deck the helicopter was in ground effect but when the ship moved forward the helicopter was about 40 feet above the water and out of ground effect. It was the pilots’ lucky day, as he did not get his floats wet. Maybe his shorts got a bit wet.

[GLSNightPilot]

It amazes me that they can build a ship that large but provide such a small landing area. VLCC's & ULCC's don't move at all when loaded, so don't worry about pitching decks. They are extremely stable, even in heavy seas. When empty, they present a huge surface area to the wind, so they may rock side to side to some extent in high winds. The heliport on a supertanker is normally on the port side just forward of amidships, & usually clearly marked. There may or may not be a landing area on the starboard side, but that is often a winch-only area. I have seen a cantilivered heliport on the stern of one ship, but only one. That should be the requirement - it's wonderful compared to the forward landing area, which has one way in & one way out, & that's mostly downwind, especially if lightering, since the VLCC takes the daughter tanker on the starboard side, & makes a lee for it so there is less movement between the ships. Thus, you mostly land downwind, into a very small, highly obstructed area, & there are lots of skid obstructions, hatches only a few inches high but enough to bend the skid if you land on it. I have refused to land while the tanker was in its current configuration, because there was too much tailwind component. The captain didn't want to turn, but when I explained that I was taking his relief back to the shore, he changed his mind.

Be very careful, but it's not usually that difficult. I haven't landed a 206 on a tanker in some years, but I've been landing S76's & B412's on them, & if the area is big enough for a medium, it's easy for a 206. Some areas are really too tight for a 206, though, so take it slow on the approach & make sure you see everything.

[Bladestrike]

Being farely new to deck landings myself, I'm not too sure if this advice will benefit or is even correct, but I was giving the following lesson that seems to work if the deck is moving at all.

As I started to come into the hover over the deck (it was near our SOP limits for pitch, roll and heave) the Captain asked me to watch the deck. Of course using the deck for reference soon had me overcontrolling and all over the place, and that was the point of the lesson. Watching the horizon and monitoring the deck though my periphral vision worked much, much better, and allow the deck to move around below you, timing your landing as in the above posts. And if its dark and low vis, I've found you can sort of look through the ship, to its imaginary center, and use that as a point of reference. There always seems to be a lull in the movement as well if you watch for a pattern. Do you fellows with alot of time doing this sort of thing agree?

I get green as well if I spend too long on a heaving deck, and it seems much worse in low vis/ heavy rain/ fogged up windows....

I don't know how you Navy types do it.

[Lu Zuckerman]

Moving deck simulator.

In the early 1940s the US Coast Guard trained pilots from the US Navy, the US Army as well as pilots from the British forces. In anticipation of placing helicopters on ships for North Atlantic convoy patrol they devised a three-degree of freedom deck to simulate the pitching, heaving and rolling of a ships deck. All of the pilots had to be qualified on the simulator. Perhaps some commercial training facility should build another one and offer their training services. Also for maximum simulation this one should be mounted on a truck bed or on a large flatbed trailer to simulate the forward movement of the ship.

[CyclicRick]

There is alot of sound advice for me to digest, many thanks chaps.
By the look of the photos I've seen sofar you could get a squadron of 206's on most of the decks and they all seem to be, as said, port side forward of midships.
Most of the time the VLCC's will only be 8-12 NM offshore so I'll be able to take a light fuel load.
Thanks once again

Rick

[Mike Hardy]

There has been enough good advice to fill a book, so I'll attempt to keep this brief.

If you have the option, consider flying overwater with the doors off. It will make it easier to get out if the unthinkable happens. In 1997 I was the first on scene to a USN OH-58C that rolled over on takeoff (it was on floats) into the Patuxent River. The airframe deformed to a point where they couldn't jettison the doors. Fortunately they made it out through the windshield area (the windshields were gone). It was an awfully long 20-30 seconds between the time they rolled over and when I saw the crew emerge on the surface.

From my days in the Navy, I seem to recall we always flew the 206 from the deck with the doors off.

[Paul McKeksdown]

All good stuff, but one thing you probably should be aware of!

Many of the large tankers have nets strung across the landing sites, this goes for Rigs as well. Initially seems a good idea for deck grip on a painted surface, however in some cases there is a darker side.(From the point of the aircrew) I have seen where, on oil tankers, the net is connected to a winch which is used to remove the burning wreckage of your helicopter as fast as possible off of the deck of a large floating bomb!

Just for info!

