Pitching Deck

[edspilot]

And the fixed-wing people complain about the pitching of a carrier deck.......

 

No sound.

 

 

http://www.prismdefence.com.au/index.htm

 

 

edspilot

[Gomer Pylot]

Having wheels helps. Making that landing with skids would be dicey at best. You just have to track the deck, and wait until you can get on it while it's level. I've landed on some pitching decks that tried very hard to throw me off, and it's not a lot of fun until it's over and you're back in the air.

[Tenacious T]

Damn

[ADRidge]

Guts. Those pilots have em.

[screename6785]

Nice

Edited May 18, 2011 by screename6785

[Nolapilot89]

I think I missed this day in flight school.

[gary-mike]

Guts. Those pilots have em.

 

Or skill , or luck, $h!t I think it probably takes all three.

[rotor91]

 

Good stuff!

[lelebebbel]

I wonder how much of that is auto-hover, and how much hands-on cyclic? Looks crazy though

 

The Lynx landing is insane!

Edited May 19, 2011 by lelebebbel

[Gomer Pylot]

I don't think that's autohover. The technique is to get over the deck, and concentrate on it and nothing else - not the water, not the rest of the vessel, nothing but the helideck, and match its movements, making it 'stand still'. It takes patience and a lot of cyclic and collective movement, and you can't do it if you're near MGW. You always want to touch down at or just after the top of the cycle, never at the bottom or on the upward movement. It takes patience to get it all right, and the Puma pilot takes awhile to get it on the deck, because at the top the deck is at a large angle for a lot of cycles. You have to wait until the deck is level at the top of a wave. It takes concentration and control, but it's possible.

[helonorth]

I used to do quite a bit of ship landings. The roll, not the pitch in the first part of the video looks like it would not be possible to land. When they do actually set down, the roll is not rearly as severe. The ships I landed on had computers that determined the pitch and roll. Our ops manuel would not allow me to land if they were beyond a certain rate (that I can't remember). Trying to land in the first part of the video looks more suicidal than gutsy.

[Gomer Pylot]

They were trying to find the limits of the helicopter. If you want to be a test pilot, that's what you have to do. I agree that the roll in the first part is beyond any possibility of landing, and they had to be patient and wait until the roll was acceptable at the top of the wave. Sometimes it takes a long hover waiting until things come into acceptable limits. For commercial ops, that landing probably wouldn't even be attempted, but on test flights you have to do things you would never do with pax onboard.

[Rupert]

In the cockpit view, the pilot in the video needlessly rolls counter to the ship.

 

He might have done better to maintain a level hover referencing the horizon and allow the ship to pitch and roll beneath him.

 

=====

 

In an American helicopter, the left heel will touch first; and, in some European helicopters, the right heel will touch first.

 

Fly the heel of the touch-down skid (like flying the load on a long line) and forget about the rest of the helicopter.

 

Maintaining a level hover, not reacting to the pitching and rolling of the ship, bring the heel of the touch-down skid to within a few feet of the mean high point of the deck.

 

Hold the hover.

 

When the deck comes up to its mean high point, put the heel of the respective skid on the deck and then quickly plant the rest of the skids on deck, lower the collective and follow the deck down (marry the helicopter to the deck).

 

While maintaining flight rpm on a pitching and rolling deck, keep the rotor disk level with the horizon as much as the slope limitations of the helicopter will allow.

 

=====

 

Some years ago I worked for an offshore helicopter company that quietly made it known they would pull crews off barges well into the development of hurricane conditions.

 

Those flat bottom work barges pitched and rolled in a manner similar to the ship in the video, with waves breaking over the weather side of the deck.

 

I found extremes of pitch much more dangerous than roll due to the probability of tail rotor strikes on the deck and main rotor strikes on the tail boom.

 

=====

 

Fly the heel of the skid; maintain a level hover and allow the deck to pitch and roll beneath you; make contact with the deck at its high point; marry the helicopter to the deck; lower the collective; and, follow the deck down with a horizon-level rotor disk.

