Robs.,

If you can open Wordperfect docs., I'll e mail you my ops manual supp. on Mountain Flying. We operate in the Australian Alps at around 6-9000 ft DA summer and winter, moving skiers and doing heaps of sling loads. May be some help.

Hi to All!

Hey Paco!
What a post!Thank's a lot for your post and time.I have learned a lot,lots of interesting things.
BTW are you from Spain?
To John Eacott!
Thank's for your offert I would love to get that ops manual.I have word 2000 so I think I will be able to open your doc.
Again thank you All for contributing in this post!
Roberto

Im a Brit in Canada - dunno how I ended up with paco. I hope all that helped - are you planning to fly in mountains anytime soon? It is something that needs proper training, but not all courses are the same - research them thoroughly.

cheers

Phil

A very good piece of advice once passed onto me, was :

WATCH WHAT THE BIRDS DO.

If you want to fly, not just in the mountains, watch what birds do.

In strong winds they don't turn their tails to the wind, they ride it, weaving left and right and let the wind move them to where they want to be. For a helo the advantage of this are:

A positive airspeed.
Nose more or less into wind if something goes wrong.
A low groundspeed.
you shouldn't run out of room in your valley/bowl or whatever and have to overbank/pitch.

The final piece of advice.

Practice. Especially with someone who knows. Mountains cannot be taught by a book. Experience is the key.

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. try to use someone elses experience before you develop your own. It can go very wrong very quickly and if you haven't planned ahead you are f***ed!

If you are teaching yourself from a book:

a. You are a f***ing mug.
b. don't try this at night.

Hey - Muchos apologies for not posting the detail you asked for! I have not been in a position to do much work recently.

However,some of your other contributors to this topic have more than covered some of the detail that is essential knowledge.

I'm sorry for the lame excuse(not been too well recently) and will keep an eye on the topic in order to add the odd snippet - if need be. Best Regards

energy driven eccentric nirvana - eden

Hope you get well soon.
Look forward to your contributions.

Some sound advice here.....but note the major safety point. "Do not try this alone, you need to be taught it" (by someone reputable!)

Having flown throughout Nth Norway, UK, Austria, Bosnia, New Zealand Alps and the Antarctic I would like to add:

1. Escape Route: The requirement is obvious; you must maintain a suitable escape for as long as possible. You'll either need it for power probs or T/R authority. In you recce you must decide if either (or both) will be your nemesis. If possible keep your escape opposite to your power pedal (right in Bell, left in AS helos). If you need to run away, cyclic firmly in the escape direction to enhance 'weathercocking' tendancies....therby relieving T/R input and increasing the power available.

2. 3000ft or 15000ft, makes no difference in your technique.....DA is everything. (Landing on Mt Erebus at 12K & -15 was fine but as we established the hover we flew into a steam vent from the volcano....temp rose to +26 in 2-3 seconds!) Planning is important but you can't plan for everything.

3. Having flown with Brits, Kiwis and Canadiens, I can safely say that we all have something to learn from each other. No one has the perfect technique...experience is the only leveller (and you can't teach that).

Night.....oh yes you can....(on NVG) in the snow and with under-slung loads.........and yes it has its moments!

Crawl - Walk.....never Run....it scares the passengers.

This site contains some very interesting accounts and pictures of the rescue activities on Mt McKinley, Alaska by the "Denali Lama".

The highlight of many of the rescues is the use of the Screamer Suit, into which the individuals climb, before utilising the integral harness to attach themselves to the longline hook! They are then slung off the mountain - check out the British climbers picked off at 19,000 feet!

Jim Hood has been flying this contract for many years now, initially for Rocky Mountain, and currently for Evergreen. In addition to these rescues, he also had an engine shut down at 14,000 feet, when he landed to pick up an injured climber. The engine lit-off on the third attempt, not before Jim had realized that there was a very high likelihood that they were about to die on the mountain - lucky escape!

http://classic.mountainzone.com/climbing/denali/rescue/

I really find sometimes hard to exactly guess correct wind direction. Any solution to this?.

Hey Paco!

Where are you in Canada?Last April I traveled from Calgary to Edmonton,Prince george to Vancouver looking for a job .I hope I have more luck this year I'm planing to come to western Canada in April.Can you recomend some good schools to get a mountain course besides of Canadian in Penticton?
Thank's

To all thank's for your advicements!

Roberto

Gokel: wet your finger and stick it out of the window :) ......or,

Carry smokes and chuck those out!

------------------
Thermal runaway.

Hi Phil!(paco)

Wich company are you working in Calgary,last year I visited a couple of companies in Calgery (Trans Canada Pipelines,Eagle Copters,Turbowest Helicopters).
If you don't want to put the name on the Forum you can e-mail [email protected]
And thanK's for your advicements
Roberto

To Eden.

