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Scariest Day/Night Flying
- Thread starter phrogpilot73
- Start date
Just to stir the pot a little bit... Having flown up front in a Romeo a handful of times and having spent entirely too much time in a Prowler - Your vis is better from the front of a 60
Which speaks volumes for the crappy viz in your plane. I think the -60 is a great airframe but visibility is not it's strong point. I'm guessing you'd say the same about the A-6.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
I forgot one, "who gives a shit if we're coming back early, I'm still logging a 3.0..."
Fly what you can, log what you need......
Understood. That's why I posted a novel explaining such. I don't make the rules... I just try to follow them, or have a good reason when I don't.
Wow... long time since I've been on here. What year did I write that???
That "where is dash 2" stuff was during night gun shoots on googles (all that nasty tactical stuff HSC now does). We were doing patterns over the water with another aircraft (the tighter the better), but there were opportunities to go head to head or nearly so doing those. And you had students flying, so the patterns and timing weren't necessarily good.... it's totally possible the other aircraft wasn't where you thought it was going to be. We were over water and we used flares as targets... so visibility wasn't totally stellar - especially if you had the AC pumping in your aircraft and had some "smoke" in there. Plus you had live ammo going on and the crewman were worried about their guns and shooting sometimes more than the other aircraft. So you'd ask where the other aircraft was and you got a "uhhhhhhhh" and it wasn't a very comfortable feeling.
HueySAR
Member
1986, LHA-3 off the coast of San Clemente in "Devil Dog 000", the ship's UH-1N. We'd been IFR since nightfall, although the ship had been able to keep us UNDER the 150' fog bank in Starboard D while they exercised our Marine Air Wing. I have to give those aviators A LOT of respect for flying THEIR birds in that weather. Well finally the last CH-46 cleared his TACAN approach for the night, so control tells us to make a left turn across the bow and enter downwind for a visual...as long as we can do that below 150'.
It's interesting how making a left turn after 3 hours of right turns can mess up your equilibrium. Within seconds of crossing the bow my HAC called "vertigo, get on the controls", and my CoP responded with "uhh...I have it too." They asked my crewchief if he could come up between the seats and the three of them started muscling our Huey into something resembling a downwind. I kept watching the ship's lights and calling clock position all the way around through the crosswind turn to final.
Then it got interesting. The ship was rolling, and as the pilots went visual they both experienced "unusual attitude" symptoms. We ended up at 200' washing in the fog, at less than 15 KIAS airspeed and maybe 5 degrees nose up and 20 to 25 degrees right-wing down. I'd moved to the right side and watched us falling sideways towards the deck as it passed below us(we were crossing over the rear of the deck, very near the island). I called "waveoff" at the same time as my crewchief. Our pilots fought the vertigo, unusual attitude, and fog for what seemed like hours, but was in fact about 10 seconds before we popped up out of the fog into an absolutely clear star-filled night. We regrouped, did a nice leisurely TACAN, and got "000" on deck quietly.
21 years and about 15,000 flight hours later I retired, and that's STILL one of three scariest moments I've experienced in Naval Aviation. The other two were in P-3s!
It's interesting how making a left turn after 3 hours of right turns can mess up your equilibrium. Within seconds of crossing the bow my HAC called "vertigo, get on the controls", and my CoP responded with "uhh...I have it too." They asked my crewchief if he could come up between the seats and the three of them started muscling our Huey into something resembling a downwind. I kept watching the ship's lights and calling clock position all the way around through the crosswind turn to final.
Then it got interesting. The ship was rolling, and as the pilots went visual they both experienced "unusual attitude" symptoms. We ended up at 200' washing in the fog, at less than 15 KIAS airspeed and maybe 5 degrees nose up and 20 to 25 degrees right-wing down. I'd moved to the right side and watched us falling sideways towards the deck as it passed below us(we were crossing over the rear of the deck, very near the island). I called "waveoff" at the same time as my crewchief. Our pilots fought the vertigo, unusual attitude, and fog for what seemed like hours, but was in fact about 10 seconds before we popped up out of the fog into an absolutely clear star-filled night. We regrouped, did a nice leisurely TACAN, and got "000" on deck quietly.
21 years and about 15,000 flight hours later I retired, and that's STILL one of three scariest moments I've experienced in Naval Aviation. The other two were in P-3s!
FIRST - this question is NOT intended to spark a "who's better than whom" argument - nor is it intended as a slam...
With that disclaimer out of the way...
How hard is it to shoot an approach down to mins in a helicopter? Can you hover at 200'? Sure, not for long - is it HOGE v HIGE...? But if you get behind on the approach, can't you just stop your forward motion and have the other pilot figure it out?
