Useless aviation knowledges/Helo NATOPS Potpourri for $200 Alex

[nittany03]

One thing that is ever present in aviation regardless of what level you’re at. That is useless information that has nothing to do with the safe operation of the aircraft.

So, list your least favorite bit of information here.

Mine has to be specific thrust rating, shp or any other number that says how powerful an engine is. Outside of the whole standard day on a test bench your engine is not operating at that number. It’s either giving you enough, or it isn’t. You have charts that say it should, but there’s nothing saying you’re getting said power.

Also, the odv on a 60.

Somewhat OBE seeing as they’re all on sticks, but if I had to pick one, the exact temp the Prowler CSD OVERHEAT light and CSD DECOUPLE lights came on. The temp doesn’t matter; what matters is that you’ll lose the generator when it overheats badly enough to decouple.

I asked myself two questions when I was NATOPS Officer. First, can you measure this number anywhere in the cockpit? Second, if not, does knowing that number make any difference in properly executing a procedure in the cockpit? If not, it was probably NATOPS trivia, and I made a concerted effort to purge that bullshit from the squadron closed book tests.

 

[xj220]

Most P-3 systems knowledge.

 

[Gatordev]

"Ok, I swear it used to be in NATOPS. The answer is XX,XXX RPM."

I believe it was 33,000 RPM. I know that (if I'm right) because it was a number I always made a point to ignore, which naturally made me end up learning it (assuming it's correct).

There was a note during engine water washes I think about avoiding going over some limit, which I never understood how it could happen if you followed the procedure. I can't remember what it was, never remembered hearing about anyone breaking the limit, but I remember being confused when it got added to NATOPS, and then subsequently dudes getting caught on IMDS having broken that limit.

The water wash procedure went full stupid with Superhawk, or at least after the first major version. I believe what you're referring to may have been the timing of running the starter, which if you followed the procedure to the letter, would put you over the motor limits in 2 minutes. The change came when they made you start the clock (I think it was 30 sec) and then start the 60 sec rinse, and then you tried to start it. Or something like that. Most people I knew opted to use sound judgment and follow the original procedure, and I'd talk through CAT 1s about it when I had to do a water wash with them so they understood why we were not following NATOPS.

I believe this was fixed 2017-2018.

 

[webmaster]

Most P-3 systems knowledge.

Lol. I just flew a trip with an old school P3 bubba, a couple years away from retirement here at the airlines. Out of nowhere he starts spouting out P3 minutiae. I stared at him and told him “Please stop, let it go, let it go.....”

Otherwise he was a class act to fly with, and picked up the tab on the layover. Winning!

 

[Pags]

also, I bet that big RPM number was power turbine RPM, which WAS listed... in the 57 NATOPS...

I seem to recall that RPMs used to be in the 60 NATOPS but went away at some point...maybe superhawk...otherwise I don't know how I remember knowing them at some point.

 

[xj220]

Yeah, I still remember a lot of things I shouldn’t. Luckily, the P-8 is way better and I think the community has done a great job of moving away from the past.

 

[insanebikerboy]

One thing that is ever present in aviation regardless of what level you’re at. That is useless information that has nothing to do with the safe operation of the aircraft.

So, list your least favorite bit of information here.

Mine has to be specific thrust rating, shp or any other number that says how powerful an engine is. Outside of the whole standard day on a test bench your engine is not operating at that number. It’s either giving you enough, or it isn’t. You have charts that say it should, but there’s nothing saying you’re getting said power.

Also, the odv on a 60.

Set thrust to N1 and let it be. I have no clue wtf the actual engine thrust is, but the N1 from the chart gets me airborne!

 

[Pags]

anything that I can't meaningfully measure from the cockpit - most notably, sideward/rearward flight airspeed limits.

I'll disagree on this one but I get what youre saying. There is a limit as to how much control and TR authority you have so having a limit of some sort makes sense. I'm not sure how else you could write that limit to be something other than a ground speed so you do have to have something to start with.

