Land a Helicopter After Your Pilot Has Been Killed

[Pohi]

Stumbled across this...

 

A person can learn anything online. I should print this out and tape it to the panel so my pax know what to do.

 

http://m.wikihow.com/Land-a-Helicopter-After-Your-Pilot-Has-Been-Killed

 

[Fred0311]

My favorite part was don't try hovering you will surely crash and die

[Flying Pig]

"Once you have the helicopter under some semblance of control, you need to think about landing. Your best bet is a large airport. You are going to land like an airplane, so you need a big piece of concrete. Big airports have all the emergency equipment and the biggest pieces of concrete."

 

Oh...yeah, of course, because every yahoo is born knowing how to land an airplane! You ever seen a non-airplane rated helicopter pilot try to land an airplane!

[Wally]

Passengers shouldn't worry about this remote possibility. The helicopter will land itself if the pilot is incapacitated.

[MileHi480B]

I am convinced that a competent fixed-wing pilot (especially a tail-wheel driver) can land a heli if he makes it a run-on landing at an airport.

 

One of my friends who flys a Champ was able to bring it in to the pattern, then fly it down to within a few feet of the surface, while slowing it down. I believe he would've made a successful touch-down and run-on - had I let it continue.

Edited September 29, 2012 by MileHi480B

[TomPPL]

This bit is priceless:

If, however, you have been wrestling a greased pig all the way down, you may wish to choose a small crash on the airport instead of a big one in the neighborhood adjacent the airport.

Edited September 29, 2012 by TomPPL

[Flying Pig]

I am convinced that a competent fixed-wing pilot (especially a tail-wheel driver) can land a heli if he makes it a run-on landing at an airport.

 

One of my friends who flys a Champ was able to bring it in to the pattern, then fly it down to within a few feet of the surface, while slowing it down. I believe he would've made a successful touch-down and run-on - had I let it continue.

 

Being a dual CFI, its fun to watch helicopter guys try and land an airplane for the first time. At 1000ft and 85 kts, I see them start flaring trying to slow down, then push the nose down because they are climbing, then flare to slow down over and over and over........ You end up looking like Flipper the magical dolphin. Problem with an airplane, your still doing 80kts when you hit your spot!

[nightsta1ker]

Being a dual CFI, its fun to watch helicopter guys try and land an airplane for the first time. At 1000ft and 85 kts, I see them start flaring trying to slow down, then push the nose down because they are climbing, then flare to slow down over and over and over........ You end up looking like Flipper the magical dolphin. Problem with an airplane, your still doing 80kts when you hit your spot!

 

Conversely, Airplane guys have a hard time slowing the helicopter down. Had one guy that just about panicked when we got below 40 knots because his instincts were telling him we were going to stall!

[Nearly Retired]

My (former) boss - who is not a rated pilot - demanded that I leave the copilot cyclic installed whenever we flew. Okay, fine, whatever. He was under the impression that if I ever keeled over and died he could land the helicopter. And yeah, he could hold it straight and level pretty well on a clear day although we never practiced power changes or approaches. And maybe during the day he could find someplace big and flat and run it on in a survivable crash (yeah, sure). But at night? Oh, and we did a LOT of night flying. And I used to tell him, "At night, if I die, you're gonna die, simple as that. You'll never get it down." Lord, he did not like hearing that.

[BH206L3]

Gee Bob you are in a good mood!!!

[Nearly Retired]

It's simply the truth, George. Everybody thinks they can be a pilot - that it's soooooo easy. I'll tell ya, there were some overcast nights when the terrain we were flying over was so dark that even I was having trouble keeping it upright. I'd stay above the obstruction level and just basically fly down on the gauges until we got back to "civilization" (something of a misnomer considering it was central Alabammy). Small, unstabilized helicopters are not to be messed with by people who aren't pilots. If the owners of such machines don't like that simple truth then perhaps they should own something bigger and more sophisticated. You know...with an Ottopilot.

[Wally]

Anybody here remember their first shot at the controls? I do, and I was as well prepared as I could possibly have been. With luck I could have kept most of the wreckage on a runway, perhaps largely in one big survivable pile. Even with the enough airspeed to weathervane the fuselage, there will be roll and yaw changes as an untrained pilot moves into an increasingly effective ground effect that will make a running landing minimal crash situation, unless very lucky. Forget a hover or out of ETL landing, the flight dynamics change so quickly in those that it's a guaranteed crash with survival a challenge.

