Leave helicopter rotor running
 

I came across a few video in the past where the pilot left the cockpit without shutting down and now came across this http://www.aias.gov.ro/images/public..._YR-DEX_EN.pdf

Is this common practice to leave an helicopter when operating at remote location? Is the only motivation there to save start/shutdown cycle for the airframe?

Sometimes you don't want to chance it with a dicky battery, a broken start solenoid, a rising tide, trouble re-starting at altitude, reluctant engine to start when hot, or a lot of reasons.

It isn't great airmanship, but sometimes you do what you gotta do. Friction up the cyclic, apply collective lock, roll down to idle, make sure disc is level, spend as little time as possible out of the cockpit.

Back when I lived in New Zealand, guy in the South Island put
down for a "comfort break". Left engine running. As he got
out the aircraft decided to go off on it's own.

Yeah, happened in Oz too in the 80s, lad in an R22 needed a hose, put it onto an uneven rock on top of a cliff, and stepped off the skid (shoulda kept standing on the skid.) It started to hop a little, he rapidly replaced the hose and tried to grab the aircraft by the struts and engine mounts, it kept hopping towards the edge, and he suddenly thought "WTF am I doing?" and let it go.

It took a while for his mates to realise he was missing, and some more time to find the wreckage at the bottom of the cliff. Not sure what they felt when they saw him on the top of the cliff, whether it was relief at him being safe, or thoughts of murder for letting it happen.

If you search you will find pages of discussions on this topic in this forum

Extremely common in the US utility world. Powerline construction, Aerial Saw, Ag etc where rotors are turning and aircraft are hot fueled all day.
Of course you could shut down each time you come in but by the time you get your 2 minute cool down and roll of the throttle somebody is calling for material, dropped something etc etc and need you urgently.
I’ve always felt comfortable getting out of the 500.
The Astar not so much as the cyclic wanders. Bell 206 and mediums were okay also. Always know your surface, skids level and heels not in soft soil. Make sure your have a secure LZ that the general public can’t walk into

Well, that's rarely a good yardstick for anything. :}
Many regulators have made it a legal requirement to have a pilot at the controls when the blades are turning, for good reason.

Well, that's rarely a good yardstick for anything. :}


With the hours flown and the number of helicopters operating daily I would say it’s the global yardstick. Both good and bad.

Many regulators have made it a legal requirement to have a pilot at the controls when the blades are turning, for good reason.

Best practice and safest option always.

My company has ops specs approved by the regulators to allow pilot to exit the aircraft with blades turning. Just normal part of our operation. Always the pilots personal decision when to and when not too.

This is not a getting-out-while-running accident. It's a pilot-is-a-dumbass accident.

What pilot with even half a brain gets out with the throttle up at full and the controls unsecured?? A very stupid pilot, that's who. I'd this nitwit had applied some common sense tasks, this "accident" never would've happened. Don't paint getting out while running as being dangerous! because of the actions of a few idiots.

Like many Rotary Wing operating scenarios, just take a few seconds to ask yourself 2 simple questions:

1. Do I really need to do this?
2. What's the worst thing that could happen?

It provides a very simple form of self governance.

Are you sure about that?

Why indeed not?

I was watching an R44 rotors running on the pad with two Chinese tourists in the back in North Island New Zealand a few years ago. Suddenly out pops the pilot and walks back to the office some 50m away. I watch with interest as the helicopter sits with its rotors turning gently rocking backwards and forwards with the somewhat anxious looking tourists in the back seat, he returns after about 6 or 7 minutes jumps in and they fly off. I suspect words might have been had with the operators if it had been in EASA land over that. Saying that I have left a heli with the rotors turning for five minutes half way up a mountain where you would not want to be in a position where you couldn't start it again..... but not with tourists in the back.

If you want to get really worried, our law in NZ actually allows us to Hot Refuel, with Pax onboard and no pilot at the controls...