I hope you feel bether soon!We are waiting.
Haha!

hi guys
very interesting postings...never too old to learn.....guys in Indian AAC(flying the Lama) land regularly at helipads varying from 10,000 to 23,000 ft....its all possible because of some old fashioned dual sorties.....and a solid gen of ground subjects and ur own FU's....lets keep this link going......lama's a wonderful machine ....the best the frenchies have offered to this world....alles gute

Gokel - if you can't use smokes do a few low passes directly over the landing site from various directions. Do this at a low airspeed but stay above ETL. Look at your track and heading on each pass - this should help you assess the wind direction. You may also see some evidence on the surface such as grass being flattened in one direction or snow granules being blown across the surface.

Buena suerte amigo.

[This message has been edited by army427 (edited 04 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by army427 (edited 04 April 2001).]

Hi Robsibk - it's Guardian helis, but we mainly operate out of Ft Nellie, which is probably why you missed us - the Calgary part is the HO, and will shortly move to Springbank

Phil

GOKEL:

Try a few eye level passes combined with your contour crawl. This will establish whether you're in upflow (good air) or downflow (bad air). You should do these passes at 50-60 knots so you can pick up visually the apparent pace (groundspeed)for the into wind/out of wind conditions.

If one pass requires 80%Q and you appear to be going quick, then your in downflow/downwind air. If you only need 50%Q and you feel like you have a good walking pace, then you have upflow/into wind air.

As all others have stated previously, take a good mountain course like CHC Penticton. Jan Rustad may taaaaaaaalk slooooooooow but he knows his stuff.

Cheers, OffshoreIgor http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif

PS Took the Penticton course in '87.

Hi Phil!

I hope I will get my visa soon.Do you think that I will be to late for job search if I arrive to Canada in the begining of mai?And do you know some companies that hire low time pilots ????

Thank's

Thank's to all for making that topic that intersting!!!
Roberto

You're a bit late for banging on doors for the season in general, but we expect to be busier than usual this year anyway, and I'm sure it's the same for other companies. You will find that the companies themselves have no bias, but the customers do! For example, we have a job that specifies 1500 hours for a job that a 100-hour guy is totally overqualified for. The reason is either a) they would like some experience should an engine failure happen or b) they've been listening to a "consultant".

Having said that, there are some companies that don't care, so you may be lucky. As a guide, I get on average 2 calls a day from low time people, so the competition is keen. There is a shortage, but it's in the 1250-3000 hour band.

cheers

phil

Hi Phil!

Well I will see how it goes when I'arrive to Canada.At least I will fly a couple of hours to get used again.I hope it will not be to hard after beeing groundet for one year.

Roberto

Mountain flying
 

Mountain flying is a thrill among itself, don't you think?
I've been reading a lot of articles in magazines like Rotor&Wing and Autorotation and some about mountain flying. What struck me when reading these articles was that the they were written in a manner that the common helicopter pilot, ( I reccon they were aimed at US pilots coz those ara US magazines.... but) isn't supposed to know anything about mountain flying??? So my questions to you experienced guys are:

What are your opinions on these articles and mountain flying?

Please tell us (the inexperienced) about your experience in this field(considerations, safety issues)?

I fly in Iceland and here we have some great mountains as many of you might have guessed an they sometimes seem to produce bad weather in almost every conditions.

Hope to hear many opinions.

Safe flying.

Edited for spelling, ( ARRRRR those special Icelandic letters)

[ 30 November 2001: Message edited by: Heli-Ice ] Same purpose
:D

[ 01 December 2001: Message edited by: Heli-Ice ]

You are probably mountain flying when some of these things (not an exhaustive list) become significant enough for you to start feeling a bit unsettled if you haven't done it before (or even if you have):

You're moving a lot faster over the ground for a given airspeed than usual (IAS vs. TAS, can catch you out during approaches and turning around in valleys particularly).

The horizon is hidden behind the big hills, so all your usual attitude cues aren't there any more.

You might be flying along beside a ridge and suddenly find you need a heap more power to avoid the ground than normal because you're caught in descending air.

A big invisible hand might reach out, grab the helicopter and shake it around like a toy, then go away (perhaps!).

Your engine acts like it won't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

You're a bit lost, poking around in a valley, fly round a corner and find it's full of cloud. Then you haven't got room to turn around, and you also find that you've been creeping up in altitude and can't hover OGE any more - and the valley floor is covered in trees. Uh oh!

You think 'I'll just duck over that lower part of the ridge line there', fly at it, and find your airspeed is bleeding off because it's a 12000 ft pass, and you've got about 10 degrees nose up to make the picture look right.

You're in a pad with 5 ft on the radalt and 10000 on the pressure altimeter, and little blokes with bows and arrows come out from behind the bushes!