That said, I do remember hearing of a pilot incapacitation that most of the passengers survived. The story is that a 206 left Venice a couple decades ago, outbound with a crew change. Before beaching out, the pilot started feeling ill and elected to return to base. After the 180, the pilot realized he was too sick to fly back and started a forced landing to the marsh- and passed out. The passenger immediately behind the pilot pulled him off the controls while the front seat passenger did the best he could with the controls and their efforts made a survivable crash possible. Unfortunately the ad hoc flight crew didn't survive, perhaps because of the positions they were in when the crash occurred. Everybody else survived.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Wally

[Rupert]

Helicopter pilots have no difficulty landing an airplane the first time, with or without instruction.

 

I had 1500 helicopter hours the first time I flew an airplane and I found flying and landing an airplane ridiculously easy.

 

Please keep it real.

[Eric Hunt]

By the time your non-rated passenger realises that you are dead, you have collapsed onto the controls and the machine will be massively nose down and about to chop its own mast and tailboom off.

 

He dies, you die. Simple.

[Wally]

By the time your non-rated passenger realises that you are dead, you have collapsed onto the controls and the machine will be massively nose down and about to chop its own mast and tailboom off.

 

He dies, you die. Simple.

 

Yup, usually, as the helicopter yields to the laws of physics and "lands itself".

 

The stories I heard from Vietnam were that it was hard recovering and controlling the aircraft even when you were already on the controls when the pilot flying was incapacitated but still in the way. Huey armored seats had a toggle so your crewchief and gunner could flop it over backwards and get the pilot no longer flying out of the way...

[achfly]

Take offs are optional. Landings are manditory. That always makes me chuckle.

 

anyway. The first time I landed a cessna was after about 300 hrs of heli time and it did take a conscious effort to keep the nose down during the approach. Of course I was flying with my 63 year old father who does approaches like WWII dive bomber.

 

back on topic. I would say that 1 out of 100 people or less would have the coolness, coordination and luck to even get the aircraft stable if the pilot passes out suddenly. IF they survive that first challenge due to the aircraft already being stable or an incredible amount of luck then I'd say they've got a decent shot at executing a run on landing.

 

This all makes me glad that I fly a machine that doesn't have to worry about passengers. I hope to play that game someday but for now its nice just to have two pilots and nobody else. BTW I flew an apache today with only 50 hrs on it... cleanest helicopter I've ever seen! (and did it break? of course it broke... but only a little)

[peter2001]

it is really amazing how some people waste their time writing this and also whoever reads it will have no chance to land a helicopter i think. The moment he pulls that collective up and the heli turns left or right its all over ( judjung by giving the controls to my wife a few times )

[PondJumper]

Funny. I just so happened to read this tonight while looking for tips on making an approach. I'm just a low hour student right now, and had to read this article through. I have about six hours in a R44, and if my instructor became unconcious during flight, I think I would just jump out and try to land in water.

[aeroscout]

How many of us fantasize about the pilot who saves the day when the airline flight crew becomes incapacitated ? Something similar to that scenario actually happened during the sioux city Iowa crash. A pilot not part of the crew came up to the cockpit and ran the throttles, and was a big part of the reason so many passengers survived what should have been a total disaster.

Edited November 24, 2012 by aeroscout

[heloidaho]

Yeah but in the Sioux City crash, the "passenger" was also an instructor pilot for that airframe.

[Wally]

There's a world of difference in an extra helping hand for an airplane (stable) flight crew and no one at a helicopter's (divergent) flight controls.

It's possible for a non-aviator to use an accessible, functioning set of controls and make a survivable arrival in a helicopter. Good for you if you're in a trainer or in the seat with dual controls.

With an inert or uncooperative pilot interfering with access to the only set of flight controls is a different matter. Timeliness of correction is the first challenge, then appropriate corrective control input. It becomes a much less likely prospect. But if you're going to crash anyhow, trying to make it a survivable crash is worth the effort.

[aeroscout]

Yeah but in the Sioux City crash, the "passenger" was also an instructor pilot for that airframe.

I must be missing the point of your "yeah but" in relation to my point. My point is that I think one of the reasons that many pilots become pilots is they have a lot of "I will save the day" in them.