This may seem like a naive question (and it probably is), but having spent a LITTLE bit of time dorking around in the front of Rs and Ss - it seems that 200' is quite a bit of altitude - and if you break out the approach lights, well, voila...? No?
With that disclaimer out of the way...
How hard is it to shoot an approach down to mins in a helicopter? Can you hover at 200'? Sure, not for long - is it HOGE v HIGE...? But if you get behind on the approach, can't you just stop your forward motion and have the other pilot figure it out?
This may seem like a naive question (and it probably is), but having spent a LITTLE bit of time dorking around in the front of Rs and Ss - it seems that 200' is quite a bit of altitude - and if you break out the approach lights, well, voila...? No?
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
To mins, no harder than a jet, as far as flying a published approach. Some helos (57 in particular) is more "squirrley" than any IFR rated FW airplane I have ever flown.
Not really a HIGE vs HOGE issue, while that is a factor, it's a "no ground reference = no hover without doppler/intertial coupler" this. In a helo, your attitude gyro does not accurately reflect which way your lift system is pointing, there's no accurate airspeed indication below 40 KIAS in most helos, and even if it worked to 0, it's just like a plane/jet in that it only works forward. "Backing down" while shooting an IFR approach to a ship once you go below the speed the airspeed indicator works is scary as fuck, and probably has been the cause of more than a few mishaps over the years.
In short, NO.
Coming straight down over a light IFR.. Not easy, and then you get into less than 40KIAS/greater than xxx FPM down is just asking for vortex ring state
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Of course, I've flown a helicopter three times in the last 6 years, so if my numbers/memory of how hover couplers work is bad, have a more current dude correct me. Only helo I've touched since the 60B has been my current employers Bell 212.
It's not really that easy at 200'. Hovering (as you may have seen) is a primarily visual evolution. If you're in the scud at 200', you're not really going to be able to hover unless you let the computer do it (which the -57 can't really do). At 200' on a completely CAVU day, it's not that easy. Growing up (professionally) on an island, I knew I could shoot a coupled/doppler/computer approach to a point much lower than 200' and drive myself into the runway or boat (probably more applicable), but that was a last ditch/HAC board question. One I've noticed isn't as prevalent on the East Coast. But this was a "you've screwed everything else away, now what?" type of question.
Anecdotally... Operationally, on the boat, I've been in a similar situation as the OIC standing in CIC with a crew airborne. They got aboard fine through other means, but this wasn't really a fall-back plan they had thought of, in large part because of what they were exposed to in the past.
I've heard that if you even THINK about going below 40 knots and more than, oh, let's say 700 FPM, your helo will spontaneously combust. It's SCIENCE!
(No, it's not).
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but a number somewhere in that region is where they told you to "never exceed".. It may have even been a 57 NATOPS limit/warning. I vaugely remember hearing some number like that a HSL-40, but I have drank most of those braincells clear by now. It's been over 10 years.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
<40 KIAS, >800 FPM in the Phrog is Vortex Ring State. Although there's also a blurb in NATOPS that says that it is a phenomenon that generally doesn't affect tandem rotor, but if it does, you feel vibration, yada, yada, and fly through it. It used to never say anything about it, and there's nothing that says we need to avoid it.
LSO, a good, last ditch "escape plan" in an R or S would be to let the AFCS (autopilot/doppler hover coupler) shoot the approach down to whatever groundspeed/AGL you have dialed in- and you could dial in as low as 0/0 (this is the short explanation). Now, in the proverbial HAC board scenario when your world is falling apart, choosing to do this isn't the first choice in the prospective HAC's bag of tricks.
The AFCS in the navalized H-60 features, among other capabilities, an autopilot with really great airspeed, attitude, and heading hold. Long story short, those holds work very well- they automatically engage and disengage as required during normal, everyday flying and make it very easy for the pilot to trim out the aircraft. The SAR modes (approach, hover, depart) in the AFCS also make use of those features and also use feedback from doppler radar to manage your forward groundspeed and sideways drift.
As far as either pilot hovering, in instrument conditions and with no visual reference to the ground, and actually doing a decent job of staying put over one spot on the ground (whether 20', 200', or wherever), it's possible to do an OK job with that--crews can practice hand-flying SAR approaches without using those SAR modes of the AFCS--but not something normally practiced for instrument approaches. Now, while hand-flying an instrument approach with a properly functioning AFCS, slowing down below 90, 80, 70 knots or even less, before you break out, sure- that's a viable thing to do in bad weather.
Also, there at least a couple two schools of thought for whether the pilot who the instrument approach will take the landing once you break out at the bottom of an approach or whether that pilot will maintain an instrument scan and relinquish the controls so that the other pilot can land (land visually). Short version: it depends...
And last, dual pilot helo (side-by-side only... sorry Cobras!) wx mins are 100' on most PARs.