Ask a helicopter pilot anything

[Pilotguy]

Siko said:

Fastest groundspeed was just under 220kts with a 70kt tailwind out of the Shetland Isles in an S92. Fastest airspeed (don’t laugh fixed-wing pilots ) was 165kts (iirc) in a Merlin. Merlin would cruise comfortably at the Vno of 148kts which is a pretty reasonable cruise speed for a helicopter.

I don’t know about “comfortably”. The nose down attitude to hold a steady 150kts makes it much harder to eat your bag rat. I liked the 200kts + G/Sp days on a high level transit with a tailwind though … Made it feel like a proper beast!

[Siko]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Being ex mountain rescue I've a bit of a love hate relationship with Helos (specially sea Kings).

The whole East Coast has gone technical when we've needed them and I've been blown into a river after being over flown when they were using their FLIR kit to look for a body at tree top height.

But... The most impressive flying I've ever seen was in the Cairngorms in 3 figure wind speeds. It was so bad one of our party was blown off their feet.

The seaking was sat in a hover max 1 rotor disc from the ridge doing a winch casevac (sadly a later fatality).

Bravest winchman flying combo I ever saw given the weather... How the hell the pilot kept it relatively stable is beyond me.

What's the scariest / bravest flying you've done. Also... That your oppos have done.

And one more... Civilian SAR... Is it as good?

Thanks for your service in the MRT…they’re amazing and real heroes. My auntie and cousin are members of one too and give up a huge amount of time to save lives. Some of the SAR rescues are just mind blowing, I have no idea how they do it but they are just incredible and I doff my hat to them all. Civilian SAR - I am in no position to judge anyone but in my opinion they are absolutely brilliant.

Bravest bit of flying I’ve done? I never served in Afghanistan so my war stories pale in comparison to what crews did there - taking RPG hits in landing sites etc etc. I guess the definition of this event is bravery, but it really pales to what crews did in Afghanistan, but I was awarded a Mention in dispatches for a mission in Northern Ireland for a massive several hour long riot I was involved in. Otherwise maybe going into a landing site in Iraq with tracer coming up at you, that was fun. Luckily 99% of the time in Iraq it was more harassing and a noise complaint than specifically trying to kill you

[Siko]

LeadFarmer said:

Are the military helicopter pilots that fly the SAS about just regular pilots that get tasked to fly them when needed, or are they the crem de la crem of pilots who are attached to them full time?

Bit of both, there are dedicated units which are considered elite but also “regular” crews used for specific jobs too. Working with special forces is part of the day job for most crews at some stage

[Siko]

Whats on Second said:

just a cheery question

is doing a Sully possible with a complete loss of power, i.e controlling your descent, or is it curtains for all aboard in all engine failure scenarios ?

Entirely possible just difficult in a heavy helicopter. In fact I was practising them in the simulator a few weeks back. But see the Clutha crash for what can go wrong.

In a modern helicopter simultaneous double engine failures are almost impossible with the design of modern systems. Even running out of fuel you would lose the engines at different times allowing you time to setup a controlled single engine landing.

It could happen though and the aircraft can autorotate down to a safe landing, dependent on what is underneath you.

[Siko]

Pilotguy said:

I don’t know about “comfortably”. The nose down attitude to hold a steady 150kts makes it much harder to eat your bag rat. I liked the 200kts + G/Sp days on a high level transit with a tailwind though … Made it feel like a proper beast!

Fair enough, last time I flew them was 2006 so it’s been a few years! I do remember hitting 165 though racing a chinook when we were returning to base. He slowly overtook me amazingly enough, so must have been doing 170kts…..when we landed the chinook pilot told me it was shaking so badly he couldn’t see any of the cockpit instruments

Edited by Siko on Friday 1st April 06:31

Edited by Siko on Friday 1st April 06:31

Edited by Siko on Friday 1st April 06:32

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Siko said:

Thanks for your service in the MRT…they’re amazing and real heroes. My auntie and cousin are members of one too and give up a huge amount of time to save lives. Some of the SAR rescues are just mind blowing, I have no idea how they do it but they are just incredible and I doff my hat to them all. Civilian SAR - I am in no position to judge anyone but in my opinion they are absolutely brilliant.

