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Brown/Whiteout


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This is a phrase and an awareness concept we've been pushing hard in Moggy's Tunaboat Manual.

 

"Blue out" has killed a bunch of pilots, fixed wing and rotary, in all sorts of locations. From Oceans to lakes, Not just tuna helicopters, believe me. The essential accident scenario is abrupt spatial disorientation, resulting in impact with the water. It killed one of my friends, along with his observer.

 

here's the link

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I am kind of glad this thread got the Fronk oon steen treatment. It's a great discussion.

I like keeping the dust/snow/blue behind me technique, and it has worked great for me as long as there is plenty of landing area to the front.

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Cool. GREEN-OUT...

 

Errr.... I'm landing on a 110 degree F. f@#k'n hot summer's day in the Gulf, in my beat up ole' 12,000 flight hour Bell 407 beside a brand new Bell 407 with AIR CONDITIONING and dancing Geisha Girl? That would be Green -out.

 

Errrr....?

 

:wacko:

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Moggy you crack me up. Almost spilled my tea when I read about your Green-Out. I want a dancing Geisha Girl too...

 

Here's a link to my own hard learning about White-Out.

 

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20100519X82205&key=1

 

I worked for 12 years as a heliski guide and was a passenger for thousands of blowing snow, flat light, white-out landings. Clearly that comfort with the environment led me to overconfidence in my flying abilities on that fateful day. Hard lesson, but luckily no one was hurt and it was an older machine with 80 hours to overhaul so the financial consequence was only the $9K deductable.

 

My learning: Keep your out. Fly Defensively.

 

In White-Out conditions there are a few techniques. Here is the preferred heliski landing. A few rotor disc lengths back from the landing spot (with some reference, a landing stake with flag, rock, tree, etc) set up a stabilized flat short final approach which will arrive exactly at the spot with no need to move the controls. If all reference is lost the helicopter will land if you don't move the controls. It's really hard not to get puckered and move the controls but if reference is lost any control inputs will invite problems. A perfect no hover spot landing set up a few disc lengths back will get you there. This technique is not for the faint of heart, and you are committed to landing at that point. It's daily routine in the heliski world and why many very good high time pilots will not fly heliskiing.

 

Along the lines of Moggy's Blue-Out there is also the wonderful Grey-Out. Over water (yes sometimes frozen) with 2 miles vis and 500 foot ceiling. What joy, only grey in every direction. Good thing for the instruments cross scan because it's hard even to abort and turn around in some conditions. It's the lobster in the pot scenario. As it gets worse you may not realize till yer cooked!

 

One winter day I was sitting on shore not flying to the platform. Many calls to launch but I'm holding my ground till it gets better. A fixed wing guy waiting at the same strip and I drive right to water level and amazingly we can see 25 miles across the inlet but the ceiling is really low. I stay put. He decides to launch and fly across the water (Islander twin) loaded with passengers. Almost immediately after take-off he goes IIMC and is flying the gauges. He knows the area well and descends over the water to break out. The ceiling had lowered and he couldn't get below clouds even at 100 feet over the water. So he flew around for 30 minutes like that and eventually had to go to the nearest airport with an instrument approach and declare his IIMC situation. They lived, egg on face. In a helicopter the same situation might not turn out so well flying around in a cloud aimlessly. I was so happy to sit there on the ground drinking way too much coffee as the drama played out. Of course later that day it improved and I went back at it, while the fixed wing guy was grounded and under investigation by the FAA.

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Moggy you crack me up. Almost spilled my tea when I read about your Green-Out. I want a dancing Geisha Girl too...

 

Here's a link to my own hard learning about White-Out.

 

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20100519X82205&key=1

 

I worked for 12 years as a heliski guide and was a passenger for thousands of blowing snow, flat light, white-out landings. Clearly that comfort with the environment led me to overconfidence in my flying abilities on that fateful day. Hard lesson, but luckily no one was hurt and it was an older machine with 80 hours to overhaul so the financial consequence was only the $9K deductable.

 

My learning: Keep your out. Fly Defensively.

 

In White-Out conditions there are a few techniques. Here is the preferred heliski landing. A few rotor disc lengths back from the landing spot (with some reference, a landing stake with flag, rock, tree, etc) set up a stabilized flat short final approach which will arrive exactly at the spot with no need to move the controls. If all reference is lost the helicopter will land if you don't move the controls. It's really hard not to get puckered and move the controls but if reference is lost any control inputs will invite problems. A perfect no hover spot landing set up a few disc lengths back will get you there. This technique is not for the faint of heart, and you are committed to landing at that point. It's daily routine in the heliski world and why many very good high time pilots will not fly heliskiing.

