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Emergency landings


fleman202

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I was getting my BFR done yesterday and the CFI was talking about choosing your spot during an auto.

 

During the first simulated engine failure I choose to fly to a wide open field. As we continued the flight and kept talking about emergency landings, it became quite clear that he would always go to hard flat surface and it didn't seem to matter how confined it was. This guy was really really good at auto-ing the helicopter to a very small spot and sticking the landing without skidding.

 

My question to everyone, especially those who have had to make "real" engine failure landings, where do you look first to land?

 

If given the choice I would take a wide open parking lot with no cars and no light poles over a field with unknown surface conditions but that not my question. Do you choose the cul-de-sac in the middle of a neighborhood or the soccer field right behind the houses? Do you choose the concrete parking behind the warehouse with light poles on the perimeter or the big open yard in front of the warehouse?

 

I hope my question makes sense. Pleas ask me to clarify if it does not.

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If given the choice I would take a wide open parking lot with no cars and no light poles over a field with unknown surface conditions but that not my question. Do you choose the cul-de-sac in the middle of a neighborhood or the soccer field right behind the houses? Do you choose the concrete parking behind the warehouse with light poles on the perimeter or the big open yard in front of the warehouse?

 

The first issue, is you are giving yourself WAAAAY to much time to react. If one day someone decides to yank the carpet out from under you, you'll be on the ground in about 10 seconds if you were at about 1000'

 

What you are asking is more pertinent to a precautionary landing. In an auto, you are going to the first place that will reasonably accommodate the size of the aircraft you are flying. When Im flying Im usually at about 800-1000. I just keep a mental note of whats in front of me and whats out my door at about a 30-45 deg down angle and inwards, because thats all you are going to get.

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Your experience and skill set play a big part in the answer to that question. There is nothing wrong with making a conservative decision and leaving yourself as much margin for error as you can. Nothing wrong at all. It's prudent and a wise choice.

 

The tighter the area, the fewer the choices that remain as you get closer and find obstacles that you didn't see at first. The single strand of unsupported wire that suddenly looms into view (happened to me during a forced landing on a fire) may change your plans. If you have a very small space and gave up the big open one in favor of the paved surface, now what are your options? None. You're hitting the wire.

 

That city street or culdesac could have cars that pull out, children that emerge, roof antennas or guy wires supporting poles or other things nearby. Any straight lines on the ground should always be presumed to be bordered by power lines, fences, etc, and any roads or paved surfaces will often have signs, lights (including street light poles), and other obstacles nearby. Even a straight line through a field should be suspected for fences or wires or poles.

 

Stack the deck in your favor.

 

Once on the ground, accessibility to the aircraft is a big plus when it comes to maintenance, removal, etc...but remember that your goal first and foremost is survival. The aircraft can't be recovered, repaired, and flown again if it's crashed, so you're serving both ends (survival, and recovery) by getting yourself down and stopped in as safe and as intact manner as possible.

 

Pick the area with which you're comfortable. If your hotshot instructor feels comfortable landing somewhere else, somewhere tighter or more demanding, let him. You go with your comfort level.

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"Choosing your spot during an auto"? You're dead already if you're not lining up as you bring the nose up and collective down.

You have to plan for the power failure before it happens because it will surprise you, delaying your response, and the pig will come out of the sky faster than in training, in my experience. Choose a route that keeps a survivable landing within reach, upwind, or be high enough to turn to one that's flat, level, hard and long enough to hit and walk away. Know where it is.

As to picking that landing point:

Parking lots with light standards are tricky, you need to have an idea how far apart the lights are and know if you can put it down in that space. Newer ones will usually have underground power between poles, but may have islands or curbs between lanes. Any street requires the same evaluation, but almost all will have wires alongside and crossing the road, and cul de sacs have all that as well as mail boxes, signs and utility boxes- and people. You don't want to hit people on the ground.

An average lane in an average street is eleven feet, parking spaces about ten (or narrower). Use that as you're trucking along looking at that nice straight 2 lane with trees overhanging and know that it ain't doing it in most helos, unless you're Pete Gillies and walk on water every day.

Whatever your plan is, don't plan with an extended glide. That airport runway just out of range might as well be on the moon, better to do a survivable ditching and break the helicopter.

