Filming in the Mountains
 

Aviator609, thank you for noting my name and asking someone to contact me for clarification. A pilot did contact me to ask me what the circumstance of the landing had been and I felt this post deserved a response.

The Bell 407 was totally capable of handling the load and conditions of the day. I have a couple of 1000 hours of filming experience and in fact that is currently 95% of my flights and the 407 is my favourite for the job.

On the day of video we shot in the Mountains between 9 to 10,000 feet in the morning with reduced fuel as we had positioned from Jhb. When the filming was completed we landed to refuel and pickup the director from the Lodge, as we could not get in due to cloud, earlier. The plan was then to follow a river down the mountains and ferry to the coast to continue with what they required there. We were close to MAUW, which is never nice for filming but the main purpose of the flight was to ferry to another location.

We shot down the river in the mountains and the director asked if we could perhaps shoot a stretch going up the river. Ah .. yes we can but we will be quite fast over the ground as we will be climbing and need to keep the speed. The director asked that I go as slow as I felt we could, which I did. I misread the wind coming though a V and ended up with too little airspeed to climb up the hill.

Now there were a couple of options, one being, to get ham fisted and footed and force the helicopter around into the wind risking over temping the helicopter or ... landing in a downwind situation in a bowl, due to the ground clearance for the camera, to ask the passengers in the rear to exit, so I could take off and hover turn into the wind at a lower weight and ask them to walk to where I could land on the ridge about 100 meters away. We did just that. On landing I asked them to exit from one door, on the left which was lower and not to walk away from the helicopter, due to the danger of the slope, and to kneel by helicopter until I lifted off. Which they did. No damage to anyone or anything.

In short, yes, I messed up .... and sorry if I let the side down!! Maybe on the good side and really why I wanted to respond to this post, is that in being human, and doing specialised flying, I may mess up again in another situation but the most important thing, I think, is to realise the situation early, so you can take whatever action is required, while there are still options. My two cents ... hope it may help someone.

I have flown with Bill for years and will continue to.