 

[squorch2]

I'll disagree on this one but I get what youre saying. There is a limit as to how much control and TR authority you have so having a limit of some sort makes sense. I'm not sure how else you could write that limit to be something other than a ground speed so you do have to have something to start with.

there's the rub.

I can see something like "only transition from forward to sideward flight below <airspeed>" (given lack of low-speed IAS fidelity, how could you realistically follow that?) but that's not what it says.

as such, that maneuver was widely variable - from people creeping straight towards pickup zones to O-4 phrog bros kicking the tail at 70 KIAS (justifying it saying "oh, we're well below 45 knots by the time the tail is all the way out").

 

[sickboy]

Anything that came from the 60B NATOPS. Looking at all my old department heads...

 

[Pags]

there's the rub.

I can see something like "only transition from forward to sideward flight below <airspeed>" (given lack of low-speed IAS fidelity, how could you realistically follow that?) but that's not what it says.

as such, that maneuver was widely variable - from people creeping straight towards pickup zones to O-4 phrog bros kicking the tail at 70 KIAS (justifying it saying "oh, we're well below 45 knots by the time the tail is all the way out").

If we're talking a 60 limit then you do have EGIs and can get accurate sideways and rearwards ground speeds from the hover display.

 

[SteveHolt!!!]

If we're talking a 60 limit then you do have EGIs and can get accurate sideways and rearwards ground speeds from the hover display.

So not to get super NATOPS nerd on this... the real problem is that the sidewards flight limit is just listed as "knots" while the rest are "KIAS" or "KGS." Which is basically an admission that there needs to be a limit to not break the aircraft, but no one knows how to define it or how you would measure the limit in flight.

 

[Gatordev]

Anything that came from the 60B NATOPS. Looking at all my old department heads...

Careful. I've run into plenty of Romeo guys that would absolutely freak out at the idea of landing with anything near 600 pounds of gas because they didn't have the historical knowledge. Generally, they did a great job at culling a lot of crap out of the NFM when they transitioned, but there's still good stuff in there that's nice to know and have in your back pocket as a HAC.

But for the record, I absolutely hated when ANIs had "HAC" NATOPS checks and "H2P" NATOPS checks. It's one standard, and it's a MINIMUM standard. The fact that people would vary the standard always bugged me.

 

[AllYourBass]

Careful. I've run into plenty of Romeo guys that would absolutely freak out at the idea of landing with anything near 600 pounds of gas because they didn't have the historical knowledge. Generally, they did a great job at culling a lot of crap out of the NFM when they transitioned, but there's still good stuff in there that's nice to know and have in your back pocket as a HAC.

I may have to dig a little on that one, because my squadron's HAC gouge for ditch fuel was based on a nebulous note in IETMs about FUEL LOW cautions and an assumption about the burn rate it referenced over the course of 20 minutes.

As for useless knowledge: I can draw the shit out of the automatic approach and departure profiles. Control mixing is also a lot of information to which I needlessly dedicated precious "learn it verbatim" bandwidth.

 

[Pags]

So not to get super NATOPS nerd on this... the real problem is that the sidewards flight limit is just listed as "knots" while the rest are "KIAS" or "KGS." Which is basically an admission that there needs to be a limit to not break the aircraft, but no one knows how to define it or how you would measure the limit in flight.

It's been 7yrs since I've had a NATOPS qual so you'll have to excuse me if some penguins have fallen off the iceberg.

It is hard to define and it's hard to measure. There are lots of limits like this throughout aviation that are there because you can't say "there's no limit" but you also can't have a limit that says, "no sideways flight at speeds that make the grass blurry" because that's just as dumb of a limit. I'd offer that the way you'd really do this is to use the hover page when you can because there's no KIAS sideways so it has to be KGS and that you need to calibrate your eyeball because there are real bad things that can happen if you break it (looking at you Whidbey SAR).