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I seem to remember he did an article on a French marine pilot transfer unit that used a winch equipped 135. He's probably still got the pictures

Gamecube: 'A friend is putting together a presentation on general UK Police Air Support / HEMS / SAR and is expecting questions along the lines of 'Why don't Police / HEMS carry a winch?'

Why only ask for the capability of winch work with 135/145? To complete the picture you shouldhave asked for info on the 902 and 109 also bearing in mind that no one uses the 145 in the UK for Police/HEMS or SAR work.

Also the Agusta Grand could be ideal for winch work with its performance capabilities and 1.4m sliding cabin door.

Evening,



Not so scary at all. This technique is used quite succesfully on the continent (Europe) on EC135's. Especially in the mountains, operators cannot afford the weight and space penalty of a winch operator. If necessary the Paramedic and Emergency Physician are flown in as "underslung Load". They stabilize the patient and put him into the stretcher. Helicopter picks them up and lands at a suitable location nearby where the patient is treated further and transferred into the inside.

This is even done with variable lenght line where the paramedic can abseil down from a 10m fixed line at his "leisure" for another 80m without having to move the helicopter (used for ravines or very steep slopes).

Takes a bit of extra time to rig up the line and to transfer the patient inside but certainly not a bad solution.


http://www.oeamtc.at/netautor/data/c...bergung8_2.jpg


Regards,

Woolf

You are right, it's a tricky operation but possible. But don't forget the 135 is a small twin and nearly all small twins have that problem. Therefore the crew decides if the helicopter have to turn to the next usable landing site or if the stretcher have to come into the cabin. And ... the procedure depends on the cabin interior. Most police and HEMS ships have a lot of interior like racks, seats, ... .

Woolf is absolutely right. Fixed line is a safe and proven procedure! Have made hundreds of fixed lines including really rescue missions. Most civil HEMS operators don't have so much rescue missions with the need of a winch. They don't need a winch, the additionally winch weight, the weight of the winch operator and his monthly costs. The police units doesn't have the same problem. Normally they have enough paid personal like technicians, FLIR operators or other missions specialists ready to arm the winch.
Austria is the leading EC 135 country with more than 20 ships in this small country. They tested the winch in the Alps but use today only the fixed line.
Air Zermatt in Switzerland holds a EC 135 with winch. But the ships is nearly empty for winch ops.

Short haul in tricky area is much cheaper with more possible performance, but needs much more pilot (crew) skills compared to winch ops. Therefore the operators have more training costs.
One other advantage is the greater load on the fixed line. In the Alps they lift up to 6 persons at once with the EC 135 (partial fuel)and fixed line for example on skilift evacuations.

Not suggesting fixed line is dangerous and irresponsible!!!! Just that the 'underslung loads' themselves were a little wary. You've got to feel a little isolated down there!

I asked about 135 / 145 as they are currently seen as the units future and therefore what we should reasonably be expecteed to know about....But you're right, info on any aircraft would be important.

The big question has got to be 'Is it worth it?' Police or HEMS units would have to make some compromises that would affect their core operations. Should they stick to those core op's and leave the winching to SAR or would the public be receiving a better service if we were all winch equipped?

Cheers for the info so far,

Game

Fixed lines certainly work, guys, and the ability to do fast extractions should be part of every helo's emergency kit (along with a way to quickly cut those lines, of course.)

The idea that single engine hover is a CAA constraint on a rarely performed emergency operation is an example of over-regulation, for sure. "Sorry mister drowning man, you can't be lifted because you might get hurt if my engine quits while I am hosting you, so just tread water for another half hour!"

Look at the heroic rescue of those folks from the Air Florida crash in Washington DC to realize what a great help a well-flown helo can be in emergencies.