Bravest bit of flying I’ve done? I never served in Afghanistan so my war stories pale in comparison to what crews did there - taking RPG hits in landing sites etc etc. I guess the definition of this event is bravery, but it really pales to what crews did in Afghanistan, but I was awarded a Mention in dispatches for a mission in Northern Ireland for a massive several hour long riot I was involved in. Otherwise maybe going into a landing site in Iraq with tracer coming up at you, that was fun. Luckily 99% of the time in Iraq it was more harassing and a noise complaint than specifically trying to kill you

Landing under tracer

Was the cockpit sufficiently protected against lmg / hmg fire or where you just hoping fingers crossed?

[Siko]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Landing under tracer

Was the cockpit sufficiently protected against lmg / hmg fire or where you just hoping fingers crossed?

We wore body armour, but the ones I flew in Iraq just had armoured seats to go with them

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Siko said:

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Landing under tracer

Was the cockpit sufficiently protected against lmg / hmg fire or where you just hoping fingers crossed?

We wore body armour, but the ones I flew in Iraq just had armoured seats to go with them

It's really disappointing that the lessons learned ftom Vietnam haven't lead to better crew protection.

The collection of body armour on the floor, over the lower windows and on his seat was an image that really stood out for me in chicken hawk. That and being trapped in position when landing in a multiple helo formation. The complete lack of agency must be utterly terrifying.

[motomk]

Siko said:

By ships I mean mostly FPSOs which are massive and look like a cross between an oil tanker and an oil processing plant.

s2kjock said:

So I take it no one ever "goes to the wrong address" by mistake?

Have seen this, we did tell them it had moved 30 or 40 miles away. They went to the point where it was normally attached to the gas well only to find it was missing!
The big FPSO had disconnected and cranked up the engines and moved 30 or 40 miles away to avoid the approaching cyclone.

Brilliant topic incidentally, and well done to Siko and others for answering the questions.

[Siko]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

It's really disappointing that the lessons learned ftom Vietnam haven't lead to better crew protection.

The collection of body armour on the floor, over the lower windows and on his seat was an image that really stood out for me in chicken hawk. That and being trapped in position when landing in a multiple helo formation. The complete lack of agency must be utterly terrifying.

Yeah it is now and armour was fitted to helicopters during my time but not when I was in Iraq, Big problem is weight to be honest and having meaningful armour limits your payload/performance/manoevrability considerably. It's not quite the golden bullet (forgive the pun) you might think it is. Something like a Chinook has such a vast reserve of power that it is no major issue for them to carry armour, but for more modestly powered helicopters (most of them to be fair) it's not quite as easy. As ever with helicopters there is a finely honed trade off between performance/manoeuvrability and payload.

[Siko]

motomk said:

Have seen this, we did tell them it had moved 30 or 40 miles away. They went to the point where it was normally attached to the gas well only to find it was missing!
The big FPSO had disconnected and cranked up the engines and moved 30 or 40 miles away to avoid the approaching cyclone.

Brilliant topic incidentally, and well done to Siko and others for answering the questions.

Thanks mate - just shows what an diverse group of people we have here

Yeah it always throws you when a ship or even better, the oil rig is not where you think it is. I know you know, but most people don't know that a lot of oil rigs can move! I've landed on an oil rig under way at about 10kts and it's a really weird experience. The ones that move (that look like regular rigs) are called semi-submersibles (also jack-ups etc) and sail to their drilling location and anchor down. They look like a James Bond baddy's lair and move when you land on them...the most I've seen on deck was a rate of climb on the vertical speed indicator of 500 ft/min

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Siko said:

Yeah it is now and armour was fitted to helicopters during my time but not when I was in Iraq, Big problem is weight to be honest and having meaningful armour limits your payload/performance/manoevrability considerably. It's not quite the golden bullet (forgive the pun) you might think it is. Something like a Chinook has such a vast reserve of power that it is no major issue for them to carry armour, but for more modestly powered helicopters (most of them to be fair) it's not quite as easy. As ever with helicopters there is a finely honed trade off between performance/manoeuvrability and payload.

Thanks. And thanks for starting the thread.

[jamiem555]

Siko said:

junglie said:

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!

