On the deck of a Greenpeace vessel off the coast of Ireland.

Lucky, lucky people. Including those of the deck crew that go under the disc as the aircraft runs down.

I've not been able to track down the NTSB report on this one, but I'm sure it's interesting.

Seems in some of my nightmares there is one crew change flight to a certain Italian crewed Crane ship on the North Sea....a very dark night...a moderate sea (by North Sea Standards anyway)....a S-58T...snow...Decca...and a resulting strong desire to be anywhere else than where I was sat.

We did a Port Side approach to the very stern mounted helideck immediately abaft the huge funnel up towards the tippy (and it was in spades) top of the aft superstructure. A bit of a hover to cess out the movement....plunked the old girl down on the high point of her heave...somewhere in mid-stride in roll...bottomed the collective and rode the Bronco for what seemed like hours while the Italians all exchanged family photos...life histories...and played a couple hands of Pinochle or Skat. We were sliding back and forth about two squares of net with each cycle of roll.....turning green from Mal de Mer...and not enjoying the case of Vertigo that we were working into.

Yes....by all means...do get some hands on instruction if you can as it can be a very definite learning experience with some steep curves if you omit any one of numerous handy "Tips".

The videos bring back some very nice memories. Especially the night landings and drinking antoher coffee after the last landing enjoying the night sky.

For 15 years have a broken shear pin in my wallet as a reminder not to push my luck once more beyond limits...

Always jealous at the navies which had stabilized horizon bars and GPI's

The Lynx uses negative pitch once landed on, hence oleo compression. What is disconcerting however is the lack of lashings to ensure the cab doesnt start 'hopping' around the deck.:eek:
Deck landings must be the most demanding type of flying anywhere in the world. I challenge anyone to say otherwise giving examples of what could be harder (especially night deck Landings).:E

tc-

I watched the vid closely. They've got a Harpoon system installed (lovely piece of kit if you manage to land it over the grid), and it engaged the deck grid (it's the bit that comes down hydraulically roughly between and slightly forward of the main mounts. You arm it before landing (normally... you can also opt to arm it after landing), the weight-on-wheels switches start it probing for the deck, when what is basically a finger and a thumb finds a pair of grid holes, it swivels as necessary, engages the grid, grabs hold, then pulls up toward the fuselage and compresses the struts a lot more than negative pitch does.

Ship can roll a long way indeed (far more than you could get aboard with unless you had great big heaps of luck) and that baby's not coming off. When the little green light comes on in the cockpit, it's a nice feeling.

Of course, if you miss the grid, it thrashes to no effect like a bishop on holiday unless you reposition so you are over the grid.

FHS - Helicopter Handling Systems, Hangars, Hangar Doors, Doors and Hatches - Naval Technology

cramm.nl/downloads/producten/documentatie/heligrid2/Heligrid2.pdf

TC: Whilst I agree that deck landings are challenging [especially to the inexperienced - in such profiles] they are by no means the most demanding types of flying. How's about NVG flight down 3 miles of river in the jungle under the canopy to land on a sand bar? I personally feel that was far more demanding than a relatively simple deck landing in a force 8 gale in the South Atlantic. For a start, regarding the deck landing there was always the option to abort and think again etc. Under the canopy however, no such luxury - a case of stop [hover - eeeek] to gather courage or continue and hope you get it right. One way in - one way out.

Best Wishes

Ace

I've never found a single experienced helicopter pilot who couldn't relate a flying tale to a differently-experienced helicopter pilot that would scare the dickens out of the differently-experienced one... and then they have another beer and that second fellow relates a tale to the first one that scares the first one!

SAR in high seas at night. Being shot at. Ice. Slinging a load that takes on a mind of its own. Fighting fires. Goggle landing on a dusty mountainside in fog on an indeterminate slope. Forced landing in a place not conducive to a forced landing. Fire. The ship not being where it said it was going to be and not bothering to give you a clue. Taking off from a tight spot with far more people aboard than the machine is supposed to carry. Spotting that last person in the water right as the bingo light comes on and deciding you might have enough fuel left to get him AND get feet dry. Flying a Robbie. All, under the right circumstances, attention-getting.

A couple of these I've done, the others I've heard about.

Make sure you have plenty of tip clearance..............

