Royal Navy "lost" a Merlin for a week...
Discussion
I hate flying in Robinsons, I've done it a few times for photo/video work. Life felt precarious and in fact the machine I'm thinking of apparently had to autorotate into a field because jubilee clip came undone, a few moments before it was about to fly out to sea.
Anyway, back on topic...
Anyway, back on topic...
Yertis said:
I hate flying in Robinsons, I've done it a few times for photo/video work. Life felt precarious and in fact the machine I'm thinking of apparently had to autorotate into a field because jubilee clip came undone, a few moments before it was about to fly out to sea.
Anyway, back on topic...
I was bringing an R22 back from maintenance once. and when I put it on the pad, I noticed the oil all over the pan and the engine. The oil cooler hose had come off. I landed with about a quart of oil left in it and it had obviously happened just before I put it down. No low oil pressure warning or anything. It had just started pumping it out the back. Anyway, back on topic...
I went and drank many beers after that, as a couple of minutes was probably all that separated me from the thing stopping and with such a light rotor head, I can't say I ever fancy a real autorotation in one of those things. Give me something with a nice and heavy rotor any day of the week.
Crossflow Kid said:
DuraAce said:
Crossflow Kid said:
I’m not aware of any RPGs that actually detonated on impact as intended - they all either ricocheted off or punched right through and kept going.
One got ZA709 in 2009.https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=6...
Yertis said:
Yes. I say 'autorotate' but I get the impression 'crash' might better describe it. I think it shook the guys up pretty badly.
R22 is a flying accident waiting to happen. A few offices down from me is an American exchange officer. Before joining the USAF he was a commercial helicopter pilot and instructor. He hated the R22 and was amazed at how many ex USAF helicopter pilots struggled to stay on top of it when trying to convert to a civie license. It’s so light and control sensitive. You almost only have to think what you want it to do. Your movement on the cyclic is literally done in mm. You have probably a couple of seconds at best to recognise engine failure, get the collective dumped and the correct flare attitude setup otherwise the rotor rpm can decay to the point where you can’t recover it. I never went solo in it and never really felt comfortable or in front of it. A 1hr lesson would literally drain me. I do acknowledge though with experience and training it’s probably not too bad to fly
DuraAce said:
Crossflow Kid said:
DuraAce said:
Crossflow Kid said:
I’m not aware of any RPGs that actually detonated on impact as intended - they all either ricocheted off or punched right through and kept going.
One got ZA709 in 2009.https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=6...
MB140 said:
Let’s face it I wouldn’t want to be a helicopter pilot in war (unless your talking Apache, Cobra etc), you low and slow and generally not very quite.
The only advantage to being in an Apache is that you can be a long way away whilst shooting at people. I think the Americans have found them quite vulnerable to small arms fire despite the onboard protection, and have lost quite a few.eccles said:
The only advantage to being in an Apache is that you can be a long way away whilst shooting at people. I think the Americans have found them quite vulnerable to small arms fire despite the onboard protection, and have lost quite a few.
And yet the British army lost none due to enemy small arms fire. We had more than one come through Wattisham with a fifty cal hole in, carried on regardless. Oilchange said:
Makes sense, limiting damage.
There was a Merlin that took an rpg through the skin making a perfect (and rather comical) round hole with four fin ‘cuts’ at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock but not detonating, thankfully
That happened around a week after I left for the UK, chatted to the rear Loadie about it and it was a C-IED team squaddie in the back who had to notify the front Loadie about the 3-4in hole which suddenly appeared above the heads of him and the guy sat opposite as none of the crew saw or felt anything.There was a Merlin that took an rpg through the skin making a perfect (and rather comical) round hole with four fin ‘cuts’ at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock but not detonating, thankfully
The amazing part is that it didn't even touch a single wire, pipe or black-box, just an easily repairable hole made in the skin on either side, which is the definition of a million to one shot - Hitting a moving heli with an unguided rocket but hitting it in literally the only area guaranteed not to set it off as the skin is too thin and causing no damage!
Tony1963 said:
eccles said:
The only advantage to being in an Apache is that you can be a long way away whilst shooting at people. I think the Americans have found them quite vulnerable to small arms fire despite the onboard protection, and have lost quite a few.
