Helo ditching procedure

[RobLyman]

I can confirm that Army guys tend to brief rolling the aircraft. I asked about this in the UH-60 AQC and again when the Army guys were teaching me to land on a ship (thats a whole 'nother post). Both times they said, "Thats what the -10 says. Don't you know your EPs?"

In actuallity, step 9 in the UH/HH-60M -10 says,"Cyclic in direction of roll." What if the aircraft doesn't roll? Why not keep it upright as long as possible? Sadly, many of our ditching discussions end with an indifferent attitude and a comment about "..not ever landing in water anyway."

9.30.2 Ditching — Power On. ​

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The decision to ditch
the helicopter shall be made by the pilot when an
emergency makes further flight unsafe.
1. Approach to a hover.
2. Cockpit doors jettison and cabin doors open prior to entering water.
3. Pilot shoulder harness — Lock.​

WARNING​

Do not inflate personal flotation equipment inside helicopter.​

4. Survival gear — Deploy (if applicable).
5. Personnel, except pilot, exit helicopter.
6. Fly helicopter downwind a safe distance and hover.
7.​

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ENG POWER CONT levers — OFF.
8. Perform hovering autorotation, apply full collective
to decay rotor rpm as helicopter settles.
9. Position cyclic in direction of roll.
10. Exit when main rotor has stopped.
​

9.30.3 Ditching — Power Off.​

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If ditching is imminent,
accomplish engine malfunction emergency procedures.
During descent, open cockpit and cabin doors. Decelerate
to zero forward speed as the helicopter nears the water.
Apply full collective as the helicopter nears the water.
Maintain a level attitude as the helicopter sinks and until it
begins to roll; then apply cyclic in the direction of the roll.
Exit when the main rotor is stopped.
1. AUTOROTATE.
2. Cockpit doors jettison and cabin doors open
prior to entering water.
3. Apply full collective to decay rotor rpm as
helicopter settles.
4. Position cyclic in direction of roll.​

5. Exit when main rotor has stopped.

 

[Rubiks06]

I have heard the roll discussion in my community, but usually it comes from the guys who have been to Safety school. Also, the talk about keeping the crew in the cabin or kicking them out to ditch single pilot tends to be split 50/50. My thoughts tend to be towards keeping everyone in the helo. We train to underwater egress. The only people that practice jumping out of the helo's are the dub's. When we eventually put the helo in the water and shut it down or it flames out, there are going to be lots of pieces / parts flying everywhere, i would think the skin of the helo will help to some extent protect the crew. Just my .02.

 

[Jim123]

So what scenario would lead you to do that?

Almost out of gas in an otherwise perfectly good aircraft, open ocean- yeah, you f-d it away already/or politely understated, "painted yourself into a corner."

I don't think I'd try it in a lightweight helicopter. If each pax+gear is approaching 10% of the aircraft gross weight, just one person jumping out the door means a big, sudden change to lateral and fore-aft center of gravity- not exactly a "controlled" ditch. Medium or heavy helicopter, probably...

For the non-helo folks still reading, there's a lot to be said for a controlled, power-on ditch. Everybody but the last man one has a high chance of making it

-out of the aircraft
-using rafts, flotation, and survival equipment that wasn't damaged or lost in a chaotic, violent water entry
-together in a group, not dispersed
-without injury (although weak swimmers may have trouble with rotorwash)

Then the last man/woman out still has a halfway decent shot of making it out and the group has to look for only one person.

So that'd be my way of saying, "it depends."

 

[Jim123]

Regarding direction of roll, for counter-clockwise (viewed from overhead), if the aircraft rolls to the right in the water and the advancing blade his the water first, that will supposedly tend to pull the transmission and other machinery away from the crew compartment.

I've heard that from a lot of sources, and... I guess it makes sense.

Then again if the aircraft sinks on its side, the left seat will be "on top" and the collective lever will be obstructing that exit... unless it is a retracting collective (H-60)... or you lower the collective... unless the controls jammed and you can't lower the collective... or you could just spend a few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.