 

Along the lines of Moggy's Blue-Out there is also the wonderful Grey-Out. Over water (yes sometimes frozen) with 2 miles vis and 500 foot ceiling. What joy, only grey in every direction. Good thing for the instruments cross scan because it's hard even to abort and turn around in some conditions. It's the lobster in the pot scenario. As it gets worse you may not realize till yer cooked!

 

One winter day I was sitting on shore not flying to the platform. Many calls to launch but I'm holding my ground till it gets better. A fixed wing guy waiting at the same strip and I drive right to water level and amazingly we can see 25 miles across the inlet but the ceiling is really low. I stay put. He decides to launch and fly across the water (Islander twin) loaded with passengers. Almost immediately after take-off he goes IIMC and is flying the gauges. He knows the area well and descends over the water to break out. The ceiling had lowered and he couldn't get below clouds even at 100 feet over the water. So he flew around for 30 minutes like that and eventually had to go to the nearest airport with an instrument approach and declare his IIMC situation. They lived, egg on face. In a helicopter the same situation might not turn out so well flying around in a cloud aimlessly. I was so happy to sit there on the ground drinking way too much coffee as the drama played out. Of course later that day it improved and I went back at it, while the fixed wing guy was grounded and under investigation by the FAA.

I forgot about flying pig's green out. I have been greened out for the last 15 or so flying hours. I have never hear of gray out as that term although it makes sense. We used to call it milk bowl where it's clear within a small sphere around you, but it's milky white to gray outside of that.

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Good posts...

Seems like you end up with lots of different types of sand conditions. Even in the same general area. Hard to generalize. Flying LE and EMS in Arizona, with lots and lots of landings in desert/dust, I'm not so sure I worried too much about flying the often quoted "steeper approach". I was much more concerned about flying a "fairly rapid low-power approach to a zero-zero landing". Even a slight run-on. That was often enough actually a shallower approach.

No hover. Just BOOM-DOWN. Not rushing, hopefully no big power changes, no flare, but definitely hop-hop. Not worried about the dust I might be kicking up behind me.

The shallow approach (often but not always with an observer present hanging his head out the door) (commenting on what he was seeing) (and my sanity) seemed to often work best. Kick up a little bit behind you on the approach and see how loose or not it is.

 

Now you get some weird stuff. early in the morning, with some moisture/dew about, you got a sticky, thin, top layer. That held it together quite well. Now if you messed about, and you blew through to the fine, dry stuff, you opened a can of worms in a heart beat. Poof! Big dust cloud.

Some days I would expect dust, and the stuff would just meekly lie there. You'd land two hundred yards further up, or try to, and it was hopeless / instant wannabe Brown Out.

I tried to avoid it if at all possible. That stuff gets everywhere, engine, rod ends, etc.

AT NIGHT... phew. One time, I got to six inches, and we went from nothing to OHMIGOD in a nano second. That's no fun, "feeling your way down the last bit" and hoping you are not going to drop a skid across a rock... too much like Russian Roulette. Bad boy. Should not have happened.

It's almost like no two landings are the same. You would approach one landing, and there's barely a grain bothers to lift off. Cool. Next time, you're coming down through fifteen feet, and it's like you just suddenly set off a Continental Sand storm. What...?

 

Lot of guys have gotten hurt with that. A lot of accidents. Unless you really, really have to, don't. All sorts of invisible damage to your bird. About the worst thing is when you've done so many you get cocky. All of a sudden, you get one of those soil/humidity combinations that goes from happy to very, very Brown in a nano second. Duh. Now what do I do. :unsure:

 

Humility. Just 'cos you've done a cuppla dozen with no sweat, don't drop your guard.

Edited by Francis Meyrick
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I practice by doing the last 50 feet of all my landings with my eyes shut.

 

 

 

I got my eyelids pierced for just such occasions.

 

you guys don't know sh*t. I used to practice by judging the last 50 feet by how loud my observer was screaming. Uh-huh... :rolleyes:

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Yup Moggy, you revived a long dead thread in which there is a lot of good information. Which I will attempt to bring together slightly.

 

One poster said "don't do it". I told all of my pilots the priority in brownout/whiteout/limited visibility is not the landing technique but rather, the decision making process. Make good decisions first and your technique can be half-skilled. Make crappy decisions and sometimes a perfect technique still won't work.

 

To make good decisions, understand the definition of brownout first - Loss of visual references due to a blowing medium.

 

1. (Minimize medium) Don't land in dusty situation if you have a choice. Pick the least dusty situation you can.

2. (Minimize medium) Land into the wind. If you have trouble figuring out where the wind is, make a low approach to a go-around and watch the cloud.