And yet the British army lost none due to enemy small arms fire. We had more than one come through Wattisham with a fifty cal hole in, carried on regardless. 
MB140 said:
Let’s face it I wouldn’t want to be a helicopter pilot in war (unless your talking Apache, Cobra etc), you low and slow and generally not very quite
I’m not sure the type makes much of a difference. The offensive capability of Apache/Cobra etc doesn’t make it any less vulnerable to incoming fire and the “low and slow” thing isn’t entirely true either.On Herrick, the Chinnies routinely transitted everywhere at “several” ;-) thousand feet, high enough that to an observer on the ground they’d almost be a dot in the sky, at which point it becomes very difficult to visually engage and is also better protected anyway as the vertical range gives the countermeasures that much more time to react (which I experienced multiple times).
At low level, and on Herrick it was really low, the aircraft are beneath the engagement envelope for shoulder-launched stuff, and as for small arms, the crossing angle/speed (150kts+) from a shooter’s perceptive was so great it would be nigh on impossible to get an aimed shot off and that’s before you add in the ground clutter. It would need a steady target moving in a straight line at a consistent speed which, needless to say, never happened.
A lucky shot that finds its target.....maybe, but there’s not much can be done about those and that affects any asset, ground or air. Fortunes of war.
The fun part was passing through the “threat band” as we descended from high to low level, which would briefly put the aircraft nicely in range/parameters for pretty much anything, whilst also reducing the opportunity for effective countermeasures AND yet still being above any terrain masking.
The trick was to get down in the weeds as fast as possible which invariably involved letting the aircraft pretty much drop out of the sky.
‘Course then you have to add in the inherent risk of an aircraft weighed down with armour and then loaded to its limits having sufficient power to arrest the descent before hitting the ground, in an environment where the engines are already struggling due to a combination of temperature and altitude.
After a day of all that, being stopped by a military policeman for not wearing a beret whilst driving back to our accommodation post-sortie was regarded as sport.
I'm so glad the "Merlin is/was crap" bit of this thread came about long after I'd stopped needing to get in one every time we needed a "taxi to,,," somewhere.
I used to weirdly enjoy sitting in the back as the thing 'streaked' across the Iraqi countryside in the dark, with all the twinkly little lights on the various panels and a strange green low glow from the cockpit, watching the angle of the horizon change dramatically out of the ramp over the rear gunner's shoulder. If I'd known how crap they were regarded as being at the time, I'd have taken my chances on the roads.
I get the feeling from reading the thread that the RAF were glad to see the back of them? And the Puma "I'm Helping" quote made me chuckle too.
As a complete aside, is 'BN' still flying? Last time I saw a "new" photo of it, it was in bits in a hanger somewhere.
And one more question. Have RAF engineers stopped fitting that transmission widget backwards? I know it was a long time ago, but losing two Chinooks in two days, albeit in different parts of the world, begins to look careless...
All joking aside, I'm a satisfied former customer of the rotary side of the RAF's business. Check-in and boarding were always very efficient, there was never any extra charge for hand luggage, and baggage reclaim queues were non-existent. But the in-flight catering and entertainment leaves a lot to be desired. The price of cheap flights, I suppose. A nice touch was the insistence that a gentleman should always wear a hat - a throwback to the pioneering early days of luxury air travel, perhaps...
I used to weirdly enjoy sitting in the back as the thing 'streaked' across the Iraqi countryside in the dark, with all the twinkly little lights on the various panels and a strange green low glow from the cockpit, watching the angle of the horizon change dramatically out of the ramp over the rear gunner's shoulder. If I'd known how crap they were regarded as being at the time, I'd have taken my chances on the roads.
I get the feeling from reading the thread that the RAF were glad to see the back of them? And the Puma "I'm Helping" quote made me chuckle too.
As a complete aside, is 'BN' still flying? Last time I saw a "new" photo of it, it was in bits in a hanger somewhere.
And one more question. Have RAF engineers stopped fitting that transmission widget backwards? I know it was a long time ago, but losing two Chinooks in two days, albeit in different parts of the world, begins to look careless...
