Ask a helicopter pilot anything

[Dr Jekyll]

Siko said:

Good question, I don't know the answer but I think it is likely due to cost/complexity. If you designing a simple training aircraft you don't want the weight/cost/complexity of a retractable undercarriage when you can just weld on a bit of metal to the bottom

Also, for heavier helicopters having wheels allows you to ground taxy away from areas that could be affected by rotor downwash when you lift to the hover. Most airports require you to ground taxy from the ramp and you lift off to the hover on the runway. Sometimes in the Merlin we used to do running takeoffs if we were very heavy, I can't remember the exact procedure but I think we could go over our normal max AUW by another 900kgs or so if we did a running takeoff. Obviously you can't (well not easily!) do a running takeoff with a skidded aircraft. Essentially all modern heavy helicopters have wheels (I appreciate EC135 etc are skidded). You do also save some speed/fuel burn etc by raising your undercarriage, if our gear is stuck down there is a 7% effect on TAS or roughly 10kts at normal cruising speeds.

In terms of the most intense helicopter job outside the military I'd probably say Coastguard/SAR. I did a basic SAR course going through flying training (I wasn't very good at it to be honest!) and it was damn hard work but good fun too, so I'd go with that

There have been a couple of helicopters used by the Navy and the Army where the navy version had wheels and the Army version had skids. I wasn't sure whether the Navy wanted to push them around more easily or the wheeled ones were less likely to slide about on a tilting deck.

[Siko]

Dr Jekyll said:

There have been a couple of helicopters used by the Navy and the Army where the navy version had wheels and the Army version had skids. I wasn't sure whether the Navy wanted to push them around more easily or the wheeled ones were less likely to slide about on a tilting deck.

Yeah you're right - Navy Lynx were all wheeled and Army skidded, but the Army has gone across to all wheeled aircraft now iirc. I think aswell when you are landing on a ship you need some give, with a wheeled aircraft you have the tyres themselves and the suspension struts which take a lot of heat out of a hot landing onto a ship bobbing up and down. Landing a skidded aircraft onto a deck is possible but with almost no give you'd be rattling your teeth out a bit on landing.

[s2kjock]

Siko said:

We have procedures in place to ensure we land at the correct destination but essentially it is "keep the FMS taking you to the rig and read the name before you land"

So I take it no one ever "goes to the wrong address" by mistake? I would imagine much pisstaking if they did

[Siko]

s2kjock said:

So I take it no one ever "goes to the wrong address" by mistake? I would imagine much pisstaking if they did

It has happened in the past and is taken extremely seriously when it does...not quite career ending but it has some serious safety ramifications. One of which of course would be getting remorselessly ripped to shreds by your chums

[s2kjock]

Siko said:

In terms of the most intense helicopter job outside the military I'd probably say Coastguard/SAR. I did a basic SAR course going through flying training (I wasn't very good at it to be honest!) and it was damn hard work but good fun too, so I'd go with that

Brilliant thread this Siko and thanks again.

Your response above partially answers another question I had about what additional training and qualifications you needed for SAR work as it looks extraordinarily challenging. Assuming for SAR work not all pilots need to be heirs to the throne, are they all ex military or not necessarily?

[yellowjack]

Siko said:

Yeah you're right - Navy Lynx were all wheeled and Army skidded, but the Army has gone across to all wheeled aircraft now iirc. I think aswell when you are landing on a ship you need some give, with a wheeled aircraft you have the tyres themselves and the suspension struts which take a lot of heat out of a hot landing onto a ship bobbing up and down. Landing a skidded aircraft onto a deck is possible but with almost no give you'd be rattling your teeth out a bit on landing.

Westland Scout/Wasp is another example. The Scout had skids with what look like two "fold away" ground handling wheels on the rear of the skids. The Wasp had four castor wheels, which could be locked in different positions to allow rotation of the aircraft, and to prevent it moving at all, and unlocked allowed for ground/deck handling...


Scout - ex-XP849, civil registration, presumably in it's old ETPS livery?