3. (Maximize references) Pick good high contrast references with vertical development.

4. (Maximize references) Plan approach as close to the references as it's height will allow. Within rotor diameter is great if reference is short enough.

5. (Minimize medium) Plan approach path over non-dusty areas also.

6. Plan your escape path.

 

Technique -- you'll have to work on it on your own, but for the most part, the idea is to minimize the amount of aft cyclic near the bottom of the approach which acerbates the loss of visual references by: 1. blowing more dust in front of you. 2 putting more console/panel/glareshield in the way. I found that flying my approaches slightly steeper than normal and initially slower than normal with a VERY slightly increasing apparent rate of closure minimized the two problems above. An added benefit is that with mild attitude changes comes less chance of vestibular illusions and an easier transition to a stabilized go-around if one becomes necessary.

 

A variation of this that only works with small amounts of snow is to come to an OGE hover and slowly blow the snow away and slowly descend as it clears.

 

A funny story to go along with this --- In 1995 while deployed in Bosnia, I had the opportunity to go out on a cold snowy morning and conduct some whiteout training. Crew and I had just walked away from the aircraft when another H60 escorted by an H64 arrived at our base. The 60 landed and a few minutes later, as I was critiquing the approach with my pilots the 64 crew began a pretty quick approach to the very center of a featureless snow covered farmers field. Big decell at the end; whiteout; go-around. Later found out the IP in the back seat was also critiquing the front seater's approach and suggested he find a good visual reference to make his approach to... such as that large rectangular OD green.... uh... looks kinda like a hellfire rack.... aw shucks! that's ours. They had impacted the ground on the previous approach.

 

I bought them a cup of coffee.

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That's interesting.

 

 

the idea is to minimize the amount of aft cyclic near the bottom of the approach which acerbates the loss of visual references by: 1. blowing more dust in front of you.

Never quite thought of that way. I flew that way. I guess we sometimes DO things that seem to work, without fully realizing WHY it works.

 

Cool. ;)

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Moggy, that's the poor man's radar altimeter.

 

Excellent point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

 

Not so much that calm, neutral voice, though. (Check - height - check -height -check- height...)

 

more like:

 

JESUSMOGGYWHATAREYOUDOINGFORFLIPSAKEYOUCRAZYDAFTBASTARD!!!!!

 

(sigh)

 

:huh:

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I guess we sometimes DO things that seem to work, without fully realizing WHY it works.

Brother, right there is the whole reason why old guys became old guys. Sometimes we're lucky to learn something that works without understanding why it works.

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Brother, right there is the whole reason why old guys became old guys. Sometimes we're lucky to learn something that works without understanding why it works.

 

Oh.... so THAT'S WHY I grab the nearest white object (preferably a flag, but a dish cloth will do) and wave it frantically around my head, when faced with domestic little lady hands-on-hips stern talking-to lecture time.

 

Funny the things I learn on a sleepy morning, before my first cup of coffee. There is hope. Maybe.

 

:huh:

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In mountain technic, you choose the flatest place on ground, and find a small fixed repair in the snow (it's vital) and you don't leave it at all during all the final..it has to be a reliable repair..!!! you can conserve a small speed to the contact with the ground..(to let the rotor turbulence behind you un fact and so the snow cloud that will come then) but take care...not too much quickly on contact..and be careful with the tail rotor heigth between et ans the ground...and get a very moderate rearing action while reducing speed...!

Then you decrease power very carrefully after landing...for taking off..conserve your vital repair...and don't mark hovering....you take off rather quicly conserving your ground repair...you fly then, looking for speed to a secure direction...without any obstacle..you have to be very smooth on controls.

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Learning to fly ala-Vref (vertical reference) can be a lifesaving technique….. That is, flying the machine and setting it down while looking straight down thought the side window. It takes practice, but it puts another tool in the box to accomplish the task…….

Edited by Spike
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  • 2 weeks later...

 

So, what's a BLUE-OUT?

 

:o

 

I would guess:

 

"I was doing a dust landing under NVGs and browned out at about 5 feet AGL. I put the collective down before I could start to drift, and near blue-out my shorts".

 

That's my experience, anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tisk, tisk. :rolleyes: Nope. Try harder, grasshopper.

 

Landing in a brown out on a red ants' colony, and cussin' up a storm when they climb up your pants, doesn't count as a BLUE-OUT either....

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  • 2 months later...

here's a scribble on BLUE-OUT. And, seriously (for a second, anyway) it has killed a bunch of guys.

Including a buddy of mine.

 

Moggy's Tunaboat Helicopter Manual - Chapterv 3 G - Descending to a Log

 

 

:o

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