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San Antonio Police Helo Autorotates to 281 and bitters
- Thread starter statesman
- Start date
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
I don't remember doing many 200 foot 90 degree autos at night to an interstate surrounded by powerlines and light poles. Mainly Pace, Santa Rosa, etc... I guess they changed the syllabus since I've gone through.
Is it standard to slide that long on the skids after touchdown? I have a few weeks until I start helo school, but from reading the FTI it seems like a normal auto dissipates all the airspeed right before touchdown - or is that the difference between a normal and a low-altitude high-airspeed auto?
If you're ever CO of a carrier, that comment is going to come back to haunt you!
It depends on how "clean" the auto is. If you dork up the auto and don't get as much energy off as you're supposed to (whatever that means for your particular model you're flying), as long as you recover at some safe altitude (again, varies by the airframe), you can run it on and make it more survivable. Basically you're taking all that potential energy and transferring to kinetic energy, but not all of it is in the vertical axis and you can dissipate some of it in the horizontal axis.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the pilot was intentionally holding the collective up (to prevent braking) so that he came to a stop more slowly and didn't get "...nailed from behind." You can adjust how long you "roll" with collective position (weight on the skids) w/ a skid helo.
Your practice autos will not normally slide that much. However (and thankfully, I do not have any experience with ANY actual autos, much less 200' 90° night autos to freeways!), it looks like they played the cards they were dealt. It seemed to be excellent CRM - the pilot flew the auto, and the TFO communicated as much as he could to the dispatcher in the short time they had available. Absolutely shit hot job. Nobody was injured, the aircraft came away without a scratch (except for the motor, obviously), and the pilot will never buy a beer when in the presence of his TFO ever again.
FWIW, the closest I ever came to an actual auto was in the Phrog, when I was setting up the topping on one of our engines. We were blue-water ops, and since it was hot as balls, I decided to climb to 2000' to get some Phroggy air conditioning. When you're topping a Phrog engine, you bring the "good" engine to idle when you're making your topping adjustment on the "bad" one. You're operating on a single engine, which is generally no biggie on an FCF hop. Well, as fate would have it, thanks to a faulty fuel control, the engine I was topping decided to roll back on me - I suddenly had two engines at idle. I was at the controls and immediately dumped the collective and nosed it over to get the turns up. My copilot brought the good engine back online, which, even though he brought it up immediately, took 3-4 seconds to spool up to 100%. My crew chief and AO, meanwhile, immediately started strapping themselves into their seats. When all was said and done, we lost 1200' of altitude, but recovered safely. Needless to say, we knocked off the FCF after that, and I spent that night pulling the seat cushion out of my keister.
Not the craziest story ever, I know, but it validated years of training by hammering home two points:
1. Turns are life. If you suspect an engine failure, never hesitate to lower the collective and preserve Nr. Even in a dual- (or triple-)engine bird, get the turns under control, then focus on your single- or dual-engine procedures. When the engine dies, you're making withdrawals from the Nr bank with no chance of a deposit. When Nr gets below a certain level, you're done. Keep the turns up!
2. CRM, CRM, CRM! Thanks to a good cockpit brief, a thorough brief of the FCF steps (before initiating the procedures), and solid systems knowledge by all crewmembers, I initiated the auto, the copilot knew what was happening (he quickly scanned the gauges when he heard Nr winding down) and initiated our pre-briefed recovery procedures, and the aircrew (by hearing the engines drop offline and Nr decay) knew we were in trouble and got prepared for impact. There simply wasn't enough time to "think" things through - time-sensitive decisions had to be made based on training, briefing, and experience.
Anyway, I hope the SAPD "higher" recognizes just how phenomenal of a job this crew did. Many lives, and expensive assets, were saved that day.
FWIW, the closest I ever came to an actual auto was in the Phrog, when I was setting up the topping on one of our engines. We were blue-water ops, and since it was hot as balls, I decided to climb to 2000' to get some Phroggy air conditioning. When you're topping a Phrog engine, you bring the "good" engine to idle when you're making your topping adjustment on the "bad" one. You're operating on a single engine, which is generally no biggie on an FCF hop. Well, as fate would have it, thanks to a faulty fuel control, the engine I was topping decided to roll back on me - I suddenly had two engines at idle. I was at the controls and immediately dumped the collective and nosed it over to get the turns up. My copilot brought the good engine back online, which, even though he brought it up immediately, took 3-4 seconds to spool up to 100%. My crew chief and AO, meanwhile, immediately started strapping themselves into their seats. When all was said and done, we lost 1200' of altitude, but recovered safely. Needless to say, we knocked off the FCF after that, and I spent that night pulling the seat cushion out of my keister.