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...god/img041.jpg

I remember my godfather saying "firm but safe" on those occasions during my flight training when my landings were .. well, less than tidy. Not sure if that could apply to the landing above - although, to be fair, they were battling a fair degree of pitch on the deck.

Time elapsed from deck contact to blades stopped .. 27 seconds .. and .. it appears as though there may be evidence of 'collective-braking'!

Is it just me or did the deck drew pick the worst possible time to come under the disc?? :eek:

OH

No, it's not you! Clearly they haven't seen the photos of their unfortunate colleague who had his skull removed from his head by a Seahawk!

Some years ago I was involved in a rig-tow of a jack-up rig "Key Biscayne" that we lost in a storm on the West Oz coast. The heli pilots did an incredible job evacuating the marine crew off the foundering rig, dropping down between pitching legs of the jack-up to winch personnel off the rig. A bit off-topic so i apologise, but courageous flying nonetheless.

One of the pilots was Dave Gibson if memory serves, flying a S-76. Others may refresh these aging synapses. Did they not receive some sort of official recognition for their deeds?

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...aham227/da.jpg

Full report here

http://www.divingfrontiers.com.au/Tr...mages/rpt3.pdf

Yep, that's the one. Some months later the charterer (Philips?) supplied us a video put together from various heli mounted cameras, showing some of the heroic flying that day. Just amazing.

What was your involvement Brian?

No personal involvement truthinbeer. As I remarked, I think the pilot was Dave Gibson, the two of us going back a long way, having originally joined the Navy together.

Dave Gibson was Chief Pilot of Okanagan Australia, leading the west coast operation which was for one of the Seven Sisters: Esso, IIRC. The Philips operation was out of Essendon to the Bass Strait.

The sinking effectively led to the closing of Okanagan Australia as our Philips contract wound up a month or so later and there was no work for 4 S76s, pilots and engineers :( Okanagan gave work to some, others started Barrack (sp?) Helicopters in Perth, and that was the end of Okanagan Australia :sad:

However, I've not seen photos of the rig evacuation before: none of our S76s were winch equipped so all our pickups would have been via deck landings. A valiant effort, by the looks of it :ok:

In the first vid posted by Savoia (#10), a flagman is seen in the foreground. What is he trying to convey to the pilot, and is the pilot actually able to watch him while concentrating on the ship's movement?

The flagman is probably telling the pilot when he's over the landing spot, though I'm not familiar with those signals exactly.
That's one thing pretty difficult to discern from the pilot's seat if the landing area is small, which it is in this case.
Too far aft, you hang a wheel off the deck, too far forward, you whack the superstructure.

Interocean II
 

This one is also worth remembering. 8th November 1989

Whilst on tow to a new location in the North Sea, the Interocean II ran into a gale with 85 mph winds and 25 foot seas. After losing one of its towlines, the UK coast guard was notified and two choppers were scrambled from Bristow's North Denes base in Norfolk to extract 43 of the rig's 51 crew. The first chopper reached the rig 30 minutes later to find the rig pitching and rolling, with the helideck tilted at 10 degrees. In driving rain, with the rig heaving up to 25 feet, the first 10 crew were airlifted and flown to a neighbouring platform.


The second chopper arrived to find the rig corkscrewing in heavy seas, resulting in the need for the pilot to reverse his chopper onto the helideck. After two more extractions, only 11 men were left on board, of which eight were expecting to remain behind as a skeleton crew. The first chopper returned for the last extraction but was unable to find the rig as the final towline had parted, allowing the rig to drift away. It became obvious that this would be the last landing attempted and the remaining crew were advised to abandon the rig due to the increasingly difficult conditions. The last 11 men had to crawl across the helideck before the chopper departed. Several minutes later, the Interocean II capsized and sank as a result of structural failure and flooding.

Stu Gregg, Mike Wood, Dale Moon and Roger Williams were the pilots that night.

Sounds very like the late oil rig Key Biscayne!:ok:

Whoops, I hadn't read the previous page! The crew was yours truly flying, Dave Gibson in the left seat & Robin Vaughan-Johnstone, a 76 co-pilot, in the back as a crewy. We had a winch but conditions were hopeless to winch 52 people off in a hurry as we all thought the rig would capsize at any moment which it did when the last tow rope broke.