Here is an example of routine fixed string operations - a McGuire rig extraction of an Army Ranger patrol in Vietnam:

The pickup:

http://www.s-92heliport.com/rig1.jpg

The ride home starts:

http://www.s-92heliport.com/rig2.jpg

The site is one maintained by a friend, Mike Gustin, here is the home page, see the photos there, dozens of great ones of helos at work:
http://www.dtroop.com

Gamecube- a civilian SAR operation is being set up in Jersey and has bought a 145 for the job - they do not need to comply with CAA regs and will winch and have NVG.

Nick et al:

There is no requirement for single-engine hover for operational lifts in HEMS or SAR. Specifically for HEMS this is spelled out in Appendix 1 to JAR-OPS 3.005(d) in the following paragraphs:

It's a question to your goverment or your officials! Situation isn't the same in every country. We have countries in Europe with "specialised" HEMS and Police Units and we have Police units doing the cop job and the ambulance or HEMS missions.

In the most european countries it seems to me that the cops today and especially in the future will do the special "law and order" jobs. The most of the new delivered ships are special equipped with FLIR, NVG, lasersystems, radios, link and transmitting systems and so on. They could be used for HEMS jobs but the ships are heavy (the new german border guard EC 135 have more than 17km wire inside for all possible equipment) and it needs time to remove the specials. That makes no sense in a country good covered with civil HEMS operators and army SAR units.

Compromises could be possible but with compromises you can't get the absolutely best results.

Rumour going on the short haul should be described in JAR-OPS 4 as HHEC (Helicopter Human External Cargo).

135 Servicing
 

Eurocopter are intending to scrap the 50 and 100 hour servicing on the 135. This means that the engineers will only get their hands on the aircraft every 400 hours, apart from two checks that still need to be done every 100.

Is this a good thing? I'm sure that they've done their research, but every 400 hours seems a long time to go without engineers getting a good look at the aircraft.

That is phase one of the maintenance reduction programme. What you haven't mentioned is that phase three has plans to scrap the 400 hour.

Ah...that wasn't mentioned in the newsletter, nor was what "Phase 2" is.

It was mentioned in the User Group meeting last month. Minutes are imminent!
I'm looking at it from a pragmatic viewpoint (perhaps naively).
On the one hand, ECD want to show to the world what this a/c is capable of. I.e. that she can run and run with minimum maintenance - a great PR puller.
On the other hand, the engineers and pilots who operate the a/c perhaps need to consider a new mind set, in that these relatively new generation a/c are technologically streets ahead of the wessex/seaking/lynx's/squirrels/206's of this world in terms of maintenance! However, there is a need for frequent maintenace windows.
And somewhere in between lies the optimum solution.;)

At least it should sharpen up some pilots daily checks!

One the other hand, considering the rate that things go u/s, the engineers will still be round every few days.

I heard that ZF who make the transmissions and M/R masts have had a slight hic up in the plant. Have had to recall ALL EC135 masts and a couple of BK117 masts due to calibration/preload problems. Know of one mast changed allready before next flight.

I am some EC135 self loading freight.
I am little concerned at this proposal. The operation I work for operation flys around fifty hours every two weeks, which makes an eight hundred hour service approximately every thirty two weeks..............
Six or so months.
Call me old fashioned but thats a big jump from a good look around by an engineer every couple of weeks.
We are lucky in that we have a dedicated engineer that looks after our aircraft and from that has a excellant grasp of the aircafts history and quirks.
I would not feel so confident if that was not the case no matter how much our Continental Friends attempt to reassure us.

Ring Spanner, when was this recall sent out? I can't recall hearing
about it over here in the UK. Seems fairly important.

Almost off topic i suppose, but extending the maintenance was the direct cause of the Alaska Airlines MD-80 crash off the california coast.:(

Winnie, dont worry the MD 80 crash was just the reason for the yet un-announced 800hr (phase two) extension bid. It should ensure that by the time an engineer/mechanic gets to do some maintenance on it he would have forgotten what to do.

No full-down-auto's with EC-135?
 

I heard that there is a restriction from EUROCOPTER that no autorotations with ground contact ara allowed.

1. Is this true?
2. If so, why?
3. You EC-135 pilots, how do you train your emergency procedures?

regards