Um lifting [What you meant is EOL not OEI, correct?]. - that is awesome footage, so rare too - 50+ years ago. Nothing much has changed except they dont take passengers and dont EOL onto the water!!! Too risky. I didnt realise the S62 was a single engine hippo but it seemed to be quite gracious over the water. Some of those close proximity manouevres would be deemd careless these days but he certainly felt ver y very comfortable with the machine.
Do you keep in touch with the pilot today? Is he even alive:eek:

Brilliant footage - many thanks.

Troglodita you arent Spud Murphy are you?

Two things that haven't been mentioned, that stood out for me: how gentle the landings when using all that hull area to absorb the touch down, and how useless are the brakes when you instinctively apply them to slow down or turn :p

http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/...1N%20water.jpg

Following on from the previous ditching dits, it doesn't always go right regardless of Sea State One (excuse the thread drift):

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/1...with+diver.jpg

The S62a was a great machine to fly & excellent on the water. However I see in the video the wheels were down & the normal practice is to have them up for water work.
At least they look down to my old eyes!:ok:

Um

You may be right as I haven't flown one since 1975 but my memory tells me they came out a bit more. If you tried to land in the 'up' position, the tail wheel lands first & then the front drops. On the only occasion I did this, it was soon very obvious the wheels were up, quite apart from the ground crew waving furiously! But you can land with them up but expect a few scratches on the pontoon.
I never had one leg stick up in 1001 hours, however if the oleos were at the wrong pressure, they were very keen to pad badly or even get ground resonance. A gentle landing with a little forward motion seemed to fix that.
Very slow but stacks of power!

I've just had a look at your video & you're right! I guess from the cockpit you can't really tell how far up they go!:ok:

It has no effect on the landing or takeoff whether the wheels are down or up in the S61/SeaKing.(Water landing!).
Overland, if the wheels are jammed up or refuse to lower the Navy use a sand pit which is a rectangular raised pit made of snadbags which the seaking lands on to minimise damage to the hull. Can't remember the last time it has been used in anger though?

I have to disagree unless one is making vertical landings or take-offs. Any appreciable forward speed with only the wheels in the water must produce considerable drag so forcing the nose of the aircraft down.

What do you mean by : "appreciable speed"?
IF one has to make a forced landing in the water, one reduces to the minimum speed possible. It would be around 10kts max if you had one engine remaining. If you were landing with both engines out, it would be a virtual zero spd landing.
In both instances I can guarantee that wheels down has absolutely no effect whatsoever. Take off is exactly the same - wheels down whilst trying to gain fwd momentum (flying speed) has absolutely no effect on the outcome.
trust me:). Wheels down whilst in the water increases stability by lowering the C of G.

Landing/TO at zero speed: as TC said. Taxiing showed no difference wheels up or down

http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/...nding%2001.jpg

Re the stability comment: the inverted SK photo I posted turned over when the sonar cable was cut and a few hundred feet of 'anchor' was lost :eek: But I'm not sure that a couple of feet of U/C gear would have that much effect ;)

TC. Please read my 23 above. Can you assure me that you have been there and that you have made a single engine take-off at weight? I ditched after an engine blew in the hover and as I recall the take-off procedure required that when one had got the aircraft down to a suitable weight one had to attempt to acheive 40kts by charging through the waves in manual throttle before overpitching into the air and then accelerating just above the surface to achieve a climbing speed around 65 kts....and you would try that with the wheels down? I wouldn't like to be in there with you. As I said, conditions would have to be optimum to take the risk and I do not think dragging your wheels through the water would help there. The gear is dropped to increase stability if you are staying on the water, not if you are attempting a take-off. My experience was forced on me, I wasn't "playing" or experimenting when I had four lives in my hands so I would want more than your "assurance" that it would make no difference, thanks!

Sorry John, if you remember the aircraft turned over only AFTER the rotors had been shutdown and it was then that the aircraft became unstable on the water and turned over. The cable had been cut a couple of hours before that! Remaining stable on the surface and trying to get airborne again are two entirely different situations and a couple of sea anchors hanging under the sponsons won't help when you are trying to plough through the water in an attempted "running" take-off.

76fan,

Yes, poor choice of words by me, I was referring to the stability comment about the gear! I do recall that the sonar cable cutter wouldn't work, which prevented a SE TO early on when the SK wasn't filling up with water. And then the ship's divers took bolt croppers over in a dinghy to achieve the cable cutting, followed by someone on board getting seasick?

As Squadron SEO, I was miffed that they took a dinghy and boltcroppers that I had signed for :hmm:

All that fuzz for a hovering auto on the water??

He's already been "back to work as a RAF SAR Pilot"...
Prince William and Kate spend his 29th birthday apart - mirror.co.uk


But don't let reality interfere with your rank, blind, unreasoning hatred of the man for who his father and grandmother are.

John,

I'm sure you will remember the name Pierre Looten.

He attempted a water landing at the RFM max speed with landing gear down of 20 kts. He told me that he was amazed that he survived it as one sponson went completely underwater and the blades very nearly contacted the water. Gear up at 30 kts was not a problem but the rooster tail coming off the tail wheel was a spectacular site :D

John,
Hopefully my last words on my "adventure", the details of which are embedded in my memory. After the ditching all events were recorded in full whilst we bobbed around at sea ... in the hope that it would help anyone else finding themselves in the same situation. I fairly quickly dismissed any ideas of an attempted take-off (i) we were so heavy, first dip of sortie, that we would have trouble trying to get anywhere near to the SETO weight required in the fairly calm wind and high temperature conditions, and (ii) the horizon was where the stars stopped and the black of the sea started, no moonlight that I recall. My intention therefore was to keep the aircraft stable on the water by burning and turning until daybreak when the aircraft could be hoisted back onboard ....the rest of the crew elected to stay with the aircraft and we nearly made it! When we left the aircraft it was still sitting albeit low in the water with the only damage being to the engine cowling due departing turbine blade ends. I seem to recall that you (?) saw us looking very pretty sitting in the dark with the glow of blue water around us when at one stage all the landing lights had shorted on. No pictures of that? And before you ask, I believe that it was the Verey cartridges in the cockpit that later spontaneously ignited ... and they weren't on the "strip list"! As you know, by the time it got onboard it was a bit of a wreck, but it did fly again.
A true night to remember.
My regards to you.

76fan: I've ditched more times than you've had hot dinners, I'm afraid! I was a waterbird instructor at Shearwater, NS during my tour on exchange with the CAF. Wheels down - absolutely no problem whatsoever. The controlling factor is speed, anything greater than 10kts landing and yes the laws of physics catch up with you in the shape of drag, but below that, nil effect, nadda, nullus.
Definitely no effect on takeoff. SEWTO needs a bow wave speed then max contingency to get you airborne. If you needed 40kts, you weren't sewto weight or your technique was wrong. It's a race against time having to get airborne before taking on too much water. The instant one knows one is going to land on the water, fuel dumping should commence.

I also teach it now - albeit in the comfort of the class room .

Gosh, ditched more than 24458 times! In my day some people would have said you were "accident prone". I am so glad that I only ditched once .... and I thought instructing was about passing on experience, not boasting .....

Whoa!
It was you who invited TC to tell you his experience, not merely give his assurance.

So he did. :ouch: