You must have had a sheltered upbringing crab, we used to do all that single engine and no floats in Jervis Bay, Sycamore, Huey. ;)

60 envy? When I still fly Lynx, Wessex, Sea King and Gazelle? Don't think so.

Perhaps you have forgotten the feeling of sitting over the water at night above OEI AUM and knowing if a donkey fails you are getting wet (with or without the flot gear).

With all the advances in modern technology, have they invented a helicopter that can't crash yet? Lies, damn lies and statistics never tell the whole story and are relied upon by people who want you do do something risky but feel safer doing it.

Megan - not saying it can't be done and when you had no option it was the only way. But we are in the 21st century now.

Oh dear Crab, you would never have made it in the helicopter ASW role flying Wessex or SeaKings. The ASW Wessex were single engined and I don't ever remember being safe single engine in a SeaKing hover except in a howling gale. We did, however, calculate a SETOW (single engined takeoff weight) for the SeaKing in case ploughing through the water and overpitching to get airborne was a possibility after ditching (something I quickly dismissed when it happened at night to me). I doubt that you would have liked instructing students in wet winching in the piston engined Whirlwind either. Some of us are much older than you and we have all gained experience in different ways, and in more "primitive" types than you have experienced I am sure.

Crab,

So what lies are you believing that allows you to fly those four antiques?

They are certainly not immune from crashing are they?

I am quite clear about the risks of flying and displaying vintage aircraft and I certainly wouldn't be sitting in an over water hover in them. I expect you would jump at the chance to get in a Chinook again.

Well I was a SAR pilot and instructor on both, although on the twin engine version of the Wessex, so I do know a fair bit about ops over water, day and night. I did the excellent Canadian Waterbirds course 20 years ago in which SEWTOs were practised along with single engine water landings.

The SEWTO was something for flat water only in my opinion, the 'jump' take off was not really practicable.

I think you miss my point, doing it single engine was what had to be done in those days - those were the aircraft procured for the tasks - doing it in a twin without a flyaway or realistic ditching option (with floats) for anything other than war-fighting or life saving needs a lot of risk mitigation or crews that don't worry too much what happens to their wives and kids if they don't come home.

I am not risk averse, I have sat in singles and twins, both instructionally and operationally, in places where any sort of failure was likely to be terminal - you do what you have to do to get the job done operationally but for training we used to maintain a flyaway option, especially if live winching.

I am hardly dismissing people older and more experienced than me - they are the people who taught me how to fly and operate.

Crab,

I have hung up my Spurs and moved on to other endeavors.

Helicopters are not involved in any of them.

Brag all you like crab :p, absolutely no envy my dear boy, this octogenarian is more than happy to put his feet up and watch the boys play with their toys.

I'm not bragging, just enjoying being able to stay flying in my 60's, maybe in my 70's I'll think about golf and fishing.........:)

Well we have all hovered over water. But does anyone know what happened?

All we know is that the hero pilot avoided all the primary schools in the area as he plummeted from the sky. At least GT would say so...

Good job he didn't dump it on our Greenpatch BBQ area AC which is on the beach, when it was due date for squadron wet winching and water drill renewal it was traditional to hold a BBQ with family while everyone took turns getting tea bagged etc Absolutely beautiful spot and wonderful days. All spoilt with development these days. :{

I think 'tea-bagging' has different connotations nowadays but I'm sure you mean being winched in and out of the water:ok::)

I’m just curious what the ‘etc’ was? The mind boggles…..

A fairly reliable source advised me that the engine disintegrated, sending shrapnel up into the blades leading to a few bounces on landing.

Good job all round to put it down in one piece in the dark :ok:

Rumour confirmed then John. I was told yesterday that one of the engines ate its own compressor blades. Also they had guys on the ropes at the time of the "landing". Fantastic job by the crew. Hopefully the CoC will support the crew and not finger point/should have etc that is typical of the culture in the Aus Army Air Corps.

The 9 Sqn water hoisting training was at Lake Moogerah, south of Amberley. The CO would bring his ski boat, we would winch out if it and then when training was done, ski behind it and have a BBQ. Luckily there were a few straight-laced teetotallers who would fly the birds home afterwards.

Shades of the NSCA in Townsville, with the only dual cab Unimog in Australia towing a 40ft jetdrive boat to take half the families to Maggie Island, the other half in the 212. Wet winching drills, lunch/BBQ and swaps for who rode home in which vehicle ;)

At the risk of thread drift - The NSCA, what an amazing capability and service it was. It was world leading at the time and still would be if it was still in existence. The capabilities and integration are what we are crying out for in Australia. The pigeon training room still exists in Townsville.

I’m going to have to ask, the what?