Wouldn't do that myself, but i get out of the helicopter with rotors running hundreds of times every year. Sometimes i have to refuel myself, sometimes just to stretch the legs. If you actually looked at all the times that Ag/Utility pilots jumped in and out then you would probably find that, if done correctly, then it is a perfectly safe thing to do, it is just the few idiots that leave the helicopter running at 100% and hop out, tend to ruin it for everyone.

I saw similar to this in NZ. We were on holiday and had just parked on a corner of the public car park at an airfield (my young sons wanted to look at the aircraft; it was a wet and windy day so we stayed in the car). As we stopped, a single Squirrel landed ten metres from us on the airport grass, adjacent to an unlocked gate in the one metre high fence. The pilot put the rotors to idle then to my increasing surprise got out, unloaded luggage and his two passengers and then all three of them went out of the airfield through the gate into the car park, with the pilot carrying the luggage. They went into an adjacent building and he was gone for quite some time (well over ten minutes), leaving the aircraft running, completely unattended. Anyone could have approached it through the gate, or even got in (I felt like I should get in and chop the engine for him). Because it was a gusty day I soon became concerned that the rotors might flap and strike the tail boom, or worse. I reversed my car away to put a bit more space between us. The pilot eventually walked back out to the helicopter, strapped in, flung the throttle forwards, lifted off very rapidly and swung to his left around the tail, right into the path of another helicopter passing behind him, causing both to take avoiding action. Totally ignorant, amateurish behaviour.

Leaving the controls with rotors turning has a time and place... I have done it myself thousands of times without incident, safely and legally.

3 minutes to load passengers, 6 minute flight, 3 minutes to unload passengers and secure cabin, 3 minute return flight. Booked in 15 minute blocks all day. Starting up and shutting down every time not possible with that aircraft within the 15 minute window. For most the flights are already "too expensive". Passengers briefed beforehand including not approaching the running aircraft without the pilot and to stay seated until instructed.

Despite the briefing and pre landing brief I had a guy ignoring both briefings, hop out and make a beeline back towards the tail... I suspect shutting down wouldn't have made much difference in that case.. perhaps the extra delay of shutting down rather than control locks and frictions might have prevented me from intercepting him?

I have seen people take the piss too... years ago I watched a guy land an R22 in a campground, walk into the hotel and chat for 20 minutes or so with the 22 idling away... plenty of people / kids / dogs wandering around the campground. It's illegal to leave the controls of a robinson here with or without locks as its prohibited in the POH. Stupid and totally unnecessary.

You have to wonder, if the job can't be done without leaving the ac unattended, why another crew member isn't used?
aaah sorry, forgot $$$
Hot-fueling is also legal here. but the PIC stays at the controls and the +1 goes to keep an eye on proceedings.

Much like flying, I am sure this happens many times without issue, apart from those where it doesn't.

When you are out in the bush fighting fires, there is no capacity for carrying another person in the aircraft - otherwise you are dropping 90kg less water. And when you are directed to go to another fire, and then refuel at a bunch of drums sitting there by themselves, you aren't able to get your ground crew to gallop over to this new place to pump your fuel for you.

Every second counts in a fire. Our country had its worst ever rolling series of fires in 2019/2020, so when you are out of gas, you plop down next to the drums, roll down to idle and start pumping. When full of fuel, empty your bladder on the skid, get back in and go to work.

Yes I hear your little safety alarm going off, but it can be done effectively.

Airmanship is defined as the safe and efficient use of an aircraft, both in the air, and on the ground.

Sometimes, being safe means being largely inefficient, but being efficient (in this case) isn't as unsafe as you paint it to be.

A well known story in Bristows is about the early days of the 206. A French pilot was taking off from a rig in the gulf, when he decided he was not happy with the CofG. He could not attract the attention of anyone, so got out with the rotors running, to move some freight around.
A gust of wind picked the aircraft up, and threw it off the rig. His message back to the base was to the effect that he aircraft has gone.

Asleep at the controls.

Back in NZ helicopters (lots of them) were used to blow freezing fog
away from the grapes. One night some guy fell asleep and got a long
way towards Wellington. Could have ended very badly.