 

And don't fly junk. If it's broken, get it fixed before you leave. If you even think it might be broken in flight, land ASAP and get it fixed.

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What a miserable life, looking only at forced landing areas as you fly along.

 

Smell the coffee, look at the nice bits.

 

Sure, plan your route to avoid the bad bits and include good landing areas, but if you only flew over safe areas, you would never work in Hawaii, or do police work at 300' over Miami rooftops, or power line patrols at zot feet over trees or... or...

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The spot "chooses" you in several other airframes as well, not just the 22. It actually autos pretty well considering it's such a low inertia system (better than a couple of MD models I've been in that had autorotation characteristics pretty close to a brick)...

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I see the surface as desirable and undesirable….. If possible, I place as many desirables within reach as I can although, when over undesirables I understand this is what I’m paid to do and I’ll do the best as I can to save the machine…. Save the machine and you’ll save….. everyone……

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A little bit of fly sh!t and pepper and more of an academic question but since you asked: Soccer field and big open yard would be my choices as you posed them. My first goal is preservation of life and minimizing injuries. Now after well established and all is going great and I see a hard surface with no doubt of making it and I can take the airframe into consideration, maybe I'll make that small turn to the hard surface but it's not my priority right now. Of course a hard surface is better than a soft surface, all things being equal, but the situations you posed, all things are not equal. Aft cyclic, down collective and manage the remaining few seconds to hit the ground with the lowest vertical and horizontal inertia possible.

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One can “what if” this to death….. Until you’ve experienced a real-deal in-flight engine failure, you can only (hopefully) properly prepare because you’ll only have nanoseconds to realize, this is it……… Once the realization kicks in, it’s all about muscle memory and frame of mind. Muscle memory is automatic. Frame of mind responds with a fight-or-flight response which is automatic as well….. Panic and indecision is the kiss of death……

My occurrence ended in a canyon meadow with a slight down slope. You?

Edited by Spike
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One can “what if” this to death….. Until you’ve experienced a real-deal in-flight engine failure, you can only (hopefully) properly prepare because you’ll only have nanoseconds to realize, this is it……… Once the realization kicks in, it’s all about muscle memory and frame of mind. Muscle memory is automatic. Frame of mind responds with a fight-or-flight response which is automatic as well….. Panic and indecision is the kiss of death……

 

My occurrence ended in a canyon meadow with a slight down slope. You?

Pasture at the edge of a national forest. Because I keep what I need on hand before I need it, if I can. Steer clear early in the leg and you'd be surprised how little extra time it costs to divert around hazards.

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If you've planned your routing properly, and it's not a one time effort to do so, you'll have put forced landing sites beneath you. If it means altering your path a little one way or the other to take advantage of potential sites, and cruising A to B a little higher, it's worth the nearly inconsequential cost.

 

If you've never had an actual forced landing, then it's all academic to you; practice landings or autorotations here or there, which are NOT like losing power away from the airport at a time not of your choosing.

 

A big part of having a place to go is making sure it was available to you in the first place, and that has everything to do with how you conduct the flight.

 

Basic airmanship.

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1 - Frame of mind responds with a fight-or-flight response which is automatic as well….. Panic and indecision is the kiss of death……

 

2 - My occurrence ended in a canyon meadow with a slight down slope. You?

 

1 - My flight instructor used to say every time we practiced autorotations "Fly the fu%^er all the way to the crash site !"

 

2 - 1st time at private grass field i trained at, second time at bottom of a canyon

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" unless you're Pete Gillies and walk on water every day.

 

Yes, he does. I was just talking to Pete a few weeks ago at Robinson for a local safety event. Since Pete doesn't post here I thought it would be appropriate to remind pilots of Pete's favorite topic! Forget what you learned in flight school, the SINGLE most important control when executing an auto is the cyclic and not the collective! Yes, get the collective down quick....but get that cyclic back to change the airflow, get the ship into an auto, and most importantly, to recover that lost RPM that went away while you were figuring out what just happened. Remember that most of us fly faster than a ship will auto. Case in point, I fly the R44 along between 100-105 knots, yet the max auto speed is about 90 knots. Also, what happens when you drop collective?? The nose drops.....what happens then? speed increases and you never get into an auto....rotor RPM quickly decays and stalls, and you die. Pete brings up about 5 cases where very experienced pilots fall into that trap...and it's not taught enough. You can do auto's vertically with no airspeed and still walk away. These aren't my words, they are Pete's. IF you have never spent an hour with the man, I highly recommend it.