Well enough rambling for the moment...

I am sure it is written in American...surely it isn't in English....for there aren't any mountains in Britain! Foothills maybe...knolls...knobs....yea even a bluff...but mountains.....nah! So why would the article be slanted towards the English...afterall it is in fact an American magazine....Rotor and Wing. We on the far side of the pond try to make things meet the reality test when dealing with aviation and not see how complex and esoteric we can make it. Ever done a plotting exam for a CAA ATPL? Apply that to your everyday tasking as a pilot. :p

HELI ICE: use the search facility on this forum, there is a mountain of information available under "mountain flying" :D

Geronimo: I've done both, Trained in the Rockies and work in the lumps and bumps of the UK. It's the same as far as 'local weather' is concerned, you can't experience the whole mountain range at one go.
The principles are the same with both techniques and weather phenomena. Big isn't always better ;) Both can bite.

[I'm assuming aircraft performance isn't an issue. ]

Hahahaha.... Yeah those blokes with the bow and arrows, good thing we don't have them here on the Ice.
I think maybe that we are lucky here on the Ice because the highest mountain here is around 7000´ high. Despite that fact one has to take into account the power available to you when working in and around those mountains. The weather here can get a bit hostile and conditions can change at the blink of an eye.

Geronimo 33:
Yes I've done the Icelandic CAA ATPL plotting Exam, I don't know if its any different from the one you are talking about.
We use that plotting practice when going IFR, for VFR we use the chart and the string with the small helicopter at the end of it. Iceland is such a small island and we have a very relaxed flying environment. Not so many navigation facilities for lower airspace flying.
Most of the helicopter flying here is done under VMC as in many other countries.
What kind of operation are you involved in Geronimo33?

The reason for this posting is that I have never flown anywhere else than in Iceland and I wanted to get some information from as many of you on this forum.

I've flown around a few mountains, some of the tropical kind, and some of the Colorado kind. I think the biggest problem with mountains is that they are high and they are hard.

The height robs power and sticks up into clouds, making cumulous granite clouds the second most dangerous cloud formation (cumulous electric takes my first place).

Mountains are hard, at least as compared to cloudy or dark air, so the helicopter comes to a very rapid stop when flying along and suddenly encountering a mountain-filled cloud.

Mountains are beautiful, with the spectacular ability to cause that gut-wrenching thrill when you fly past a peak and the world falls away at super-sonic speed. When I first soloed, I flew off a cliff face near Breckenridge, Texas at least 30 times just to get that cheap thrill.

Near Leadville Colorado, the peaks are beautiful, and the valleys are filled with yellow-leaved Aspens that look like 10 mile long flower shops. The air is thin, and so is the power margin on most helos, so you rapidly gain respect for airspeed and escape options.

In the Arabian countries, the mountains are red, and the sunsets can bring tears of beauty to your eyes. The valley near the Rum, Jordan's highest mountain, is like Monument Valley in the western flicks, with towering rock pillars jutting 1000 meters above the sandy valley floor where Lawrence lead his troops against the Ottomans. Shut down on the top of the Rum, watch the sun set in measured pace, watch the stars slowly unveil themselves, and you could decide that little else is needed to fill your life, unless you think about battery failure, and how the hell you can get help a mile up a sheer rock-faced cliff.

I think mountains are the place to feel the real thrill of flying. Flatlands are safer, more predictable, and more boring. Gain 1000 feet, and all that flatland stuff looks painted on the canvas. Mountains add punctuation to our flying, I think. :)

Nick,

You ever have to navigate by the bottoms of the mountains while the tops were obscured by cloud...say ceiling about 2-300 feet...but gin clear underneath? Did that one time flying from a field site 200 miles east of Bandar Abbas on the way to a drill rig in the middle of the desert inland from Lavan Island in Iran. What a novel trip...on Christmas Day as well! The terrain relief was very stark due to the rocky barren ground....made it easy to see the shapes of the peaks....the trick was to ignore the upper contours on the map and look at the lowest contour lines.

Turbulence could be fun there too....flying the Alouette III in real turbulence you could have temporary hydraulic failures due to cavitation of the pump while all the fluid hung out at the top of the tank....we are talking about industrial strength ups and downs!

Some of the prettiest photographs I have are of late evening flights in the desert there...with the stark mountains and interesting colors....same as the Cedar City-Bryce Canyon area of Utah....and down through Moab and Cortez area. For a real thrill ....fly off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in really hazy weather from an altitude of 50-100 feet....really charges the batteries!

G33,
That overcast scenario with the ridge tops in cloud is wonderful, I agree. The clouds cut the light to a soft glow, and the shadows disappear so things look almost like a model of the world.

