B2N2, the problem is a helicopter such as a Robbie has no natural stability such as a fixed wing, the machine is balanced on the head of a pin, a stabilisation system (SAS) endows the helicopter with fixed wing like stability, but costs $$$. Eases the work load no end, but of course you need the skills should it take a holiday.

If there one more thing the Robby book tells us. its that some fixed-wing techniques will get you killed in their helicopters.

This idea of taking off at night staring at the artificial horizon until you get to 500' in the hopes that you'll be able to see the ground once you get there, sounds like one of them. :eek:

As for Robbys with autopilot? Yeah, that just seems like a recipe for more scudd-running and/or too dark to fly VFR, crashes.

,...in the wrong hands I guess? :hmm:

Robbiee - a night take-off doesn't mean staring at the AI - you can make a normal visual transition if you have a reasonably lit area like an airport, get comfortable in the climb configuration and then use a mixture of visual cues and the AI to confirm them to continue on your flight.

If people are going to scud-run, they will do it anyway whether or not they have the skills to do so and regardless of the handling qualities of their aircraft, that comes down to the person and their attitude to flying- as we keep seeing on these pages, sadly

The difference is stunning:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/7/...-re-going-down


https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/61...-july-7-a.html

A professional crew and and a professional machine.

How are those events in any way relevant to the R44 crash?

Not really.
More a fleeting reminder of how a properly trained experienced pilot managed a positive outcome during a night emergency.
Four people saved vs perished.
Feel free to ignore it.

Assuming you mean an AI, AH, T&B, etc., that seems extraordinarily unlikely, or at least extraordinarily your own experience, which perhaps is heavily slanted towards more challenging night VFR conditions. Not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to understand. People have untold thousands (millions?) of hours at night in un-stabilized helicopters with no attitude information in the panel and seem to manage just fine at night under reasonable VFR conditions (not total blackness, but not brilliantly lit urban landscapes either).

If you are referring to airspeed, altitude, etc., heck, don't we all use those in all types of flight conditions?

For any newbies reading this particular thread of discussion, it's important to understand that different countries and different parts of the flying community do things differently. Part 91 operations in the US occur in ways that curl the hair of, say, retired UK military helicopter pilots. Needs must when the devil drives, and since US Part 91 op's are mostly in un-stabilized, un-sophisticated, light singles, as opposed to medium or heavy, fully stabilized, twins, you get the aforementioned un-stabilized singles flying around at night quite successfully, minus the occasional exception like the one being discussed herein.

In other words, it's not inherently evil, but one must understand the conditions they are facing and act accordingly and, most importantly, according to their own risk tolerance (damn, there's that risk thing again!) The risk tolerance of a lot of the Rotorheads on PPRuNe tends to be quite conservative. Nevertheless, remember that accidents (or "negligents") happen not because a helicopter or pilot is intrinsically more or less capable, they happen because someone exceed the capabilities of man and/or machine. Indeed, look at the other relatively recent topic about Rescue 111. If that had been an R44 they might have been dead quite quickly. It just took a bit longer for the far better equipped, trained and experienced crew of Rescue 111.

Anyone can push anything too far. That certainly seems to be the case here, and it's worth discussing the how and the why. But don't let it be an indictment of all VFR night helicopter operations.

If all those hours have been flown - not sure how you know who did what and in what conditions - then they were probably over well-lit enough areas to give adequate orientation, as the rule requires.

But, if they did that without being able to see the ground, then they did not fly in accordance with the rules for night VFR - simples.

Do tell how you control your pitch and roll attitude in an unstabilised aircraft without an external reference if you don't have an AI and you can't see the actual horizon. Perhaps the ubiquitous i-pad?

Probably not a great example given exactly what caused the emergency in the first place though.

US HEMS EC135P1 Dual Engine Failure: 7 July 2018 - Aerossurance

Years ago as a very low time PPL(H) I was ferrying piston ag ships between job sites to build hours, a fair amount was at night & to/from unlit field sites in rural areas. Being restricted category ag ships a couple didn't even have a compass. But I also had a healthy sense of self-preservation, plus several years of helicopter background as a military enlisted crewmember. Common sense & understanding your limitations goes a long ways.

