Prince William Lands Sea King on a Canadian Lake !
 

Prince William expected to fly Sea King helicopter in Prince Edward Island

Good, he will need to get current again after spending the last couple of months on extended holiday.

Is he ever going back to work as a RAF SAR Pilot or will he now be restricted to Royal duties only?

Willie on the water
 

His lowness

I heard he also goes to the toilet, and eats food, just like a real person.

Give me strength.

Utter drivel from the uninformed masses of the media......again! :ugh:

1. Poor Weather?, looked fine to me!
2. Canadian Search and Rescue don't fly the CH124!
3. Don't think they'll be landing on for a Rescue Mission either!

Good to see the old girl can still be tapped up each summer for fun on the lake

Prince William Lands Sea King in a Canadian Lake !
 

BBC News - Prince William lands helicopter on water during Canadian visit

Good on him:D

Good on him for what? :confused:

Yeah, I heard that as well.

Good on him for bringing Helicopter search and rescue into the public eye, can only be good for every service in the world that relies on donations from the public.

Thanks William :ok:

Don't blame the poor guy for what the press write about him.

He's got a hot wife, rides motorbikes and flies choppers. Seems like a good guy to me.

During a discussion I had with a Canadian military Sea King maintenance person, when I asked about water landings, he told me "We don't do those anymore, the hulls are not water tight.".

Thus, I watched with interest. There was yellow tape all over the lower portion of the fuselage. I would remark that duct tape has been made for decades in Canada, in the perfect Sea King grey colour. Perhaps that would have been a less conspicuous choice!

Believe me, the course is alive and well and they continue to throw the S61 at the lake to this day in all their professionalism. A fantastic experience - possibly unique in the world for helicopter offshore pilots.:ok:

In the 80s, the Danish AF did also OEI waterlandings on a lake with their S61. Few former collegues had the chance to do it there, they were quite impressed, usefull experience.

skadi

Pilot DAR, I'd guess the holes they were covering up are generally meant to be open, so the more conspicuous the tape, the less likelihood of some remaining where it shouldn't after the exercise.

As did S61s and Chinooks on the Loch of Skene. Used to be part of the type training, if not part of the 6 monthly base check iirc (just before my time, sadly). Again, early 80s.

For those who have never flown the Queen of the Skies, a waterbird course was/is always something to do if you could/can. It's a potential life-saver, should a Seaking crew find themselves on the water with only one engine, as the aim is to teach how to get OFF the water again!

No doubt his Squadron colleagues will have discussed the theory of winding up Nr & overpitching to get unstuck, but I'll bet they'll be quizzing him for detail of the experience when he gets back to work. :ok: There are few helicopters that could even consider dragging themselves off the water on one engine, so it's good to see the Canadians are still teaching it. And of course the average airframe would probably take on some water in a ditching, but one would hope not enough to stop it getting airborne again, as it's only likely to ditch once! The airframes used for the waterbird course are normally kept for that purpose only, so of course they'll try to minimise water ingress in those machines they regularly put in the water. There really are some real "Duh" comments on this thread sometimes. :(

While Prince William has a profession as his day job, albeit apparently part-time, he also has a destiny which is not of his making. Give the guy a break for bringing the skills of our profession to the front page, instead of Royal-knocking a young gentleman who's making a good job of introducing himself and his wife to the world. He, like other members of the "Firm", may not get it right all the time, but he's not doing badly so far, IMHO. :ok: For those who haven't yet learned, the media report what they want to, and how they want to - don't expect it to live up to what pprune members expect and maybe try to read the positive bits between the lines.

They dont use the waterbird for anything other than this evolution. It is a vastly modified bird having a load of stuff stripped out and maskers everywhere!
The lake is freshwater too meaning the cab will still be flyable a month later!

The real aircraft would take onboard about a ton of water every 10 minutes because it leaks like a seive.
Once the 'stab' fails (light in cockpit extinguishes) you are stuffed as there is so much water in the nose bay/avionics that the CofG is out of limits (remember that Mil8 take off video where he tries tog et airborne with an out of limit fwd cofG?)
I can't recall any modern helos built to take off again from the water. Its become an anachronism. Once ditched -stay ditched! Mind you it would probably cause more problems launching after "hitting" the water......who knows what you have done to the tail rotor or drive train......and you don't want to know seconds after lifting:uhoh:

It is a rare step back to the time when flying was really fun;) I'm glad it still goes on and the experience one achieves from doing it - will live with you forever.

Um lifting - you joking or what???? Whats an S62:8

From CNN Prince William, Catherine visit Northwest Territories on Canadian tour - CNN.com

:eek:

Waterbird
 

I had the pleasure of completing the Waterbird course at Shearwater when we visited Halifax in HMS HERMES in early summer 1974.
Fantastic course and great to see it is still going.

The jump technique taught (plus fast fuel dump) came in useful when I had an engine failure at max gross (++) departing HMS Tiger a few years later.

I hope William had as much fun as I did!

Trog

I unwillingly ditched at night from the hover in a heavy Sea King in 1975 and three years later experienced water operations in controlled training conditions in an S61N with Bristows at Meickle (?) Loch. I wish the order had been the other way around because to be in a helicopter on the water is initially a most peculiar and unsettling feeling, and the Bristow water training gave one terrific confidence. The Sea King and S61N may be relatively large helicopters but they are very small boats when bobbing about on the ocean. As regards taking on water, after three hours the sea was lapping over the top of the sponsons, and yes, most of our electrics had gone. I believe it would also be a very brave, or stupid, pilot to attempt the demanding "running" single engined take-off to overpitch and then accelerate just above the surface unless both visual and sea conditions were very good indeed .... but there was always the idiot sitting safely behind a desk who asked why I didn't attempt it.