[helonorth]

I guess this falls into the "don't try this at home" catagory. To me, the risk is off the charts. If some dumb SOB's screwed around so long that they need a ride off a barge during a hurricane, they will be riding it out or the Coast Gaurd can winch them off. Not interested in being a dead hero.

[Rupert]

The word "hero" has nothing to do with barge evacuation.

 

The job has about the same level of difficulty and risk as flying a long line in the mountains.

 

You either know how to do it or you don't.

 

If you know how, someone will pay you money to do it.

 

No heroes need apply.

 

And, no one "screws" around on those barges.

 

The oil companies want to keep the barges producing as long as possible, and sometimes the hurricane's path will allow some barges to stay in operation.

 

However, when the hurricane zigs instead of zags, some offshore helicopter companies make a lot of money in those last few hours, pulling workers off the barges.

 

Please consider the economic reality that if production didn't mean as much as it does to the oil companies, offshore helicopter operations would't even exist.

 

Bottom line: offshore helicopter operations increase production.

 

Of course, I haven't flown offshore for thirty years, and some of this might have changed.

 

That said, the method I described for putting a helicopter on a moving deck remains the same.

 

Stable hover...fly the heel of the touch-down skid...let the deck come up to you...marry the deck and follow it down with a level rotor disk.

[helonorth]

I guess it has changed, since I've never heard of or seen anything called a "production barge". Most companies evacuate if a storm is even expected to enter the Gulf. Usually, everybody is in long before the storm hits. The helicopers have to moved inland, too, so the evacuations start pretty early. Too many people have been killed by getting into the situation you described. In other words, greed putting peoples lives in danger. I would say the days of landing on a barge in a hurricane are over.

[Rupert]

Service Barge.

 

Supply Barge.

 

Crane Barge.

 

Work Barge.

 

Aka, Production Barge.

 

Took about two seconds with Google.

 

They still have them.

 

And, yes, I've worked in the Gulf when we evacuated inland.

 

I've also worked in the Gulf when the majority of companies kept their facilities in operation while they waited to see which path the hurricane would follow.

 

Greed and heroism have nothing to do with it.

 

As for "too many people ... killed getting into the situation you described," I don't think so.

 

The topic of this thread had to do with landing on a pitching deck.

 

I described a much simpler and easier approach to landing on a pitching deck, and I cited my experience with it.

 

It works.

 

Look at the original video and especially note the in cockpit-view: the pilot counter-rolls to the ship because he fixates on ship and lets the ship dictate his movements.

 

You can see the counter-roll if you look at the horizon.

 

The counter-roll serves no good purpose and in fact represents and out-of-control situation.

 

Several participants on this thread described what they saw as dangerous, and I agree.

 

A safe and easy way of doing it exists and I described it.

 

And, a helicopter landing on a pitching deck will have a tail rotor or tail boom strike long before encountering any roll limitations.

 

As I wrote earlier: stable hover...fly the heel of the touch-down skid...let the deck come up to you...marry the deck and follow it down with a level rotor disk.

[helonorth]

Okay. I've worked off a lot of barges. They were mostly derrick barges, though. When I hear "production" in the offshore world, it means they are are making oil or gas or both. It doesn't really matter, though. You can't leave people out there until the last minute.

I really don't see anything safe or easy about landing on a barge in high winds and seas. I would also say greed had quite a bit to do with it! Now I'm not real naive (maybe a little), but I know how oil companies work. And risking leaving workers offshore to potentially fend for themselves in a hurricane is leaving the company wide open to some serious litigation. Most pilots don't have the experience to perform landing on a rolling deck and you really can't practice it (I'm talking civilian world). These companies also can't afford to lose their assets, either. They just come in hope for the best. Going to a vessel in a hurricane is now considered a rescue mission and I'm more than happy to leave it to the professionals.

Edited May 22, 2011 by helonorth

[clay]

there are production barges just south of Intracoastal Louisiana that I can show. not drilling.. just production