 

[bunk22]

Our procedure is conjecture though. No one has ditched a COD or E-2 to provide a good dataset...

An E-2 did ditch off a bolter or cat shot years ago. It floated for a while and at least half the crew got out. Not sure if there were 4 or 5 onboard that day but from what I heard, one of the NFO's was seen looking out the ditching hatch then walked towards the cockpit, maybe to help the pilot. Anyway, he and one of the pilot's died while the others got out. The co-pilot of that fligth used to be a SIM instructor when I was as stud at VAW-120 back in the mid 90's. The aircraft are top wings so they probably will float for a bit, like the E-2 did. However, being that COD has the big ole, hollow back end, it probably would fill up quickly if the ramp is open for whatever reason. I would not want to be back there in any case.

 

[Lawman]

I can confirm that Army guys tend to brief rolling the aircraft. I asked about this in the UH-60 AQC and again when the Army guys were teaching me to land on a ship (thats a whole 'nother post). Both times they said, "Thats what the -10 says. Don't you know your EPs?"

In actuallity, step 9 in the UH/HH-60M -10 says,"Cyclic in direction of roll." What if the aircraft doesn't roll? Why not keep it upright as long as possible? Sadly, many of our ditching discussions end with an indifferent attitude and a comment about "..not ever landing in water anyway."

Ive always heard it as "Cyclic in Direction of Roll."

Ditching in the Apache is kind of an odd EP anyway because if we do it without power we're going by the -10. However most any Apache pilot you ask will tell you if he has to get out in the water and he still has power he sure as hell isnt gonna wait till its in the water to do it. With the hold modes our unofficial brief is we're going to engage the hold modes, Copilot/Gunner is going to get out and climb down the EFAB and jump. Then the pilot will get a nice 8-15 KTAS so the airspeed hold function engages (below 5 position hold). Maintain an altitude high enough to avoid water but low enough to jump. Climb out without bumping the cyclic while the hold modes fly the helicopter and jump. Main reason is nobody wants to chance going into the water the way we sink and the fact that if we dont blow the canopy before we go below water we're stuck inside. The pressure from the water will actually cause the canopy jettison to kill us. Otherwise the -10 for ditching power on looks pretty much identical to the Hawk with the addition of "Canopy Jettison prior to Aircraft entering water."

 

[phrogpilot73]

But still--you can't do that controlled helocast manuever SE either. I just think it's such a corner case that it's not worth briefing. If it comes up somehow, then you'll be handling it on the fly anyway.

Actually, you can. Think about it. Not single engine capable, water landing - now in ground effect so enough power to stay just out of the water... I think flying off the boat with a power limited helicopter it's a valid briefing concern. That whole halfway between mother & shore HAC board question. If you can water taxi away, why wouldn't you? Only one dude has to go for the dunker ride vice 15.

I'm going to have to do some digging, but I've heard tell of a Phrog that had an engine failure near mother, pax got out and now the Phrog was SE capable. Back to mother she went and SAR det came and picked up the pax.

 

[bert]

Actually, you can. Think about it. Not single engine capable, water landing - now in ground effect so enough power to stay just out of the water... I think flying off the boat with a power limited helicopter it's a valid briefing concern. That whole halfway between mother & shore HAC board question. If you can water taxi away, why wouldn't you? Only one dude has to go for the dunker ride vice 15.

I'm going to have to do some digging, but I've heard tell of a Phrog that had an engine failure near mother, pax got out and now the Phrog was SE capable. Back to mother she went and SAR det came and picked up the pax.

Unless your height above water is < sea state, I would think that if ground effect is holding you out of the water, then translational lift is going to make you even more happy and I would be flying it out from there. (I lost an engine in a doppler hover once in a phrog, but I was pointed into the shore with a functional horizon from the cultural lighting and it was a fairly cool evening so while I was not single engine capable at the time I never even considered settling and flew it out with no problem - drooped to 94% and never got lower than 5' over the waves).