You know I'm not spouting hard numbers, but R44s and many other light single, VFR-only helicopters fly at night all the time in the US, and historically this has gone on probably since the beginning of the helicopter. it's just common sense. By way of a single example, once upon a time, that's all police departments flew, before they started squeezing taxpayers for bigger and better.

Of course that is the case.

That is not the case.

You don't.

Either you and I are not on the same page (as usual), or you are serving up non-sequiturs for some reason.

Bottom line: there are lots of night VFR helicopter op's in the US in un-stabilized, VFR-only light singles, all done 100% legally without reference to instrument flight tools and techniques, without them falling from the sky in droves. It's simply not a big problem in this country, nor is it some sort of anathema, either.

Not a non-sequitur - I have said how many nights I have seen where pure VFR flight at night is possible ie not that many but you say night VFR happens all the time in the US.

You can draw 2 possible conclusions from this - 1. There are far more real VFR nights in the US than the UK or 2. People are claiming night VFR when the conditions don't meet the rules

You choose.

As ever you seem to want to trivialise a thread trying to make safety points about an accident because it offends your risk appetite.

Well I can say that even in the very well lighted San Francisco Bay Area (where I got most of my night hours) true VFR nights aren't exactly a dime a dozen. Too much frickin' fog!

,...and then when you do finally get a nice fog free one, you can't go to the city because of those damn ballgame TFRs! :ugh:

Now that post is on point. Concise and clear.

Taking your points in reverse order:

First, in no way is it my desire to trivialize the issues that likely contributed to the subject accident. I fully agree with the consensus of this topic regarding the likely cause, not that that has been at all proven yet (and may never be given the level of destruction of the aircraft).

However, I completely disagree with the idea that people routinely claim night VFR when the conditions don't meet the rules, at least in the US, and that night VFR flight is an unlikely state of affairs, at least in the US.

There are certainly major differences in weather patterns throughout the world. Perhaps that is part of it. Night VFR flight in all classes and categories of powered aircraft (edited to add: for which it is legal) are de rigueur throughout the US. No doubt some take liberties, but not to the extent that there are a noteworthy number of Part 91 accidents. Indeed, most of those sort of issues seem to plague more complex operations like HEMS. That said, I absolutely agree that, as usual, operations unique to helicopters, particularly off-airport departures and arrivals, represent a substantial increase in complexity and risk.

From a more personal perspective, I have never flown at night when legal VFR was not possible, and that includes off-airport operations. This is not to say some of these flights were not challenging. But in no case did they approach a level of advertent or inadvertent flight into essentially IFR conditions. I believe most US pilots are equally responsible even in the face of the less restrictive rules found in the US. If they were not there would be a substantially higher level of night accidents in the US.

Never a truer word, night VFR in my time in Oz was legal in pitch black conditions, all that was needed was VFR weather as defined by regs, and keep clear of cloud, was never said how you do that in pitch black conditions, the following is the report of a fatal night VFR accident by a 16,000 hour pilot. Lessons even learnt by the regulator.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/566884...02%20Final.pdf

Isn't this one of those countries who require a specific "night rating"?

[QUOTE=megan;11169240]Never a truer word, night VFR in my time in Oz was legal in pitch black conditions, all that was needed was VFR weather as defined by regs, and keep clear of cloud, was never said how you do that in pitch black conditions, the following is the report of a fatal night VFR accident by a 16,000 hour pilot. Lessons even learnt by the regulator.

It's been some time since I've flown in Oz, but IIRC, a VFR flight at or below 2000 ft above the ground or water, a pilot is required to be able to navigate by visual reference to the ground or water. I posit that in "pitch black" conditions, this is not possible or legal. Hence additional requirements were in place for NVFR overwater op's. I do agree that Oz NVFR requirements lacked a certain degree of clarity or guidance that sadly attributed to a number of fatal accidents.