Ascend, in view of this being a national emergency it does seemed strange logic not to go to the temporary extra trouble (or perhaps, extra expense?) of having ground crew available.

I did it in Ireland at a remote fuel store, walking around the nose of the B206, slipped on wet grass, grabbed out at anything to stop myself falling, and ended up grabbing the pitot tube (obviously not on purpose...). End result, was muddy trousers, 3rd degree burns to my hand, and still having to complete the flight as tasked. I decided that quite a few holes in the 'Swiss-Cheese' had lined up that day, and never did it again.

Ah, the old "gust of wind."

Whenever I read stuff like this I always laugh and think, "Don't people understand how a rotor works...how the cyclic works? Do they actually think that an immobilized cyclic will allow the rotor to flap all over the place with no control? Have they ever been sitting in an idling helicopter and had that happen?"

Helicopter pilots...especially helicopter pilots...should understand that the whole cyclic/swash plate thingee is specifically designed to control the tip-path plane. If the tip-path plane is displaced, it is the position of the cyclic (and the flapping/feathering design of our rotor systems) that brings it back to its original setting. It's pretty simple: if the cyclic doesn't move, the tip-path plane won't move. Or won't move much. In 11,000+ hours, I've never once...not once been sitting in an idling helicopter and had the rotor do something strange in response to "a gust of wind." Yeah, sometimes a "big ship" would land next to me and the rotor would momentarily get a little goofy, but it always sorted itself out in a revolution or two...certainly by the time I grabbed the controls. Never have I had to make any inputs to correct my wildly diverging tip-path plane. Because it doesn't happen...if the cyclic doesn't move.

It is a paranoid myth to think that in an idling helicopter with the cyclic secured, the rotor will react inappropriately to a rogue "gust of wind." It just does not happen.

Set it down on solid ground, put it in IDLE, lock the controls, and then do what you gotta do. If it's never spontaneously exploded, rolled over, or beaten itself to death with you inside of it, it's not going to do any of those things with you absent.

I have a friend who tells a hilarious story about coming back to base after a day of (unspecified) utility flying. His passenger happened to be a chick from the government...let's say "agency" he was contracted to that day. According to him, she was hot and he was trying to impress her. But on the way back to base, he started to feel this...you know...urge. Normally, he would've just set it down in a remote area, of which there were plenty in that part of the U.S., and then gotten out to do his business. But according to the rules they were operating under, the chick *had* to be back at base by sundown, and they were already pushing it. So my friend held it. They get back to base. He lands, frictions everything down, leaves it running and tells her to just stay put. Then he hops out and runs...and I mean RUNS inside the hangar...and *almost* makes it to the men's room. Luckily, he's wearing a flight suit over his clothes, so it was merely a matter of disposing of the soiled items (to be retrieved later). But there was still some still-urgent business to take care of. All of this took time. And while it's happening, he knows that his helicopter is still out on the ramp, idling away, with a non-pilot chick in the passenger seat, wondering where the hell (NAME REDACTED) went? Ahh, first impressions! Eventually...finally!...he came back, shut the thing down and sent her on her way. Normally, he would've asked her out for drinks/dinner, but by then he just wasn't "in the mood." And I don't blame him.

His helicopter did not explode. They don't do that.

When flying offshore to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico on windy days, a shut down was impossible. Even with a rotor brake, a slow turning rotor would flap and hit the tailboom of a Bell 47, Bell 206, Bell 205, Hughes 500, etc. Several times a day helicopters land on unmanned fuel platforms, sometimes with passengers, and the pilot gets out and self refuels with the engine at idle. This has been the norm for over 50 years.

FH1100,

I’ve been flying rotary wing since 1979 and with as many hours as yourself I do have some small knowledge of how helicopters work. But thanks for your concern.

FH1100, this is horsefeathers. The disc will flap away from any relative wind, but it is moving the cyclic that brings it back.

