I like 1500 feet - keeps me away from small arms fire :)

Flying SH3 Seakings off carriers/CVs in the 80's, the only reason to climb to 400 feet was to stream the MAD (rarely done). Typical altitudes were 150/300 day/night over water. 1500 VFR was preferred over land.

Min Flying Speed could also refer - in aircraft like the Huey/Bell 205 or the Wessex - to the minimum speed to maintain tail rotor control. Never took a Huey above 12,000ft so not sure if it applies there, but the Wessex certainly had to maintain >40kts above a certain altitude to keep effective TR control.

On the subject of heights that people are comfortable to fly around, a lot of the ex-Rhodesian Air Force pilots we had in Oman couldn't bring themselves to operate much above 2000ft agl. I think it was something to do with their Alouette IIIs having a lot of magnesium alloy in their construction (much like the early Wessex - don't know about the later marks), so if hit by small arms there was a risk of the airframe being burnt out before it reached the ground at higher heights. Anyone who saw the aftermath of the Wessex collision at Odiham, prior to the introduction of the Heliland protocols, would know why they were worried.

As SASLess notes, if the MRGB wants to let go, or the sync shafts in a CH-47, it really makes little difference if you're at 150ft or 10 000ft. i think the only time it concerned me was conducting O2 trials on the Chinook where we climbed to and flew in circles at nearly 18 000ft for about an hour. My concern was not a Xmsn failure, but as T&B suggests, an uncontained fire. Sure, the engine is supposed to burn through the mounts and drop off, but some sort of fire in the centreline (oil/hyd/electrics) was a bit of a worry. We were not wearing chutes (which was a notable debrief point….) and even my best 'express elevator to hell, going down…' tactical descent of dumping the lever, rolling to 60 (ish…) AoB and pulling / pedalling the aircraft down would still see us take 3 minutes or so to be on the ground - even by taking a slightly liberal view of the power off Nr limits….Always happier at 50ft than 500ft - can read the road signs, Air Traffic can't vector anyone into you and there's little chance of a PPL blundering around gazing at their iPad rather than out of the window. Although I did get rather close to a Seneca launching off a farm strip near Salisbury Plain once...

i seem to remember Evaluator very comfortable at FL100 in a CH47 one day in the dim and distant past, but that was mainly due to it being the only way to get around a patch of scoshie weather and get home, avoiding an evening somewhere less than pleasant in the Balkans…..

On the topic of flying at altitude, having had an 'interesting' MGB event, with rapidly cascading indications and captions, at 7,000' agl, and then being unable to land for a while due to being over 8/8th broccoli (primary jungle), I can testify that the old adage "it's better to be on the ground wishing you were flying, than flying and wishing you were on the ground" is true!

On June 21, 1972, Jean Boulet of France piloted an Aerospatiale SA 315 B Lama helicopter to an absolute altitude record of 12.440 kilometres (40,814 ft). At that extreme altitude, the engine flamed out and Boulet had to land the helicopter by breaking another record: the longest successful autorotation in history. (Wikipedia)
I like the second record even more than the first. 😁

Indeed.
400 for the MAD in the SH-2F as well. If we were doing radar work, we'd go up around 4-6,000 feet (We had a radar, H-3's did not). But not if the CV was doing flight ops. If the CV was in the area, 300 feet and below was our rule of thumb. Though you had to watch out for the occasional S-3 flying around doing a MAD hunting circle now and again ...

Mutually Assured Destruction! :E (might be lost on our younger viewers....)​​​​​​​

Glad to see your still with us Sass!
If the Older and Lower holds true you and I won't get passed a normal hover height or bat stool,. too high means a much longer time to scream on the way down but plenty of time to put the cyclic in a nasty place and let the NTSB sort it out.
On a serious note it did seem that the closer I got to retirement I added a few hundred feet. :O

Not always paco, though damage may be light.

Flying the Huey home after a days work in the back of the formation at 2,000 when tracer came up through the formation. Gunner was sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the rear of my seat, suddenly let out an expletive, a round had come through leaving a dome shaped dent in the floor right where one buttock was positioned, left a bruise, but that was all.

The following is a report of one of our RAN Wessex which had vibes coming home from offshore at 1,000, descended to 100 ft and slowed to 60 knots, spat a gear wheel out the side of the gearbox which removed one of the jacks, rolled to port and dived into the sea, back seat crewman and a pax died, the six others survived and were rescued by one of our operations fixed float and winch fitted 205's landing on the calm water and dragged survivors aboard. Always wondered how they would have fared over land, would anyone have survived?

https://faaaa.asn.au./wp-content/upl...5ARLReport.pdf

They knew this would happen, and because the starter motor had been removed after start-up (to save weight), there was no chance of a re-light.