The requirement is you have to be able to positively fix your position by reference to features on a topographical chart at intervals not exceeding 30 minutes, which on a pitch black night means, in my opinion, a lighted area such as a town, or where I operated, an off shore platform. See page 31 of the report.

I've flown quite a bit in the area of this accident and it's not that dark there. Plenty of ground lighting and flat terrain. Never heard of "pitch black" in aviation. I've flown all over the US unaided and never had a problem. Over a large body of water is a whole different story, though. The guy most likely went inadvertent. Plenty of fog there at all times of the year.

The closest I've seen to "pitch black" was looking out to sea from the Golden Gate on a moonless night. Where you can't tell if the handfull of lights you see are stars, planes, or boats?

You don't need pitch black to get into trouble though. On my ppl night cross country over the desert, all I had was the lights of the skinny little freeway below me. After maybe twenty minutes, or so, I started to feel disoriented. Fortunately, just as I was about to hand the controls to my instructor, the lights of Tuscon came up and the disorientation went away.

Though, if I had been alone on that flight,..?

Perhaps a little far afield from the original topic, but I'm always more cautious/concerned about potentially getting the leans than flying into zero visibility (clouds or just blackness). At least the latter ought to be unambiguous, or at least should be. I fly in very mixed terrain, from bright urban to dark rural, from flatland to mountains, and over small bodies of water. I always make it a point to correlate what I'm seeing with known terrain features. If it seems "slanted" should it seem "slanted"? That sort of thing. Heck, even in the daytime this issue can come into play, if it's very hazy and an opposite shoreline seems "slanted". I've never had the leans, but how it might happen is definitely obvious.

Getting sucked into "black holes" is also a big one. I was once with another pilot, who was PIC, going into a pretty big airport with a perfectly serviceable PAPI. There was this large, completely black area for a mile or so directly in front of the runway. He kept going below the optical glide slope, entirely fixated on that patch of blackness, even though the PAPI was perfect on that severe clear evening. I could not understand it, but it happens. Experienced it again with someone else PIC at an unimproved, but lighted, LZ. Again, could not understand it. Fixed the problem both times, of course, else I might not be here!

The only time I've personally been spatially disoriented was one night, transitioning through Class C, with a Southwest 737 on approach to that airport. Conditions were severe clear. No problem flying straight and level, it was brilliantly lit urbanization below. But I could swear that 737 was on a collision course, the lights were so bright, and the relative motion was just so, but of course we were well separated by ATC, and he passed 2000 feet above me. That sure was weird! It's never happened again, since, but I remember that feeling like it was yesterday.

Now that we are wading into boring "there I was" territory, I think we're done here for now.

**Indeed. I was taught from the start of my military career to fly unstabilised "floppy stick" helicopters both by night and on instruments under IFR, day and night (because that's all they had in the training system back then). However, they ALL had "blind flying" flight instruments.

I later flew a "floppy stick" public transport (police) helicopter by night, single pilot without a current instrument rating. After an accident to a police helicopter some twenty years ago, the UK CAA changed the rules such that either a second pilot was carried for such flights (impractical) or that an autopilot, i.e. a full trim/stabilisation system was installed (also impractical) and that police pilots flew a dedicated monthly instrument flying training sortie which included an ILS. That led to the ultimate demise of the AS355 for the UK police role.

How ever did you survive such an ordeal?

"There was that one time I found myself flying a helicopter, at night, BY MYSELF and GET THIS, NOT instrument current.

especially when someone is trying to big themselves up by dissing other peoples failings when he flew with them.

'There I was, slightly below the glidepath with nothing to look at but the PAPIs'...................I've had more exciting ground runs.........

We can always go over to JH and let the HEMS guys tell us what "real night" is. :}

You're quite entitled to your opinion but there I was stories are one of the greatest learning tools available to an aviator, more lessons have been learnt having a drink in the bar than in a class room probably.I think this is an area the FAA needs to revisit. In Oz an attitude indicator is mandatory for night VFR, also night VFR approval is a separate rating on top of what ever license you might hold (in answer to Robbiee) .