Try to transition from a hover into slow forward flight, just by initially adding some forward stick, but then bring it back to the middle and don't let it move. You start to move forward. Then the nose will flap up, you will stop moving forward, and then start moving backward, until the disc flaps away from the (tail)wind, the nose pitches down, you move forward again, the nose flaps up, and after one more cycle, the aircraft has crashed.
Because you did not move the cyclic.
See, you just said it yourself, the blade will flap, and the pilot will adjust the cyclic to stop it. But if the cockpit is unoccupied, well...

Blades can indeed flap at low RPM, every rotorcraft pilot should know that, but I don't see how that would cause the helicopter to lift up unless the wind is REALLY strong. With the collective down, the blade pitch is 0 and the blades are generating no lift. Centripetal force is straightening the blades, not aerodynamic lift. An idling helicopter generates basically no downward air. People can enter/exit an idling helicopter easily without feeling like they're in a hurricane because it's not blowing air downwards, hence not generating lift.

Likewise a parked airplane generates no lift. However there have been occasions where extremely strong winds have actually made upwind-facing airplanes go airborne if they're not tied down, so the same could happen to an idling helicopter, but that would have to be a really strong wind of the sort you would never fly in anyway.

That said, personally I wouldn't ever be comfortable leaving an unattended helicopter running, but then again I'm not even comfortable leaving a car running unattended.

Many years ago I flew helicopters (B206, AS350) and we were allowed to leave the seat when :

1. The engine was at idle
2. Weather conditions were suitable
3. collective friction/lock was on
4. Cyclic friction on
5. and not mentioned above .. HYDRAULICS OFF ( due possible runaway)

I. Duke

I spent the last 22 years of my career explaining to helicopter pilots that combining the exemptions in two separate CAOs 20.10 and 95.7 cannot be combined. As far as I know there is no method CASA can give an exemption from the provisions of a CAO which in itself is an exemption to a CAR. CASA did not consider that refuelling was
CAO 20.10
CAO 95.7
If you had a prearranged fuel dump, the operator should have a refueller on the ground.

“The pilot considers” and the conditions of 95.7 override 20.10 as it sez.

“Safety of the helicopter” would come under not allowing some ******** to refuel it.

The operator doesn't have unlimited people, maybe 3 pilots and that's it. And they might all be working the fires in different places. Subsection 7 applied at the fuel drum dump.

The fuel was put there by the local BP supplier, who would travel between dumps, replacing empty drums. He didn't have people to be left at each site in case a chopper dropped in. He left a pump and testing kit at each dump. Nice guy, he did it off his own bat, this was in the 9os before the whole show was a lot better organised. Shane Fitzsimmons was just another nice guy in the fire service, he didn't know he would be Commissioner down the track.

I’ve often wondered how “the obvious” emergency of a fire when self refuelling a running helicopter would be dealt with.

You just take that little handheld fire cylinder and wave it about a bit. Problem sorted :E

Possibly why some have regulated the presence of a suitable fire crew. But that costs money unfortunately and nothing ruins the profitability of an organisation than wasting money on unnecessary safety precautions.

If you have to have the presence of a suitable fire crew, then you have just shut down a huge amount of helicopter operations. we have just become aeroplanes that have rotors, stuck operating from airports.

Even if you have a pilot at the controls and the thing catches fire, what are you going to do? Take off with a burning helicopter, or hop out and wave that little hand held fire extinguisher around until it runs out, then watch the thing burn.... Considering a 30,000ltr fuel tanker only needs a couple of 9kg bottles while they are refuelling a petrol station, and that somehow makes them "safe", with NO fire crew around, and lots of idiots driving cars and motorbikes around them, i don't think that hot refuelling a helicopter is any more dangerous...

while we have all heard of helicopters going for a fly by themselves, even if it is because the pilot got out with the rotor at 100%!!!

how many of you guys can recall a JetA1 fuelled machine catching fire while hot refuelling?

I did hear of an army aviator who splashed fuel on his nomex suit while cold refuelling. He stepped away from the aircraft, splashed water on the suit, and then carefully removed the suit top - but a spark was still generated, and the shirt caught fire.

So, even cold refuelling while wearing protective gear is dangerous.