Wasp - in RN livery.

The Lynx thing? The army had a mixed fleet for a long time. the original versions all had skids, but later "Battlefield Lynx" (not sure if that was it's official title but that's what it got called by non-aviation types) came along with oversized rear/main wheels. Toward the end of Lynx service I think all the early ones had either been rebuilt with wheeled u/c or retired. Wildcat is all wheels now, none built with skids. I bloomin' love this thread. Helicopters have always fascinated me. We regularly see HMCG, Dorset And Somerset Air Ambulance, and Police over our house. Coastguard usually en route to/from Gosport, Police are based nearby (Bournemouth/Hurn airport) and I live under the approach to the helipad at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. Love seeing the aircraft, but it's always bitter-sweet when the air ambulance comes over. Sweet because it's a chance to see a helicopter operating pretty close up, but bitter because someone is having a really stty day if they need it. I also cycle out in the wilds of rural Dorset and occasionally get to see a Sea King. A firm operates a handful of them out of Portland on a training contract for German ASR crews...

[Siko]

s2kjock said:

Brilliant thread this Siko and thanks again.

Your response above partially answers another question I had about what additional training and qualifications you needed for SAR work as it looks extraordinarily challenging. Assuming for SAR work not all pilots need to be heirs to the throne, are they all ex military or not necessarily?

Thanks mate. There is a fair bit of movement in my company between offshore and SAR, although both require specific training courses. Naturally the SAR training is much more complex and lengthy, but there are plenty of pilots there who are civilian through and through. Many are ex-military because the vast majority of SAR in the UK was previously done by the military until a few years back, but that feed of pilots has all but evaporated. I am a big fan of a mix of pilots backgrounds - too many military is a bad thing (it ends up turning into the military....) and too many civilians misses out on a lot of the flexibility/experience the military guys/girls have. I'd roughly estimate 60/40 Mil/Civ in SAR but I am guesstimating

[Siko]

yellowjack said:

I bloomin' love this thread. Helicopters have always fascinated me. We regularly see HMCG, Dorset And Somerset Air Ambulance, and Police over our house. Coastguard usually en route to/from Gosport, Police are based nearby (Bournemouth/Hurn airport) and I live under the approach to the helipad at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. Love seeing the aircraft, but it's always bitter-sweet when the air ambulance comes over. Sweet because it's a chance to see a helicopter operating pretty close up, but bitter because someone is having a really stty day if they need it. I also cycle out in the wilds of rural Dorset and occasionally get to see a Sea King. A firm operates a handful of them out of Portland on a training contract for German ASR crews...

Thanks buddy I love helicopters too (you'd never guess ). The flexibility of a helicopter is just insane, I was going to write down a list of all the different things I've done (legally ) in a helicopter but I ran out of time....they can just do almost anything and you have fun doing it.

I had a jolly in a Hawk a few years back and it was an underwhelming experience for a lot of reasons, honestly not what I thought it would be. What surprised me most though was the sensation of speed - low level in helicopter was more fun to be honest. 250' AGL and 420kts felt way less exciting than 50' AGL and 150kts, the jet felt quicker of course but it was like doing 70 on a motorway and 70 on a windy A road Not knocking the jets btw and of course lots of stuff they can do but we can't, but for me flying a fast modern helicopter at ultra low level was more fun.

[CrutyRammers]

yellowjack said:

Westland Scout/Wasp is another example. The Scout had skids with what look like two "fold away" ground handling wheels on the rear of the skids. The Wasp had four castor wheels, which could be locked in different positions to allow rotation of the aircraft, and to prevent it moving at all, and unlocked allowed for ground/deck handling...

Pretty sure I've flown in that, when I was doing work experience at Boscombe

Great thread by the way OP

[Siko]

CrutyRammers said:

Pretty sure I've flown in that, when I was doing work experience at Boscombe

Great thread by the way OP

Thanks buddy! I was at Boscombe Down too (where I got to fly a lot of the types I mentioned earlier) holding before I started flying helicopters for real (basically a teaboy ). I was there from Oct 97 - Feb 98 or so when I left to start my basic flying training on helicopters.