Now, doing dipping ops in a Romeo, I know that unless I've burned off a lot of gas I'm going to hit the water like it stole from me, so all of the focus is on hitting level. If I do manage to sit upright on top of the water then I will try to shut down the engines and stop the rotors before I give it back to the taxpayer. From a technique point of view, I'd be way more worried about sideways or aft drift than fwd drift, and for practice single engine HOGE's I used to teach students who were struggling a little to put in some fwd drift initially so they could concentrate on sideways drift and cushioning and be able to drop an item from their scan. The biggest item that can help is to already have your decision made when you pull into that HOGE you know you can't fly out of.

 

[exhelodrvr]

Can the phrog water taxi?

They used to do water landings and takeoffs as part of the syllabus in the H3 FRS, but they stopped doing those after a couple of minor mishaps.

Once at Jax an H-3 had a S/E failure in a hover (not doing water landings), and taxied approx 15 miles to the beach, ran it up onto beach, and then shut down. (I was in one of about 6 helos circling overhead. Felt like a vulture.) A CH-54 flew down from South Carolina, picked it up, and delivered it to the air station.

 

[Lawman]

Who here has a rotor brake?

 

[MasterBates]

USN 60s have rotor brakes, along with some 57s.

Pretty much any shipboard based helo is going to have one.

 

[bert]

Can the phrog water taxi? ...

Yes, and we had water landings in the syllabus at HC-3 until the transition to the Sierra. Lots of fun as a stud or instructor.

 

[BigIron]

Who here has a rotor brake?

Navy 53s do - electric / hyrdaulic

 

[Jim123]

@Lawman, rotor brakes are normally required equipment for shipboard ops. Think of it like: very low Nr + maneuvering ship = bad for the rotor head. You can get away without having one if you restrict the ship's maneuvering during the whole time the rotor spools down (makes the ship drivers nervous) and/or flight ops in very good weather only (makes the staff planners nervous).

Hope that helps

 

[Pags]

I think a lot of folks are nuking this one a bit. The whole "everyone else jumps out" while the HAC flys it somewhere else discussion or the "roll right so the advancing blade hits the water and the transition section protects the crew, etc" is all well and good for ready room BS sessions, but in the event of a real ditch or crash you're more than likely not going to have the time to do all that stuff. The last ditch in the 60 community was a NVD auto to the water. I think they flipped the bird, but everyone still got out. Other than that, all the other cases of birds going in the water have been due to CFIT or something of that nature. In my mind the planned ditch is really only applicable in a few cases where you the reason you're doing it is because you probably screwed away fuel planning or are still single engine and have power on to keep the aircraft upright.

For the latter point, I know of a few cases in the Phrog where something like that happened. A prior Skipper of mine had a motor flame out on him doing the gator slide. They settled and the crewmen jumped out (this was before crewmen carried HABDs). They then water taxied around for a bit trying to max gross it out, but they got smacked down by a big wave. In another case, a Phrog craps a motor doing dops in the James River. During the settle the crewmen jump out. The pilots manage to get the helo airborne again and fly it back home leaving the crewmen to swim to shore, knock on some ladies door and ask to use her phone all the while dripping sea dye marker on her white carpet.

In a Land Immediately situation I don't think you're going to have the time to mess with details like that. As a HAC I'd be more focused on getting the aircraft safely into the water, alerting my crew and maybe getting out a mayday. At that point I'd looking to get my HABD in and the windows out before I was even thinking about rolling the aircraft.

The bottom line is that you want to get the training for your folks if you can. All the talking in the world isn't going to be able to beat actually doing it in the dunker and training yourself to sit on your hands while your aircraft sinks. Otherwise, I tend to think a lot of the finer points are just you kidding yourself about how much control you're going to have over a shitty situation.