Assess the risk, do the job if the risk is low enough to warrant it. For the risk-averse, there is a nice safe office job in the government somewhere.

Risk is about understanding and managing the risk, it isn't about hoping for the best or following the mindset that because it hasn't gone wrong yet it is unlikely to go wrong in the future.
If it is integral to an operation, why a trained ground crew member can't be used does not make much sense.

Aircraft have procedures for fire management, how would a pilot external to the aircraft be able to quickly follow them?
I could imagine trying to explain that one to the insurance company, but then it is illegal here, so there is ground grew with a semi-decent method of extinguishing, or delaying the fire.

Bell-Ringer, in a small business of 3 pilots, where do we find a ground crew to park out in the boonies next to some fuel drums to wait hours for an aircraft to perhaps drop in? Plenty of dumps to choose from, use the nearest one to where your water source is. Our machines got moved around from fire to fire, maybe leaving your imaginary fuel helper without a ride home, and the fuel truck driver didn't have a pile of people to leave in the bush either.

Perhaps you have not operated on a fire, hmmm? This was in the 90s, Mister Banks. Using B206 with 500 lt Bambi buckets. Things are a bit different now, but then it was a huge learning curve. People have managed to get the RFS into a much better way of working with operators.

All very well to sit back and spout HR-developed plans that cover every eventuality with rose petals, but it's a bit like war - as soon as the first shot is fired, the plan turns to dust.

But one thing really got my goat. At Silverdale, in the Blue Mountains, there was a large staging base with fuel, and support people providing sandwiches and drinks. One particular operator would leave the aircraft turning and burning while the pilots sat under a tree having their lunch, and billing the RFS for the engine time. THAT was offside. Blow the whistle, Ref.

As AC saysUH-1C tail number 65-09442 - THE PURPOSE OF THE TEST FLIGHT WAS THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE MAIN ROTOR PITCH CHANGE LINK. HE HAD FLOWN FOR APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES AND DETERMINED THE PITCH CHANGE LINK WAS PROPERLY ADJUSTED. HE HOVERED TO THE REFUELING STRIP. THE AIRCRAFT HAD APPROXIMATELY 600 LBS. OF FUEL. THE AIRCRAFT WAS SET DOWN AND THE DOORS WERE OPENED, THE RPM WAS MAINTAINED AT 6600. THE CREW CHIEF BEGAN THE REFUELING PROCEDURE. THE PROPER PROCEDURES WERE FOLLOWED EXCEPT THE AIRCRAFT WASN'T GROUNDED BECAUSE THERE WERE NO GROUNDING WIRES AT THE PUMP, AND THE CREW CHIEF COULD NOT REFUEL WITH HIS VISOR DOWN BECAUSE IT WAS THE TINTED TYPE AND HE COULD NOT SEE BECAUSE IT WAS DARK. THE PILOT WAS GOING TO SIGNAL THE CREW CHIEF THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS REFUELED BY TURNING HIS NAVIGATION LIGHTS FROM STEADY BRIGHT TO OFF, THEN BACK ON AGAIN. AS THE FUEL GAUGE REACHED 1400 LBS. THE PILOT GAVE THE SIGNAL. WITHIN A FEW SECONDS OF THE SIGNAL THE AIRCRAFT WAS ON FIRE. THE FIRE WAS CONCENTRATED AROUND THE FUEL PART AND DOWN THE LEFT SIDE OF THE HELICOPTER, IT SPREAD ONTO THE GROUND AND THE REFUELING HOSE. THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED WITHIN 6 MINUTES BY THE AIRFIELD CRASH CREW

A rare event, but undertaken safely if the necessary precautions are taken. Never saw a helo refuelled while shut down in Vietnam, it was always hot refuelling, seeing a line of mortars walking down the POL line was one incentive. Was not aware of any untoward events until reading this report today.

In the AAC 60s 70s when carrying out casevac with Sioux it was practised to leave the aircraft, rotors turning, and heave the "casualty" (logs in a growbag) into the stretcher pods. Never did it for real I am pleased to say.

Rubbish, would never happen.