Have fun

[GLSNightPilot]

Be careful on the light fuel load. When we go out, all we get usually is a center of lightering area location, & the ship may or may not be there. I've seen them 60 nm off - they were off a whole degree on longitude. 10 or more miles is not at all unusual, & at least down here in the Gulf there may be 8 or 10 VLCC's in the area, all lightering, & you have to find the one you're looking for in the herd. An extra half hour (better an hour) of fuel is warranted.

And the decks may be large, but the obstacles are many. Look out.

[kissmysquirrel]

GLSNightPilot:
I beg to differ. VLCC's etc do move when loaded, rolling up to 45 degrees. I can say this from experience having spent the last thirteen years working on them. (try two days just after new year, hove-to just off newfoundland in 12m+ swells!!) The wind has very little effect on the movement of the vessel.

I've joined and left many tankers by helicopter (not me flying unfortunately) but the deck area is usually large enough for a smallish helo such as the 206/407 right up to S76 etc. I once joined by Coast Guard Dauphin off Rotterdam, 50 miles offshore, v.bad viz, rain, wind, middle of winter, everyone else on helo in immersion gear, me in tee shirt and jeans? (I admired how professional the pilots were. ) There are often very small sounding pipes (sometimes unpainted) approx. 6-8 inches tall surrounding the Landing pad and these are fairly strong and not likely to break off if you catch one. One other point is that the Landing pad is often marked out (ringed) in lighter coloured paint and diameters painted in for reference. A good company will have a heli landing crew standing by, ready with fire fighting eqpt. etc plus the large pair of well oiled bolt cutters. The ships railings beside the pad are often unfastened and laid flat for better clearance. (or for the helicopter to fall/get pushed over the side more easily?)
As long as there is enough room, the ships Master will nearly always be able to turn the ship to give a reasonable headwind component, usually from the port forward quarter. We always rig a windsock from the fwd mast too.

CyclicRick:
I envy you. My aim is to be able to do the same one day and not have to spend 4 months onboard after landing for a change. Have a good time.

[Harry Peacock]

Yet more for your consideration!! After doing and teaching for years there are many different ways of skinning the DL cat! Here are a few of my hints to add to the rest

First thing is always check the landing area well before committing to a landing. As previously stated little pipes, bits of rope etc are always appearing even in well prepared areas.
Watch the ship movement for a while,a roll/pitch or corkscrew does not continue, it follows a cycle of several increasing movements and then settling out before starting again, you want to use this quiet period.
Into wind is good for approaches but not if the ship is between you and the wind. I've seen a small UK carrier create enough turbulence to bend a stationary rotor blade up and over the rotor head. approach allong the windward side of the ship and depart to the same side. a relative wind about 30 deg of the ships head is usualy good. Also it will keep you out of the ship exhaust which does no good to your power output and usualy tastes like @$#%.
Don't try to follow the deck up or down or side to side, again as stated use the horizon to keep a relative hover attitude stable and try to keep a steady power. Getting in to a full hover before you move in to obstructions is easier than trying to establish one in amongst obstacles over a moving deck.
Make a positive landing don't try to grease it on, Stab/SAS out and use lashings if available (Just remember to take them off before launch) Again aircraft can slip even on full non slip flight decks. (Seaking on Hermes during the Falklands got the tail wheel 5 feet out allong a gantry whilst running when the ship rolled!!)
Take off be positive but not a moon shot. Lift off the deck to a comfortable height, do checks then depart you don't want to realise something is wrong just as you leave the only landing site for miles around.
Depart clear of the superstructure then KEEP climbing (Again a friend failed to at night and flew in to the sea!!)

It's not a black art but just precision handling of your aircraft but with moving targets, remember the ship is a lot bigger than you and has a lot more mass. They all move cos 'so does the 'Oggin and no two waves are alike.

Have fun and take it carefully!!

[GLSNightPilot]

Maybe it's just me, but I've never been able to land or take off successfully offshore by looking out at the horizon. I've landed on just about everything that moves over the last 20 years - seismic boats, drilling tenders, barges, drillling rigs, tankers, & what have you, many of them pitching a lot, plus a few tens of thousands of platforms, & the only way I've been able to do it is to concentrate on the landing area, & make that look like its stationary. From the altitude required on many of these, sometimes > 200 ft MSL, I just can't get enough visual cues. I don't know any other pilots who look at the horizon. I look close in, & I can keep my movement relative to the landing area to a minimum. If you try to look at the horizon while landing on a tanker at night, I don't want to be close enough to be hit by the shrapnel.

[Go-Around]

Is this something to be aware of?

[LordGrumpy]

A very good read.

So whose got video's of these clever displays of manouvering?
The question needs no repeating, and you cannot stand easy, at the double!