It certainly was, but was built upon a house of cards, funded by bank loans with absolutely no means of repaying, the largess was staggering, the group skydivers going to Alice Springs in winter with a Cessna 208 to keep their hand in. Have to admire the salesmanship of the conman John Friedrich who set it all up though, sucked everybody in, our operation was just across the road from their main base and we used to just shake our heads.

Not super familiar with NH-90, is an uncontained engine failure very common for the RTM-322 engine used in this aircraft or has there been some embellishment as the story is told/retold by some that don’t know the real story? It seems this failure mode on modern turbine engines is becoming pretty rare.

I ask only because my myself and my crew once experienced an engine failure due to a ruptured combustion liner(on a T700-700) and by the time the final report was issued 6 months later everything we had in our incident statements was either left out of the report or completely wrong. And despite the fact that the bearing supporting the rear of the compressor section failed and caused the compressor to misalign and stall(rather loudly, I might add!) there was no external indication of any damage whatsoever to the engine when we looked at it on post flight.

Whatever the case, the crew in this incident appear to be “Legends”, as the Aussies put it. Great job!

fltmech

A hydraulic failure in a 204/205/212 should not require a running landing even in the single hyd. system aircraft.

In all the training I received, Oz and USA military and civil it was stressed running landings in single hydraulic 204/205, (dual hydraulic system not a problem because you have one remaining) don't attempt to hover, so never tried, I prefer to follow the manual and what I've been trained to do, realising of course if you're presented with a situation where you have to you do your best, if you bend things then in the doing because you were unable to comply with the manual or training you can hardly be hung out to dry, only 3100 hours in the single hydraulic 204/205. If hovering hydraulics out is so easy why then the emergency procedure as written, even the humble 206 recommends a run on? Test pilot I ain't, I like to follow the manual.

From the Huey manual, bolding at 5 mine.

9-37. Hydraulic Power Failure. Hydraulic power failure will be evident when the force required for control movement increases; a moderate feedback m the controls when moved is felt, and/or the HYD PRESSURE caution light illuminates. Control movements will result m normal helicopter response. In the event of hydraulic power failure:
1. Airspeed - Adjust as necessary to attain the most comfortable level of control movements.
2. HYD CONT circuit breaker - Out. If hydraulic power is not restored:
3. HYD CONT circuit breaker - In.
4. HYD CONT switch - OFF.
5. Land as soon as practicable at an area that will permit a run-on landing with power. Maintain airspeed at or above effective transitional lift until touchdown.

Megan,

One does not have to be a Test Pilot to learn the handling qualities of an aircraft.....training plays a role in that as I recall.

Lawyers and Fort Rucker Flight Standards Mafia had more to do with that than did reality.

Remember the Army was big on standardization and thus had to write procedures based upon the lowest common denominator as does any large organization in its procedures manuals.

Short answer....doing a run on landing on a suitable surface at just above ETL using a shallow approach works for the minimum standard Pilot which is what the Army with thousands of aircraft and many thousands of minimum standard pilots flying the machines had to plan for.

I concur with Albatross that despite what was in the Huey Manual is not because of any great difficulty in the handling of the any of the Huey family less the C and M models which had the 540 Rotor system.
Same for the 206...same technique worked fine in it.

The "trick" was to not try to move the cyclic but rather just apply some pressure on it in the direction you wanted it to move and let the normal feedback actually move the cyclic for you.

Of course there is always the question of what do you do if there is not a place suitable for a 20 knot touchdown running landing....if the Flight Manual does not spell it out for you and you had not practiced it beforehand at some time in the past.

Running landings into muddy rice paddies would have been fairly interesting I would imagine.....or skiing across a heli-deck offshore.

My preference was to retain a slight bit of forward movement across the ground but only enough to assist in keeping the skids straight at touchdown and avoid hovering if possible.

[QUOTE][The "trick" was to not try to move the cyclic but rather just apply some pressure on it in the direction you wanted it to move and let the normal feedback actually move the cyclic for you/QUOTE]Pity no one ever mentioned the "trick" rather than hammering home the don't try to hover message, of course wind will help in a hover case. In all my time only ever had one acquaintance lose hydraulics, non combat Huey Vietnam.

One occasion on a Huey....in Army flight school during the final phase of training....and two newbie Pilots out doing a Route Recon Mission.

What we experienced was the Collective was very light up...and really hard to move down to the point we did not give much thought to the cyclic forces as the collective was where our focus was.

It required so much force that I had to really cinch down my seatbelt or it would cause me to raise out of the seat.

We returned to Tac-X the Field Training Site and landed to the side of the field set aside for the maintenance operation.

On a 206 I had a collective jam that was at a power setting that would not allow me to land as it was at a power setting a bit above that for hover.