No worries and hijack away shippers! Very welcome to join in (and anyone else like JamieM/Madness60 I know are still flying/spannering helicopters).as much as you want here and probably correct some of the bolleaux coming out of my mouth

Thanks Si. It’s a great thread and I’m learning things too. That’s what I love about aviation, you never stop learning. They’re such complex beasts and nearly everyday we learn something new. It would be impossible for one person to answer everything as they’re so many different specialists in each field.

[blindspot]

yellowjack said:

Ah yes. MATTs. T-55 - note the gap between the first and second road wheels, and the fume extractor at the muzzle of the main gun. T-62 - note the gaps between the third/fourth and fourth/fifth road wheels, and the fume extractor one third the distance from the muzzle of the main gun. BRDM 2 - upward slope to frontal armour, four main wheels, four retractable belly-wheels mounted in pairs between the main wheels. Flat-topped shallow turret with 14.5mm heavy machine gun. Slides were a luxury too. Usually taught on an OHP in a classroom with the (often ineffective) blinds closed, and a room full of hungover piss-heads using the lack of light as an excuse to catch some zzzzzzs. Or directly after the lads have been entertained by that LOAC video ("ze soldiers are in zat house" ) and then bored to tears by Padre Jim's audience participation session on the subject of 'Moral Courage'.

Repeat after me: "it was my honest belief that he was moving to a pre-prepared firing position in order to continue the engagement" ... and that's why I put a full mag into the back of a bloke running away with nothing in his hands...

[IanH755]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Siko said:

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Landing under tracer

Was the cockpit sufficiently protected against lmg / hmg fire or where you just hoping fingers crossed?

We wore body armour, but the ones I flew in Iraq just had armoured seats to go with them

It's really disappointing that the lessons learned ftom Vietnam haven't lead to better crew protection.

The collection of body armour on the floor, over the lower windows and on his seat was an image that really stood out for me in chicken hawk. That and being trapped in position when landing in a multiple helo formation. The complete lack of agency must be utterly terrifying.

The design philosophy was (and still is) "why fit armour to a helo which may only need it extremely rarely in its life, increasing the weight and decreasing performance, when we can rely on peoples own armour (crew and passenger) to do most of the work for us instead.". Also, to generally help increase performance the actual "skin" of the Merlin is extremely thin and light Aluminium composite which, as I have seen first hand, you could easily puncture with a philips screwdriver, it's that "weak" to piercing despite being very strong in compression.

So with the Merlin the passenger compartment floor was self-sealling fuel tanks which "allegedly" gave protection to small arms upto Russian 7.62mmx54R AP rounds and side protection was from the passengers own body armour. The front end crew had 270' protection in their armoured seat (again proofed against Russian 7.62 AP) and then frontal protection from their own armour. The only other "armoured" part was the fuel manifold on the roof, a shoebox sized unit with Russian 7.62 AP proofed armour around it.

To be realistic this was adequate for Iraq. In fact in Iraq it was probably more dangerous for the crews to be on the ground at Basrah airfield getting rocketed/mortared daily than it was being shot at whilst flying. The rocket and mortar attacks go so bad we were pulled from Iraq for a short time so they could build revetments to protect the helos from all the shrapnel flying around.

Then came the push to get us into Afghan in 2009 and the MOD by now had practical experience of why we needed more armour for the passengers/crew so they got a civilian contractor to fit a new armoured floor which, IMHO, genuinely was capable of stopping Russian 7.62 AP, and a new side protection as they'd found that when a passenger sits in their seat, their armour only protects the top half and not the bottom half, so the armour panels (again 7.62 AP proof) were fitted to protect bums and legs.

Such was the rush to move us from Iraq to Afghan (the Army was screaming for more helos at the time) that we even took some of the civilian contractor team with us to Afghan to finish fitting the armour on IIRC 2 of the Merlins.

The loss of some performance and capacity due to the extra weight of the armour (and the additional door gunner station - 3x Afghan vs 2x Iraq) was expected and dropped the total of troops/freight we could carry so initially, despite the urgency to get us there, we were limited to mostly re-supply runs to the various FOBs but we soon found that the Merlin was literally perfect for the Counter-IED teams so that became out primary role whilst I was there, alongside the usual resupply/mail-runs etc, even though in bigger Ops like Operation Moshtarak (biggest air assault in Afghan since 2001 - over 100 ISAF helos involved) we returned to more traditional "ferrying troops into battle" role for a short time.