[The Road Crew]

If you have a "land as soon as possible" emergency (I guess something like a chip detector lights, lack of gearbox oil pressure etc) and you're out over the sea... Do you push on towards land? Or would you ditch it?

What tips the balance between you putting it in the sea early (and risking life) vs pushing on (potentially risking lives if you have a catastrophic failure) ? Does yours have flotation devices?

[Nurburgsingh]

Is it true all helicopter pilots can/do play the drums ?

[Siko]

The Road Crew said:

If you have a "land as soon as possible" emergency (I guess something like a chip detector lights, lack of gearbox oil pressure etc) and you're out over the sea... Do you push on towards land? Or would you ditch it?

What tips the balance between you putting it in the sea early (and risking life) vs pushing on (potentially risking lives if you have a catastrophic failure) ? Does yours have flotation devices?

Hi, in theory you should either go to the nearest offshore installation or suitable land. It is a thorny issue though as landing on a platform without clearance could endanger the aircraft more than continuing to land - for example if the platform is releasing gas or even in general alarm it may not have firefighting capability. It all comes down again to judgement on the day - nice weather/bad weather, possibly false indication/multiple indications of impending doom etc.

Ditching is very much a last resort unsurprisingly and generally only in the event of a Land Immediately. The first fatal accident of an S92 was in Canada when the aircraft had a gearbox crack which caused them to lose oil/pressure. They arguably pushed on when they should have either ditched or landed in rough terrain (iirc they continued offshore past land). The gearbox eventually seized at about 150' and the aircraft nosedived into the sea killing all but one onboard, although sadly he died of his injuries some time later. It's an awful decision to make but one we are trained repeatedly to do so, regularly taking malfunctions to ditching in the simulator.

Yes we have floatation gear which is rated to sea state 6 (6m waves).

[Siko]

Nurburgsingh said:

Is it true all helicopter pilots can/do play the drums ?

Lol you've lost me there mate

[junglie]

Ex Fleet Air Arm pilot here, still serving but not going to add comments as not my treat to hijack!

Navy Lynx has wheels that are ‘toed’ out that, when combined with a nose wheel that can turn through 90 deg (either forward or 90 deg but not steerable) allows you to turn on the spot with the deck lock engaged.

Designed to allow takeoffs in the SHOL without the ship needing to alter course.

Could also do running landings, but it always sounded horrible, and it has no brakes so interesting!

[Deerfoot]

yellowjack said:

The Lynx thing? The army had a mixed fleet for a long time. the original versions all had skids, but later "Battlefield Lynx" (not sure if that was it's official title but that's what it got called by non-aviation types) came along with oversized rear/main wheels. Toward the end of Lynx service I think all the early ones had either been rebuilt with wheeled u/c or retired.

The Army Lynx AH9 and the later 9A had a wheeled undercarriage. It was originally known as battlefield Lynx as it was supposed to be utilised as troop transport around the battlefield, it also had no TOW capability like the AH7 had. I enjoyed working on Lynx.

The skidded Lynx were AH1 and AH7, some AH7 were converted to AH9 spec.

[Whatsmyname]

Have you ever seen a mig in a 4g negative dive?

[rallye101]

Highest altitude " coffin corner" for a helicopter??? Saw a YouTube thing the other day where they did Everest

[s2kjock]

What sorts of protocols are in place if there is an emergency on a rig? You do hear occasionally on the news about rigs needing to be evacuated in a hurry. Is that a case of all hands to the pump from every available rotary asset to get people off, or does it never quite get to that stage?

[Nurburgsingh]

Siko said:

Nurburgsingh said:

Is it true all helicopter pilots can/do play the drums ?

Lol you've lost me there mate

Both require the ability to move both legs and arms in a more advance “pat your head, rub your tummy” way.

Or so I’m told.