It is cool, unless there is a 50 cal team on the ridges at the military crest, shooting down like we are fish in a barrel (25 miles west of Tra Bong, as I recall). You can pull the seat cushion up into a small dough ball from the adrenelin.

First, didn't see the articles...

The "mountains" (3-5000 ft) around northern GA, USA., mostly seem to generate clouds. That's why they're called the Smokies. I'm coming to the opinion that relative humidity is my best predictor of success when I'm deciding go/no go. Must be loads of fun in Iceland...

Yes it can be loads of fun here on the Ice. We do a lot of aerial photography in the mountains also deliver spare parts and other useful stuff to people who constantly feel the insane urge to drive or walk around the glaciers and rugged terain. We also do sigthseeing.

Landing on top of a glacier is great fun but those darn things seem to have their own weather system.

I heard a story from one pilot who was doing aerial photography around the biggest glacier here in what seemed to be a very good weather, only 5-10 kts all around the country but 40-50 kts around the ice cap. A big hand reached out from nowhere and slammed him around. Everything turned out fine with him and he returned to safety but it is a bit scary when you get caught in a situation like that.

Thomas coupling: Thanks for the info.

I've spent the last 20+ years in the BC Rockies. What terrifies me is any trips out east onto that godforsaken flat land you guys call "Praries".. Luckily, that happens very rarely.
There have been a lot of good points brought up in this thread, local knowlege of weather patterns help, as does strong knowlege of your aircraft and it's performance charts. Some good training on some proven mountain flight proceedures, some common sense and a bit of luck and you're all set.

I have operated a 206B up to 12,000, with the proper Wx, loads and attitude, it can be done if conditions are correct.
Life is so much easier now since the 407 entered the picture.

Have fun out there on the flatlands and over the oceans boys, it's not for me. :D

Heli Ice

What sort of helos are you flying up there and what is the variety of work you do.

Thanks Folks for the input,interesting post.
Don't have much experience in mountain flying living in the low countries.

If you don't ask....you'll never know..... ;)

The following website might be of interest. Click Mountain Flying.com

I've yet to do any real mountain flying in helicopters, but a few C172 hours out of Aspen Colorado provided an interesting lesson in greatly reduced performance at high altitude!

Lee Turbulence
 

I am interested in hearing from the guru's on techniques for flying on the lee side of hills/mountains in a stiff wind - i.e. the area of turbulence, standing waves and rotor action. Or perhaps more correctly, avoiding standing waves and rotor action, while flying in the lee of a mountain.

I have read through the mountain flying threads, where there were brief discussions concentrating on lee turbulence, but I would love to hear experiences etc of others in this area. I have done a bit of flying among serious mountains in the tropics, but none in the alpine areas where it can get quite blowy. When in Europe last, I wanted to take a tourist helo ride, but they canned it when the wind got above 30kts (from memory), so I missed out on the experience as a passenger too.

If I have missed such a previous discussion - mea culpa, and could you please point me in that direction?

There's not much you can do to avoid them in the lee, but I have found that the smoothest area, if you get stuck (because it's inconvenient to keep changing valley sides sometimes) is to ride the backlash formed by the wind curling back toward the peak after it has gone over the top. However, you need to be *very* close in (like about 6 inches!) and is dangerous for that reason. 25-30 kts is my level for canning trips.

If you can see down the upslope, then you will be above the demarcation line.

Phil

Yep, what Paco said. I've found that you can get the best results by seeking the "dead air" underneath the swirling cauldron, but it puts you close to the rocks. You have to leave yourself an "out" and be prepared to break down and away from the mountains. Never approach a ridge from 90 degrees, approach from about 45 degrees instead so that your don't have so far to turn to get out of Dodge if you need to.

Paco, that sounds exciting! You mean you are just on the downwind side of the ridge, below the demarcation line?

Why not try New Zealand as an option as well.Not much further to go than Australia.The current exhange rates makes NZ very attractive.Not only do some of the best pilots in the world come out of NZ but the type of flying as far as mountain training and long line training is second to none.
Look up helipro.co.nz ,quite a big company with a good diverse range of gear.
Good luck where every you choose.

I've been asked to recommend a Mountain Flying course.

My chum lives in the UK, but is prepared to travel for a good course.
Looking at the photographs posted in our Rotorheads Around the World collection, I think I'd be heading off to a school in Canada if I was him.

Any recommendations?

Heliport

The main high altitude flying course in the U.S. is Guidance Helicopters out of Arizona...

http://www.guidancehelicopters.com/index2.html

They are a Part 141 training center, which many folks feel is better than the standard Part 61 training center. I met the owner and two of their CFI's when I was at the RHC Safety Course, and they seem to be a good lot.

I don't have any specific information about the school; nevertheless, they seem to have an excellent success rate. Also, they are opening up a second location in Montana shortly.