I've still got quite a few images from that first tour of bullet holes through tail & main blades, underneath etc and had (subsequently lost) an image from someone on a later tour of two large holes straight through the airframe left which happened as the Merlin was flying through a valley and was caused by either a RPG or horizontally fired mortar or recoilless rifle as it was around 10-ish cm across. Luckily whatever it was had whizzed through the Merlins soft skin so it hadn't detonated whereas, if it had hit the armour, it should have done, very probably losing the Merlin.

Edited by IanH755 on Friday 1st April 10:26

[Speed 3]

Siko said:

s2kjock said:

The areas of Scotland I come from are covered by S92s from Stornoway and AW189s from Inverness. Is there a reason for the helicopter that covers the Outer Hebrides needing to be larger than the AW? ie is it for range (additional fuel load) and/or power because it covers a wider area, over water, worse weather? The Sikorsky always seems on the face of it to be oversized for lifting a couple of climbers off the Cuillins or a 4 man crew off a trawler in the Minch.

No idea sorry, both good aircraft though. Just guessing but maybe they wanted a bigger aircraft for the long range missions into the Atlantic for potentially sinking ships with lots of people on board? Just a guess though.

You are both right. As a nation we internationally have a duty in law to provide SAR x miles from our coastline (can't quite remember the figure, 200 rings a bell). Therefore the further away you are from the next land mass you are, the longer your missions. On the south coast you've literally got half the width of the English channel wheres NW Scotland (and Cornwall for that matter) have lots of empty sea offshore. South coast also tends to be amateur sailors getting into trouble whereas the North Atlantic is trawlers and cargo vessels.

I was involved in the original SAR-H project which transitioned away from the largely Mil provision (with me and my employer, which sounds like the current one for the OP) providing 4 bases in the far north and south. We did some very interesting modelling on the right mix of aircraft but it always came down to a mix of heavies and mediums whereas the Mil had used an all-Sea King fleet and we'd used the civilian version (S-61) at the time. That project also got the civil side into Mountain Rescue which had always been covered by the Mil prior to that.

Happy days, the helicopter business is great fun most of the time.

[MikeGTi]

Deerfoot said:

Not far off at all. I remember doing recognition lessons for MATTs, it was mainly armoured vehicles though..

BATCO isn’t a word I’ve used for many a year!

I thought recognition was dumped prior to the introduction of MATTs?

Wasn't recognition an ITD, like ITD5 or something?

[andy97]

Siko said:

Whats on Second said:

just a cheery question

is doing a Sully possible with a complete loss of power, i.e controlling your descent, or is it curtains for all aboard in all engine failure scenarios ?

Entirely possible just difficult in a heavy helicopter. In fact I was practising them in the simulator a few weeks back. But see the Clutha crash for what can go wrong.

In a modern helicopter simultaneous double engine failures are almost impossible with the design of modern systems. Even running out of fuel you would lose the engines at different times allowing you time to setup a controlled single engine landing.

It could happen though and the aircraft can autorotate down to a safe landing, dependent on what is underneath you.

Mention of the Clutha crash is interesting, though. Didn’t the AAIB find that the pilot ignored several (5?) warnings of low fuel? And ISTR there was a human factors aspect in that that the wrong fuel pump was switched on (or off) so no fuel got transferred at a critical moment. The inquest concluded that the pilot probably ignored the low fuel warning because he thought that he had switched the correct pumps on, and that the low fuel warnings were therefore wrong.
Mrs97 is a HF specialist who conducts fatal accident investigations (not aviation) for a living and she was astonished that the design of the fuel system allowed confusion between switches, and that the answer was to re-train pilots in the correct procedures.

[Siko]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

Thanks. And thanks for starting the thread.

My pleasure - thanks for joining in

[Siko]

jamiem555 said:

Thanks Si. It’s a great thread and I’m learning things too. That’s what I love about aviation, you never stop learning. They’re such complex beasts and nearly everyday we learn something new. It would be impossible for one person to answer everything as they’re so many different specialists in each field.

Thanks Jamie - appreciate your expert input too and you're quite right about learning, every day's a schoolday!