Not the craziest story ever, I know, but it validated years of training by hammering home two points:
1. Turns are life. If you suspect an engine failure, never hesitate to lower the collective and preserve Nr. Even in a dual- (or triple-)engine bird, get the turns under control, then focus on your single- or dual-engine procedures. When the engine dies, you're making withdrawals from the Nr bank with no chance of a deposit. When Nr gets below a certain level, you're done. Keep the turns up!
2. CRM, CRM, CRM! Thanks to a good cockpit brief, a thorough brief of the FCF steps (before initiating the procedures), and solid systems knowledge by all crewmembers, I initiated the auto, the copilot knew what was happening (he quickly scanned the gauges when he heard Nr winding down) and initiated our pre-briefed recovery procedures, and the aircrew (by hearing the engines drop offline and Nr decay) knew we were in trouble and got prepared for impact. There simply wasn't enough time to "think" things through - time-sensitive decisions had to be made based on training, briefing, and experience.
Anyway, I hope the SAPD "higher" recognizes just how phenomenal of a job this crew did. Many lives, and expensive assets, were saved that day.
Good stuff, even if it turned into a "non-event." I'm not usually one who briefs every little detail in a Natops brief, but when messing w/ moving PCLs, it's probably a smart idea, especially if the "other guy," who may have 2500+ hours, hasn't had much experience playing with them recently.
I also continue to be amazed at how long it takes the -60 to recover from a "full" practice (letting Nr build) auto, even with two good engines. Easily 100 feet, which is a lot if you're 200 feet at night.
I give a cockpit brief appropriate to whom I'm flying with and the mission we're tasked with. I absolutely REFUSE to give a "scripted" NATOPS brief.
That said, for FCFs (especially when the A/C is going to be intentionally operated in a degraded state), I brief the procedures and CRM "roles" just prior to execution so that all parties involved understand what/why/how we're going to do the test we're running. It's my "technique," and it's based not only on experience, but just on the common sense principle that briefing an unknown FCF schedule at 0700 and then executing an engine setup at 1700 might lead the crew to ask "WTF are we doing again?"
That said, for FCFs (especially when the A/C is going to be intentionally operated in a degraded state), I brief the procedures and CRM "roles" just prior to execution so that all parties involved understand what/why/how we're going to do the test we're running. It's my "technique," and it's based not only on experience, but just on the common sense principle that briefing an unknown FCF schedule at 0700 and then executing an engine setup at 1700 might lead the crew to ask "WTF are we doing again?"
FlyinRock
Registered User
I can only remember one night auto and it happened when I was spraying cotton or something in the San Joaquin valley. Engine began to gasp as I approached the end of the field and I managed to get it up while flaring and touching down with my booms aligned with the rows. Yeah it was cotton because I remember how happy I was not to get the tailrotor tangled up. Man when that shit happens and you are at 3-6'acl (above crop level) you better have your game plan in place. Everything happened just right and gave me another story to tell in the hangar at happy hour. Am glad to be out of that business now....
Semper Fi
Rocky
Semper Fi
Rocky
I was driving to LeMoore one night (from Alameda) for water survival training, and there was a helo doing that (not sure if it was cotton or not). I pulled over and watched for several minutes - pretty amazing stuff. My hat's off to you!!
FlyinRock
Registered User
And ya know what? The only thing more fun than watching it is to go do it! I learned so much about flying in those days, and about my own capability. Got about 13,000 hrs doing that back 'n forth flying in airplanes and helicopters. A lot of it was there in the San Joaquin and wired up fields.... Now THAT can cause you some heartburn!
Thanks and Semper Fi
Rocky
Thanks and Semper Fi
Rocky
I've heard of similar situations from many people. Another good take away is that there's no such thing as too much altitude during motor checks. In my mind they're crappy motors until the FCF is complete.
In the 60 I always do my auto rpm checks to a runway. You never know if that maintain auto is going to turn into a full auto and its nice to plan for success.
What do they say about flying helos: it turns us into pessimists?