The accident report I linked to contains the following statement on page 35,Gets my vote, this Robbie accident is likely proof of just that.

Indeed, the NVFR rating used to be a Grade 4 Instrument Rating way back when. Not that it's a foolproof system, but the vast areas of Oz without much ground lighting or references mandates such a minimum instrument fit for the aircraft and minimum instrument rating for the driver, airframe.

If a required artificial horizon and "night rating" didn't keep a 16,000 hour pilot from crashing, then what good would it do a low time guy in an R44?

Instead of increased regulation it might be better to just try harder to get the point across that if you're not going to be able to clearly see the ground at anytime during a night flight, then just file and fly IFR.

,...and if you can't, just don't fly!

From the accident report the pilot should not have been carrying passengers.....
and shouldn't have been night flying with passengers.....

It matters not what instruments the aircraft is fitted with, all can still come unraveled, two Boeing 747 have taken off at night and promptly rolled inverted and crashed, all because the pilots attitude indicator had failed, the fact there was another pilot and another two working attitude indicators didn't save them. In the early days of single seat fighters the loss rate due to the leans was high, because to tune radios/nav aids the pilot had to look down and some what aft as they were located on a console beside the seat.That may be good advice in the US given their system, but impracticable in Oz, my opinion is Oz, even with the deficiencys pointed out in the report, has a pretty good system.

Spot on Robbiee - it would have saved 4 lives in this sad case.

Oh give it up, crab. You are just angry with me for daring to contradict your assertion that the vast majority of night flight is tantamount to IFR.

It's really easy buzzing around a well-lit city at night, thinking what a legend at night-flying you are.
Once you leave the limits and head off to the country, with the exception of clear skies and a bright moon, there will be precious few flights which, at some point enroute, would not fall beneath minima and be considered IMC.
It quickly becomes here-be-dragons country, and all the when-we stories doesn't change that.

Ground runs can be quite exciting - ask the RNoAF!

some very experienced people here seem to agree with me.

Ever thought you might be part of the problem?

Flight Safety is easily discounted or dismissed if you have a cavalier attitude to rules and regs because you think you are much better than the other guys and girls. Personal freedoms don't trump safety in aviation.

I have got close to that on a night start when the Wessex went into ground resonance due to unequal tyre pressures - that was quite exciting:)

BR: we can all cite specific circumstances that support our own individual arguments. I'm not arguing that there aren't conditions at night that are tantamount to IFR. There certainly are. I'm only arguing that these do not form the preponderance of such operations everywhere, nor do the fact they exist make all night flying like that. I've already gotten into "trouble" for citing personal experience (where certain others have not...) so I won't go there again.

I think it comes down to the usual argument of "What is the right kind of flying?", or "What is the right way of doing it?" Those with certain backgrounds and experience, particularly in highly complex military environments, simply can't fathom operating at night except in a certain way. Meanwhile, others, some with many thousands of hours (that's not me, to be clear) in "floppy stick" (that's a great term!), non-IFR certified equipment, don't see any problem with tackling it as a true VFR operation. And of course the line gets a bit blurry, since most helicopters are gyro-equipped at some level. No doubt there is some reliance on that, correct or incorrect, legal or not legal.

All I'm saying is that the situation is not black and white, if you'll pardon the pun. Differences in culture, training, doctrine, experience and environment make it so that some people are quite comfortable in the dark VFR, others not so much without making it a de facto IFR flight. Those who tend towards the latter often carry that over into the expression that any such thing as night VFR should be outlawed and that those who profess any sort comfort in a night VFR environment are all cowboys who are ultimately doomed. And indeed this has lead to restrictions on night VFR flight in some places, but not the US, not yet, anyway.

And there are others of equal experience who posted otherwise.

No.

Agreed. That's why I fly within the letter of the law (US law) and have set conservative minimums based on my level of experience, training, currency, and the capability of the equipment I have access to.

Or is it just you?

"There I was" - I had a bird strike during a ground run. When we picked up the pieces we found the pigeon's name and address printed under its wing. ;-)