 

Fly safe,

 

Goldy

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Yes, he does. I was just talking to Pete a few weeks ago at Robinson for a local safety event. Since Pete doesn't post here I thought it would be appropriate to remind pilots of Pete's favorite topic! Forget what you learned in flight school, the SINGLE most important control when executing an auto is the cyclic and not the collective! Yes, get the collective down quick....but get that cyclic back to change the airflow, get the ship into an auto, and most importantly, to recover that lost RPM that went away while you were figuring out what just happened. Remember that most of us fly faster than a ship will auto. Case in point, I fly the R44 along between 100-105 knots, yet the max auto speed is about 90 knots. Also, what happens when you drop collective?? The nose drops.....what happens then? speed increases and you never get into an auto....rotor RPM quickly decays and stalls, and you die. Pete brings up about 5 cases where very experienced pilots fall into that trap...and it's not taught enough. You can do auto's vertically with no airspeed and still walk away. These aren't my words, they are Pete's. IF you have never spent an hour with the man, I highly recommend it.

 

Fly safe,

 

Goldy

Goldy,

 

Pete and I have collaborated on taking "cyclic back" meaningfully to the industry! Pete is reaching out to established pilots and I am bringing this to the pilots in training although we have promised each other to touch anyone we can.

 

Do not forget what you learned in flight school and Pete will not tell you that the cyclic is the most important control in executing an auto! What he will tell you is how important the cyclic is in accomplishing the aerodynamic transitions to a good entry and preventing the loss of RRPM. Once the entry is accomplish and RRPM & ROD are stabilized the collective is the effective control.

 

One common mode of flight that Pete and I have discussed is a pilot in training in cruise flight on a solo cross country while changing radio frequencies with his hand off of the collective. Engine failure at this point brings the value of "cyclic back" into the big picture. You have a life saving control in your hand!

 

FAA, NTSB and the USHST have all addressed the lack of training and lack of verbiage in Handbooks about the use of "Pete's cyclic back" or aft cyclic as a simultaneous control input along with collective during entry of all autos. (and coordinated pedal input for trim of course)

 

Handbook updates (and some errata sheets) are being discussed to coincide with the new Integrated Airman Certification Standards.

 

Here is a link to the USHST Safety Bulletin on the subject:

http://www.ihst.org/portals/54/QR4.pdf

 

Here is a link to all of the Safety Bulletins available:

http://www.ushst.org/nbspnbspBulletinsnbsp.aspx

 

Note the free app to have these on your mobile device!

 

Mike

USHST JHSIT TWG.

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Autos that you do in training are done in such a way as to not break anything, and you know its coming. In real life things are not going to be in the cookie cutter mode that you know train for and practice when at flight school or when ever you have to demonstrate one for a check ride! To get an idea of what really happens, read the accident reports, a lot of times a real life auto is do to a failure of some kind or fuel exaustion, results in significant damage to the machine and all to often persons inside the machine, Its an eye opener if you take the time to look at it, I would almost say that an successful auto that results in no or minimal damage to a helicopter is a rare thing when have to do it for real. On the other hand a lot of real life autos end badly. Its not just helicopters, far to often forced landing in airplanes don't go well either!

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Attending Westerns 500 EP course was an eye opener for sure. And, while having taught FTDA to primary to advanced students, I must say, the current standards are lacking……

 

Over the years, I’ve attended a factory school where some of the instructors have chastised me for pulling aft on the cyclic. Why? Old school academia and, inside-the-box experience. The rational was, and current industry culture, is to maintain level pitch attitude during the entry. The problem with this theory… If the engine fails, where will the pilot be looking? If the pilot is human, he or she will be looking down and that’s where the cyclic will point…. Down, ala-forward….. Bad system…..

If the engine fails, the pilot’s brain can’t process the information quickly, or accurately, enough to prevent loss of RPM. With that, even with a proper entry into the auto, it will take seconds to recover the lost RPM. Therefore, when ‘I’ train, no matter the IAS, my cyclic is going aft just as quickly as my collective is going down thus conditioning my muscle memory…….. Good system……..

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