Flew a Bell 206 in Australia at 10,000 ft AGL once. Felt somewhat uncomfortable. Might have had something do with it having no doors on. :sad:

Flew Lynx at 10,000 ft to drop parachutists. Not a problem, :ok:

In Aug `71, I was the Project Pilot TP at Bo-Down for the 'Joint' UK/Fr. SA Gazelle helicopter, and we had been invited to go to Marrakech to be partners in the Joint SA/CEV/BD `Hot and High Trials. So, as the aircraft had to be able to 'operate up to 6000 metres' for a civilian clearance as well as military, apart from all the other `H`n H` stuff.

After about 3 days of lower-level handling it was `our` turn (I had a civilian BD FTE) to do the high altitude `stuff, and then a `rapid descent` at Vne+5%, and rotor overspeed limit+ 3%. So, myself and the FTE marked the gauges (in KM/H, and metres using my wax chinagrah pencils, melting in the heat). The aircraft had a full instrument package panel for the FTE, and telemetry as well, not forgetting full oxygen and parachutes + desert survival gear!!

We had a map, but not a great deal of terrain information, except occasional tracks, rivers and odd known villages. Suitably equipped and attired we set off, upwards in F-ZWRA-002 to 6100m (20000ft British limit) into the Sun, as we were not supposed to use the heater at altitude. Anyway we eventually reached the target altitude (no recollection of timing but probably 12-15 mins) and carried out some gentle handling, back to minimum 35-40 kts, and then up to probably 65-70kts in, a max power shallow dive (or whatever speeds were in km/h). It was now rather cool inside, and condensation had formed on the top canopy, so it was time to come down again. I re-briefed the FTE to `clear his ears` all the way in descent, call the RRPM and `key altitudes` and don`t look up/down/sideways, or `puke`. Check recorders on, Lever going down, not too far, needles split, engine still running, speed rising. From then on it was a case of increasing bank, pitching more nose-down, lowering the lever, keeping an eye on the patch of vegetation/habitation near the river, in between `heavy-breathing, gurgling and gargled check calls, applying more bank, and `G`,to keep Vne, and the rotor at somewhere near the overspeed/Mcrit. Passing about 2000m, and looking at what I thought were `bushy-topped trees` and ground-level about 5-600m, they were really bushy-topped BUSHES, approaching from an unusually steep angle and fast. Cue a smooth `needle-join` and fast pull on the collective to the `top-stop`, rolling upright into jack-stall, and pulling hard. As we went over the bushes, I could see they were either oranges or lemons. Not a lot was said on the return to base....!

We debriefed the sortie and the telemetry, the results were pretty good as far as the Aerospatiale guys were happy and the aircraft was okay.
Later, after we'd all gone back to the Hotel for dinner and filled up with couscous and meatballs (probably goats eyes/balls), the dessert was served down the table, ice-cream, fruit, sprinkled with mint. However, as ever with the French, I received a bowl containing a large cut lemon to suck before I got to the ice-cream. One you missed earlier today, M Sycamore`! They do actually have a sense of humour.

PS. I think from top to bottoming out it was about 2 minutes.

As to the unconfined fire in the centerline....I can confirm with absolute certainty....when that centerline fire is right between your tippy toes it gets very interesting really quick.

I am afraid of height. My kids find it absolutely hilarious to shake any suspended bridge when I am on it. I can't even watch a video about climbing when they do a shot downwards. I hate it.
But I can fly high. A question of working my way up. When I flew in Alaska, I was told to fly at 500ft. Because helicopters do not fly higher. I was shown a technique to never be higher when climbing along the side of a mountain. Completely useless. What I found out pretty early EVERYBODY in Alaska flew at 500ft. I found that a little bit disturbing. So I worked my way up to 3000ft. Nice up there. Nobody around. Way easier to navigate. Lot's more possibilities to find a landing spot in case of ...
I have flown a R22 to 12'000ft with two people on board. The DA was a lot higher. It was very hot in the summer in California. That wasn't so bad, because the height AGL was just about a few thousand feet. But that wasn't very useful, except as a learning experience. One crawls around at 50kts, holding the throttle against the stop to squeeze out the last drop of power - that ship did not have a governor - and a soon as you go a bit too fast, you get retreating blade stall and too slow you start to loose altitude. When we had enough we started to autorotate but that wasn't such a good idea because that ship started to vibrate quite a bit. Never found out why. Other ships did not do that. Years later I flew to Big Bear and we landed half way up to lean the engine. Way easier. Just don't forget to push it back in when you go down.
Once I was all by myself and I just climbed up to 14'000ft. I had quite a bit of headwind and the valley floor was just a few feet above sea level. When I was looking down between my feet the ground was moving very slowly and that made the whole experience a bit frightening. The helicopter does not care, but my brain very much. The thing for me is, I must work my way up. Still, I will not go rock climbing. No way. And I hate ladders.

Yeah, the 10.000 ft air test in a Scout is not fun

Why was that paco, I don't recall such an air test during my time on the Scout, recall having to do engine change set ups strapped to the ground and pulling power.

I did 2 or three over the years, one over some military place near Edinburgh. I don't know what the test was for, maybe to make sure it didn't flame out.

Didn't you have to wear a parachute for that?