Question about Westland Sea King

[chrismackey1972]

I'm writing a book, and a small part of it has to do with a westland sea king about to crash into the ocean. It's probably about 100 feet or so from crashing. Many of the cockpit window frames were shattered, so if the pilot wasn't wearing their seatbelt, would they likely be sucked out, or would air be pushing into the cockpit?

Also, what would the pilot have to do in order to set the craft down as gently as possible in the water? I saw the interior of the chopper, and it has two pilot seats. Does it actually NEED two pilots or can one person fly it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[SBuzzkill]

Lots of air into the cockpit, like having no windshield on the freeway but worse.

One person can fly.  Why is it about to crash?  That’s going to determine how “gently” it goes into the sea.  But for drama’s sake you can assume it’s going to be pretty violent.  If the blades contact the water the impact forces will essentially rip the aircraft apart.

This isn’t a Sea King but the video captures both scenarios.  The first being a relatively controlled landing after an engine failure (still pretty hard landing, eh?), and the second is a blade strike:
 

Note that the helicopter rolls over and starts to sink.  Almost guaranteed to happen in a bad water crash.  The pilot will not have a lot of time to get out of the aircraft, seconds.

Edited July 6, 2021 by SBuzzkill

[Hobie]

@chrismackery:   I appreciate you wanting to write an accurate representation for your book.  Please be sensitive that helicopter pilots jobs often require them to operate in very dangerous conditions, locations, situations.  Not even mentioning military ops.  Each pilot is well aware of an errant wind gust, distraction, mechanical failure, etc. can be a life ending experience.  

Many on this forum are highly seasoned pilots and like other risky jobs, tend to not want to talk to the public about when the, 'sh*t hits the fan'.  They man up, accept the risk and do the job. 

That said, enormous amounts of time is spent training for every kind of in flight emergency and hopefully your book can portray these pilots in a positive light.    As you are most likely aware, usually the more experienced pilots fly the larger aircraft and pilots always wear their seatbelts.  The problem with a water landing is getting out of them fast enough and so the seatbelts incorporate special quick release features.

Thank you for listening.

 

 

[chrismackey1972]

Thanks very much, guys, I appreciate your help on this. 

Do these helicopters have engine failure beeps? And if it's crashing, do they send out a mayday, or would they have to know the call-sign of the helicopter? I'd like to put a mayday in the book, but since the pilot gets killed, the person who takes his place is familiar with this type of chopper but not the call-sign.

[Hobie]

Dude.  Don't come on this forum and say the pilot gets killed.  Seriously.   You are not getting it.   Think about the high price they pay for some stupid mission.   I'm out. No further comments.

 

[chrismackey1972]

Well, Hobie, that is fine, you don't have to comment any longer, but no offense was meant. I was simply making it clear why the person flying the chopper didn't know the call-sign of it since the actual pilot of said craft would know it.

[Hobie]

@Chris:  Any p;ilot in command will know the 'call sign'   Any call sign or radio transmission will not help an aircraft in distress.  It's on the pilot in the seat and God.  Sometimes the pilot wins.  Out.

 

 

 

[Disguise Delimit]

The callsign is usually displayed on a label on the instrument panel - when we hop from one machine to another, it is easy to forget which one you are in.

Why is your aircraft crashing? Don't worry about describing it, plenty of pilots are not as touchy as Hobie, and will give you some sensible advice.

That video is interesting - the first water landing was from an engine failure in the hover, and the second engine only had enough power to cushion the water landing. After landing on the water, the pilot lowered the landing gear to make the cg lower down and give a bit of stability in the water.

But nobody expected him to try a single-engine takeoff by moving forward to gain translational lift and fly away on one engine. Especially with the gear down - lots of drag, and low down, making the nose dip too far. Not sure why the pilot didn't stop the exercise when the nose first dipped, but he persisted and the machine was wrecked.

[chrismackey1972]

Thanks, Disguise Delimit. The helicopter is crashing because it was sent to pick the "heroes" in the book up from an island where a volcano is erupting. The chopper can't stay long because the ash will destroy the engine, and as they are flying away, some rocks that the volcano spewed slams through the cockpit window killing the pilot. One of the people he picked up actually flew this type of chopper before. Although it's an action adventure book, I'm trying to make this part as realistic as I can. 

[Disguise Delimit]

Hmmm. A rock descending from above would more likely hit the rotor before the window. The rock would need to be horizontal to miss the rotor, but that sort of speed might not be possible from a volcano. 

A birdstrike, however, is a horizontal entry to a window, and in the past has incapacitated many aircrew. I only know of one case of a bird killing a pilot, it was an F-111 doing 450kt. A chopper would be doing maybe 125-150kt when hitting a bird.

[chrismackey1972]

Thanks very much, Disguise. I appreciate your help  BTW, do you know if helicopters have an engine failure siren that beeps?

[Disguise Delimit]

They vary. Usually there will be a warning light in red, high on the coaming, and a sound through the headset, often a repeated beep. If rotor RPM get low there is another light and a different sound, like the rising beep you hear from a car alarm. Newer aircraft might have a female voice telling you what the problem is - "bitching Betty".

[chrismackey1972]

Thanks very much for all of your help answering my questions, Disguise. 

[PRJ]

The USN SH-3 (American version of the Sea King) had a low rotor RPM warning as well as some engine function warnings. For the most part a pilot in distress will send out some form of a May Day call. Hit the rule of thumb in an emergency is “aviate, navigate, and communicate.”  In your book you might want to give the injured pilot a little more time to live. The pilot seat of a Sea King is on the right and is covered from the rear by a bulkhead with a coms console to the left. Getting a dead guy out of there is not impossible, but it would be quite difficult in a pinch. Also, a pilot getting killed in the seat is likely to yank about a bit on the controls making the time line from accident-to-hero-taking over amazingly short and critical. So, maybe, the pilot should call out something like, “Dave, get in here, I’m hurt and don’t know how much longer I can hold her.” 
 

Other things to consider…who is in the 2P seat (co-pilot in right seat)? Did our hero jump into that seat when he was rescued? The Sea King (in military configuration) is already a loud machine up front, with the windscreen gone it is only going to get louder…does our hero have a helmet or headset to put on? I also recommend having the rock strike the helicopter as rises parallel to the volcano so a rock could potentially hit the windscreen without hurting the rotors. 
 

To your other questions:

You could fly an SH-3 with only one pilot but the workload would be interesting.

To land the hero will need to clean up any issues with the flight parameters caused by the pilots death (essentially gain control of the helicopter) and then enter an autorotation to a water landing. Here is the procedure from NATOPS…

*1. Speed selector(s) - FULL FORWARD.
*2. Alert crew.
*3. Harnesses - LOCKED.
*4. Mayday/IFF.
*5. External stores - JETTISON.
6. Execute single-engine approach profile.
7. Jettison windows during landing flare.                                                                                                   8. Land on top of swell - HEAD INTO WAVES, 0 TO 15 KNOTS GROUNDSPEED.

[chrismackey1972]

PRJ, thank you very much for that detailed response. I really appreciate it.

[PRJ]

No worries. If you need more info feel free to ask, but keep in mind my experience is with the US version. I only assume the Westland model is very much the same.