All joking aside, I'm a satisfied former customer of the rotary side of the RAF's business. Check-in and boarding were always very efficient, there was never any extra charge for hand luggage, and baggage reclaim queues were non-existent. But the in-flight catering and entertainment leaves a lot to be desired. The price of cheap flights, I suppose. A nice touch was the insistence that a gentleman should always wear a hat - a throwback to the pioneering early days of luxury air travel, perhaps...
yellowjack said:
And one more question. Have RAF engineers stopped fitting that transmission widget backwards? I know it was a long time ago, but losing two Chinooks in two days, albeit in different parts of the world, begins to look careless...
That was a very long time ago, and the source of the problem was well outside military circles.Oilchange said:
There was a thread mentioning BN being retired and her parts being harvested to keep other cabs alive.
Considering pretty much everything on them is replaceable/upgradeable/interchangeable I can’t see Bloody Nora being retired. If the parts are good enough for other airframes they’re good enough to remain cobbled together as a complete asset.Let’s face it, it became Trigger’s Chinook a very long time ago.
Course the other thing is the Chinnies immense power and turn of speed when required, like the time in Iraq when we had sixty blokes standing in Club Class, two Humvees dangling underneath and still closed on and overtook a Sea King.
“You f
king show off” came over the RT.
“D’you mind? It’s ‘You fking show off, SIR’ to you”
Sqn CO was at the helm
“You f
king show off” came over the RT.“D’you mind? It’s ‘You f
king show off, SIR’ to you”Sqn CO was at the helm
eccles said:
I worked on 'J's but mostly 'K's' and when we fitted the full armour kit (the new stuff with Velcro not the old bolt in one) we were told that on the stretched aircraft the front plug of the cargo bay was unusable due to all the weight at the front end affecting the balance of the aircraft.
This stuff was only designed to take a .762 type of round. I asked one of the armour reps what would it take to stop a .50cal round he just said double it all! So 2" thick, and 2 tons in weight and the aircraft pretty much useless!
Apologies for the off topic - did you leave Hercs around late ‘13 ? Small world if so! This stuff was only designed to take a .762 type of round. I asked one of the armour reps what would it take to stop a .50cal round he just said double it all! So 2" thick, and 2 tons in weight and the aircraft pretty much useless!
phil_h_88 said:
eccles said:
I worked on 'J's but mostly 'K's' and when we fitted the full armour kit (the new stuff with Velcro not the old bolt in one) we were told that on the stretched aircraft the front plug of the cargo bay was unusable due to all the weight at the front end affecting the balance of the aircraft.
This stuff was only designed to take a .762 type of round. I asked one of the armour reps what would it take to stop a .50cal round he just said double it all! So 2" thick, and 2 tons in weight and the aircraft pretty much useless!
Apologies for the off topic - did you leave Hercs around late ‘13 ? Small world if so! This stuff was only designed to take a .762 type of round. I asked one of the armour reps what would it take to stop a .50cal round he just said double it all! So 2" thick, and 2 tons in weight and the aircraft pretty much useless!
MB140 said:
Very true. I recently read a book called Low Level Hell about the 1st infantry scout pilots flying tiny little OH-6 Loach over Vietnam.
They would deliberately fly very low (tree top) and slow to entice the Vietcong to open up on them. They would then call in the big gunships and coordinate fire whilst also co-ordinating there own rocket and gun fire. It’s a brilliant read. Almost as good as Chickenhawk (tales of a Vietnam Huey pilot) if not on a par.
There's a claim in one of the 'chopper in Vietnam' books (sorry can't remember which one, might be Black Cat 2-1 ?? ) that some Crew Chiefs 'illegally' modified their Huey's turbines to exceed their rated power level. I guess back in the day, the fuel mass was set by a mechanical control system, so altering that may have been possible in the field, but it sounds a bit fishy to me??They would deliberately fly very low (tree top) and slow to entice the Vietcong to open up on them. They would then call in the big gunships and coordinate fire whilst also co-ordinating there own rocket and gun fire. It’s a brilliant read. Almost as good as Chickenhawk (tales of a Vietnam Huey pilot) if not on a par.
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