Forced landing in the mountains

[Wally]

You're in the mountains and lose power.

 

Level and/or clear areas are all beyond your auto-rotation range so you're going to trade air frame for survival by minimizing the possibility that the wreck will roll down hill...

 

How would you maximize your chances of survival, Mountain Pilot? I know, I now- you shouldn't BE THERE, but sometimes you are, people use helicopters to take them beyond the pavement.

[adam32]

Shoot for some soft trees..not granite boulders on a slope...

[Jaybee]

Shoot for some soft trees..not granite boulders on a slope...

 

Ditto.

 

There is an Army study on surviving crashes, its been several years since I read it but the main take away I got out of it was to always try to land on bushes or trees

 

http://www.bladeslapper.com/m/how_to_crash.pdf

[avbug]

I spend a lot of time in mountainous terrain, and plan my path to take advantage of forced ladning sites. I spend a lot of time evaluating and looking for them, while flying.

 

Having lost power and made a forced landing on a mountainside, I take it very seriously.

[Guest pokey]

Having lost power and made a forced landing on a mountainside, I take it very seriously.

was that in your 747?

[Fred0311]

If its not heavily wooded point the nose up hill so you can hold the flare a little longer and the helicopter isn't going to want to roll on the long axis.

[AS350 pilot]

I hate to say it, but there really is no good answer to your question. You should always try and be as safe and smart as you can about the job you are doing. The reality of flying in the mountains weather you are doing a charter, long line, fire fighting, rappel, etc. is that you're going to spend a significant amount of time in a position that is not going to go well if your engine quits. Couple that with the fact that the best mountain performing helicopters (Astar, Bell 205, etc.) are single engine and you don't have many options.

 

A fantastic old long line pilot told me once that if you spend the entire flight worrying about what will happen if your engine quits, you might be in the wrong business.

[avbug]

There's a big difference between being prepared for and planning for an inflight emergency or abnormal situation, and worrying about it.

 

Failure to plan and prepare for such a situation, and to conduct the flight accordingly, is poor airmanship.

[500E]

If there are trees big flare & in tail first I have been told, boulders Hope there is space to put it down between smaller ones so as to stop sliding to lower altitude, usually not a good thing to do.

Scree, just pray suggest trying them all it will keep your mind occupied & its to late to "wish I had a helmet"

[Spike]

Having forced landing areas within reach is the key to a best case scenario. Worst case; I’d still do a good auto although, at a higher airspeed to store at much energy as possible. At the bottom, high RPM. I’d find the smallest vegetation possible on the most level ground. Nose up-slope. Goal; don’t chop the tail boom. Maybe into a drainage/wash/crevice to keep the machine from rolling….. Big trees, tail first…..

[Wally]

I hate to say it, but there really is no good answer to your question. You should always try and be as safe and smart as you can about the job you are doing. The reality of flying in the mountains weather you are doing a charter, long line, fire fighting, rappel, etc. is that you're going to spend a significant amount of time in a position that is not going to go well if your engine quits. Couple that with the fact that the best mountain performing helicopters (Astar, Bell 205, etc.) are single engine and you don't have many options.

 

A fantastic old long line pilot told me once that if you spend the entire flight worrying about what will happen if your engine quits, you might be in the wrong business.

 

Being aware of hazards and planning to maximize your chances of success isn't the same thing as worrying. Maximizing my chances for survival means that I may have to sacrifice the airframe, I want to know how to do that best to ensure my survival.

 

"If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible."

Bob Hoover

Edited January 8, 2016 by Wally

[AS350 pilot]

Wally, I think it's a good question, but like I stared, I just don't think there is a very good answer for you. Yes, maybe a discussion about how to crash is what you were looking for. Believe me, I have done plenty of thinking about how that would all go down. The bottom line is, just to do whatever you have to do to protect yourself and your passengers. If the engine quits in the mountains with no good landing areas no one in their right mind can blame you for bent metal.

 

I'm not saying this in a "failure to plan and be prepared" kind of a way....just go fly in a steep canyon with tall trees for 8 hours (pouring concrete, moving construction equipment, buckets of water, etc.) with a long line on and you might just accept it. If not, there are plenty of other great flying jobs out there that don't require that. Just my 2 cents.

[helonorth]

 

Having lost power and made a forced landing on a mountainside, I take it very seriously.

was that in your 747?

