That's interesting thanks. So he needed the time saved due to the weather conditions.

Why train for both?

simple, winches have been known to fail.

sorry bitches, slide down the hill to safety, my coily cord retractor broke and I cant save you now. Buh bye, going back to base now.

I wonder what the MMI gauge looked like

Any journo/blogger that uses the word "insane" to describe anything should get taken away by men in grey jackets to a dark site and never returned :ugh:

There is a third way that works too you know.....using your logic....why not train for all three?

Think those are part of the wirestrike kit and not standard skids.

Weather can change rapidly in the mountains so it is a fair call but you can't see any poor weather in the videos other than a little cloud at the top - if he was that concerned he could have just winched the casualty straight off the hill rather than deploying 3 people first.

There would clearly have been some time delay while the guys he dropped off assessed and prepared the casualtty and it may be that the weather deterioration happened then and he had to make a rapid extraction, although that isn't obvious from the videos at all. I'm sure they are very well versed in dealing with the vagaries of hill fog in the Alps.

Good use of the wirestrike kit as an ice axe:ok:

Well, I´m not a mountain flyer but I know, it´s a standard practise.
Advantages are
- Quick(er) than whinching
- less power required compared to winching
- no winch required, no cycles on the winch, no risk of breaking it, snaggig the cable, getting it hot, having a fuse pop and all the other stuff which make a winch u/s
risks
- toching snow (probably a rock underneath) with the blades with all, what will happen then....

Personally I think, with experience, and it looks, he has a lot, and he can actually see the blades, I wouldn´t question his decision, bearing in mind it was an actual rescue and patches were already visible, so weather was also an issue to consider.
Guess it takes much more time to do all this with a winch and would also take much more concentration to keep the bird stationary witch all the white stuff around.

My 2 C worth ;-)

budget constraints. Dont you realise what one of these things cost per hour?

Look how quickly they get the casualty off by winch - it really isn't a long process - it would have taken longer for them to walk to the pickup point from the casualty.

Having spent many years in heli S&R, the only comments I would commend are those from Same again and John Eacott's 'nit picking'!

The winch went fast and was just one lift -
cause everything was prepared - watch the whole clip, he droped the team off, went off and came back to collect team and casulty

My coworker that does ski patrol said they would just get dropped off some where close and easily accessible. Hike over, strap the guy to a toboggan, belay him down to a flat area where he can be safely and easily transported out.

yes, but for the drop off, the time wasn't so important so he could have winched them down.

Then when it came to the recovery it would have only been two lifts instead of one - still pretty quick and hardly slower than having to do the nose-in landing and then winch the casualty (who would still have been already prepared).

As we keep saying, the flying was very competent - it is just the decision making and risk vs reward balance that is being debated.

Cornish Jack - Mountain SAR or Cornish coastal SAR? Just asking due to your handle.

GHH,

Gee....being so new to this game and all.....I suppose not......why don't you enlighten us will you?

If the Winch decides to pack it up and go on holiday....and the patient is in a place the helicopter cannot land or do a nose in or one skid touching landing.....and the Ground Team suggests there is no real safe way to get your guy off the mountain or to a safe landing spot.....how would you do it?

Do remember the reason you are out there....that being getting the victim and the ground crew off the mountain safe and sound!

Do you just throw your fixed line over the side and carry on or use your winch in a fixed length mode (if you can) and just get cracking without any training in the procedure?

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:ugh:

Only a few hundred but I've never stopped to count - a simple double strop lift takes seconds to complete, only the operating crew are going to use complete harnesses.

that is what happened since 2 of the 3 the guys who had stepped out stepped back in during the nose in, leaving the winchman/paramedic with the casualty, both of whom were then winched in. I guess the guy who was with the casualty when the team arrived was a fellow skier who continued down the mountain under his own steam.

So - one-skid-on delivery of 3 guys (winchman plus doctor? and assistant?) then nose-in recovery of doctor and assistant then winch recovery of winchman and casualty.

The one-skid-on delivery was quick and effective but the nose-in recovery could easily have been done by winching and taken the same time - the final recovery of winchman and casualty was exactly right.