Did a go around and on the second approach used the Throttle to reduce the power sufficiently to make landing possible and did to the parking spot which was in an open area.

One thing was emphasized in training on the 204/205 was not to reduce collective below 35 PSI as it would become very difficult to raise it again.

The RTM322 is sensitive to spool bending after a time intervall of shut down.
Usually needs Engine vent procedure before another engine start to spread the temperatures.

If not done, it could lead to engine stagnation during engine start due to the compressor blades rubbing the housing. In the extreme case, later brake down in flight due to the damage.

There is at least one or two cases known of this happening.

Uncontained, as in releasing engine parts via the exhaust, yes thats probable.

The inboard strap fittings have adjusters for the "neutral point" of the TT strap twist. If not adjusted with flight test then life can be a little more interesting!

Points 2+3+4 are very important, the last thing you want is for the hydraulics to suddenly decide to come back on when you are busy applying lots of force to the controls at the bottom of your approach. A surprising amount of guys missed point 3 “Hyd Cont CB-In” during training in the 206. A demonstration of pulling the CB and then having the student turn the hydraulic switch to OFF solved that problem.
One pilot for another company experienced a failure that had the hydraulics rapidly going on-off-on continuously …it was caused by contamination of the fluid which caused actuator problems..He stated it was very interesting until he got the system off. Of course it all happened during bad weather in a steep turn at low level as he was doing a recon of a confined area. (The aviation Gawds were just bored and needed a good laugh he guessed).
I experienced one actual in a 206 (total loss of hyd fluid) and 3 in AS350D ASTARS…2 belt failures and a pump failure. All ended in a no hover, zero speed landing on a small pad. Flying an Astar with no hydraulics for 20-30 minutes was good right hand / arm exercise. ( rule #1 turn off that ***** Car horn so you could think!) .
I had a # 2 pump failure in a 412 once too but that was just a “Land ASAPossible event”.
Never had an actual in a 204/205A or A-1 or 212. However, in our company training you were expected to land zero speed. We did, however, practice the slow speed run on too.

Airbus says customers fault. Software not updated.

https://asiapacificdefencereporter.c...date-software/

My understanding of the English language must be off as I don’t see that anywhere in the article.

Where do you get that from RickNRoll?

The article seems to infer that since “hot starts” were supposedly the cause of an accident in 2010, that must be the case again. And even though the investigation of THAT accident revealed a software issue and Airbus provided a fix for this issue, 13 years ago, the Australian Army somehow left this one aircraft not updated for, 13 years.

Sure, I’m sure that’s what happened. 🙄 I find this pretty unlikely unless there is some supreme level of truth ineptitude in the AUS Army. Curious what others think.

FltMech

It sounds like the spool bending I made a post about.

If the enginge was shut down for >10 minutes but less than 3hrs a vent prodecure should be performed before the engine start.
If the vent procedure is not performed when needed, the bent engine shaft could cause rubbing between compressor blades and the housing, causing damage.
There is at least a few examples of this since before, causing the engine to seize. Without mention a specific nation, it has happened that the engine vent procedure was “forgotten” or something like that, causing engine failure in the flight that followed that engine start with no vent.

The software change was implemented in my Air force, progressively combined with retrofit to FOC.
After booting the helicopter a software function decided if engine vent is needed, if so a “HOT” flag is shown at the engine/or engines that need to be ventilated.
The software reminds the pilot that engine vent is needed (theres also a semi automatic built in help), and also shortens the 3h window for when it is actually needed.
Regardless of this any engine start need to be carefully looked for stagnation in the N1 below 50%, and there time limits for having the N1 not increasing as it should.

This sounds similar to the T700, with -701D engines they need to be cooled down by motoring starter to get cooling air through the engine and get TGT indication below 30C, though in this case it is more to prevent compressor stall on startup.

Things can get missed in any system I suppose, even with a message to warn you a task needs to be done, pretty bad that missing this step could cause your engine to fail though.

FltMech

Shaft bow is a problem on larger turbines, ships and power station turbines are fitted with an electric motor, known in the industry as "turning gear", to keep the turbine slowly rotating to prevent bow when shut down.

Yes, the issue here comes from the output shaft of the engine is in front, engines mounted rear.
The output shaft is the inner shaft and the shaft connecting the compressor and turbine is therefore hollow, making it possible to get one side of the shaft hot and the other cold = bent by different temperatures.

Shaft bow - When a gas turbine engine is shut down it will develop a circumferential thermal gradient vertically across the compressor due to hot air rising from the cooling metal components and pooling at the top. As the hot compressor rotor drum and casing cool and contract in the presence of this thermal gradient, they do so non-uniformly and therefore will bend slightly.

Article here on the subject.

https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._Initial_Study