 

 

He did say he has had around 50 engine failures. He's probably had several in the mountains in anything from an Astar to a 747.

Edited January 8, 2016 by helonorth

[Guest pokey]

i think i would like to be as slow, & as flat as possible, let the crash-worthiness of the ship take all the abuse and save my back, tail in? ouch !,, altho rolling down the hill don't sound like much fun either. Now if i was in my 747? they have quite the glide ratio, much more than one would think, my PBY? let me check my POH and get back to ya.

[Guest pokey]

 

You're in the mountains and lose power..

 

dunno about the rest of ya, but me? i'd wanna be with avbug, i know i will be here to tell the story.

[Spike]

i think i would like to be as slow, & as flat as possible, let the crash-worthiness of the ship take all the abuse and save my back, tail in? ouch !,,

 

A good auto at higher airspeed doesn’t mean I’d be fast at the bottom. Higher airspeed is to gain the extra energy to increase the RPM in the flare. The saying goes, “a good autorotation to a bad spot is way better than a bad autorotation to a good spot”. IMO, due to muscle memory, at touchdown during FTA’s, just about everyone is low on the RPM side. In this case, timing can be the difference between life and death. Me; I will do everything I normally do in the auto (a good auto) just at a higher airspeed so when I flare, level and pull; there is some extra energy to help me out with the timing and cushion. Furthermore, the “tail-first” scenario is in the case of big-trees. Falling level into 150-200 ft. trees in a composite structured aircraft and expecting the “crashworthiness” of the machine to save me is not realistic. While I’m not an helicopter engineer, I’ll speculate most crashworthiness standards are set for hard flat surfaces…… Maybe iChris can chime in on this…..

[Guest pokey]

maybe you didn't understand me Spike,... i was talking about low vertical speed. Never mentioned auto. I meant to "fall gently and vertical" onto the treetops (as in landing on the top of the tree).. i think that would be better than tail in. &? yes ,, i think the structure below is still stronger than the one in back,, but? that does depend on the helicoper.. i don't think we need Chris for this one. But? he does seem to have resources well beyond most of us, so? i welcome his opinion also.

 

i think no matter what kind of tree landing, you are gonna fall to the bottom of the forest. But? i have heard that some (especially rocket scientists) are trying to repeal the laws of gravity.

 

 

edited to include lawyers

Edited January 10, 2016 by pokey

[Jaybee]

http://www.bladeslapper.com/m/how_to_crash.pdf

(9) A tree landing should be executed with zero or near-zero ground speed and in a taillow attitude If for some reason the pilot is unable to reduce forward velocity to safe limits and tree contact is unavoidable, he should flare the aircraft Ii an extremely nose-high attitude against the densest growth and as close to the ground as possible. In this case, the pilot is using the trees to absorb energy of motion in the horizontal plane and the bottom of the aircraft becomes the main contact point as well as a protective shield. Even individual trees--preferably the smallest ones--can be used for this purpose if the center of the aircraft is aimed at the center of the tree crown. Uprooting a tree under these conditions adds to the impact attenuation process, as shown by accident experience

[Spike]

maybe you didn't understand me Spike,...

 

Thank you for the clarification. When I read your post, I interpreted the word “slow” to mean airspeed in the auto simply because that’s what the discussion is about. Additionally, after the flare, I usually don’t use the terms as fast or slow to describe the rate at which I approach the ground, or in this case, the trees. I use “high” and “low” rates of descent simply because you can’t measure it. My bad…

 

Currently, I fly the AS350. If you’ve seen any number of post-crash photos of an Astar, you’d see the forward portion of the airframe, forward of the forward bulkhead, is rarely intact. What are usually intact are the tail boom and sometimes the Hexahedron structure (under the transmission). Therefore, I’d want not only the tail boom, but the engine and transmission to be vertically, first in, and take the brunt of the impact through the trees. While this scenario is “all bad”, by biggest concern would be branches of trees compromising the structure and impaling me. Fugly…..

 

Lastly, while I heard negative opinions about the Astar lately, I’ll just refer to what the French say and that is; “you Americans fly too much” and “you’re not supposed to crash helicopters”….

[Azhigher]

Auto into the valley/crevice/low point, tail low, nose upslope. Then pray you can get out before the sucker catches fire.