NAVY HELICOPTER LANDING

[Rancocas]

Here's why Navy Helicopter pilots get a special extra allowance for their laundry!

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bC2XIGMI2kM

[DocWard]

It might have something to do with why a friend of mine who was a rescue diver got a medical discharge due to spinal compression after too many hard landings. Dangerous stuff.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Could the pilot even see the flags? Looks like he was pretty much putting it down blind.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Big Brass Ones.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

Yeah, that took some skill.

[Uno Mas SASS #80082]

I like that "Aero-Bass" Recover Assist, Secure and Traverse (RAST) system. Reel in the helicopter.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

You guys have never ridden in a car with me, have you?

[Utah Bob #35998]

Could the pilot even see the flags? Looks like he was pretty much putting it down blind.

Yeah the pilot could but the view from the camera was obscured by the instrument panel.

[Hurricane Deck 100366]

Skill and patience.

 

Nothing but respect for those guys.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Not only did he get down safely, he nailed the landing. Look where it is on the "bullseye". Wow!

[Harvey Mushman]

It's about relative motion. The pilot is flying "formation" on the superstructure of the ship, and watching the director with peripheral vision.

 

All ships (and boats) have a somewhat cyclic motion in higher seas that will occasionally settle out or become predicatable - they were waiting for the pitch and roll to settle out enough to set the bird down.

 

Great job by the pilot and director! All helo pilots earn their pay, these more than most. Imagine this at night...

 

EDIT: It is important to remember that the landing is only incidental to the MISSION! This was probably at the end of a challenging 2hr mission...

[Klondike SASS Life #29713]

Pucker Factor-----------High! Great Job

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

You guys have never ridden in a car with me, have you?

No but I have had a Russian driver on cobble stone streets with trolley tracks. ))))

[Shorty Jack Hammer]

Think about this, how do you actually get good at that? How'd you like to experience the "first try" wow. Much respect.

[Old Scatterbrain]

And people make such a big deal about carrier landings- not saying they're easy, but compare the two.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Carriers are pitching and rolling too. While that's going on, the plane is moving forward at approx. 140 knots while descending at around 600 ft per minute. They can't hover above one spot and pick the moment to land. Carrier landings are a very big deal.

[Old Scatterbrain]

Carriers are pitching and rolling too. While that's going on, the plane is moving forward at approx. 140 knots while descending at around 600 ft per minute. They can't hover above one spot and pick the moment to land. Carrier landings are a very big deal.

I'm not saying they aren't. Your runway also is moving away from you, at an angle. But you hear all the time how hard carrier landings are and you rarely hear that about helo landings. And yes carriers roll and pitch, but in a similar sea state there is no way an 800- to 1100-foot, 70,000- to 100,000-ton carrier pitches as much as a destroyer or frigate less than half the length and as little as 1/15 the displacement.

 

I wouldn't want to do either as a pilot. As a passenger, meh, wouldn't concern me. But I never was too bright...

[Old Scatterbrain]

Point of interest:

Class & type: Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel

Displacement: 1,720 long tons (1,748 t)

Length: 61 m (200 ft 2 in)

Beam: 14.6 m (47 ft 11 in)

Draft: 4.9 m (16 ft 1 in)

[Old Scatterbrain]

I once observed a CH-53 land on the back of a Newport-class LST. If you are familiar with the layout of a Newport's flight deck, you will know it wouldn't take much to get the rotors into the stacks or the yard&stay.

[Elk Creek LeMieux]

On some of the destroyers the landing deck tilts forward toward the structure too.

 

Landed on a container ship once, the landing deck was behind and above the superstructure. Wasn't any big deal the first time, during the day. Went back that night and the sea state had picked up a bit. I don't remember how much the ship was rolling, but with the deck 100 feet above water, and it being a small deck, it was swinging back and forth under us. Over the deck now, over the water now, over the deck now, etc.

[Old Scatterbrain]

We had to launch a small boat once to render aid to another ship, in the middle of the night off Cape Hatteras. I was out on the weather deck watching, and all you could see were the running lights of the other ship. One second they disappeared below the edge of the deck, the next they were way up in the sky, then below the deck, way up in the sky... There was a problem with the davit such that it wouldn't raise or lower, and the LCPL kept slamming into the side of the ship. I expected it to explode into a thousand splinters any second but it didn't. There was a doctor onboard for a personnel transfer, and he looked about as terrified as any person I have ever seen. I was glad NOT to be a boatswain's mate right then.

[Shorty Jack Hammer]

"Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere pn the sea. When the find it they have to land on it's pitching deck. Where do we get such men?"

[Harvey Mushman]

I'm not saying they aren't. Your runway also is moving away from you, at an angle. But you hear all the time how hard carrier landings are and you rarely hear that about helo landings. And yes carriers roll and pitch, but in a similar sea state there is no way an 800- to 1100-foot, 70,000- to 100,000-ton carrier pitches as much as a destroyer or frigate less than half the length and as little as 1/15 the displacement.

 

I wouldn't want to do either as a pilot. As a passenger, meh, wouldn't concern me. But I never was too bright...

Agree with you OS. The helo guys should get more credit, and among most of the Naval Aviation community (at least the older ones), they do, but not with any general public notoriety.

 

As Slim pointed out, the approach speed and "one time" opportunity is what add to the pucker factor for the fixed wing gang. If you are PERFECTLY on glideslope at ~150kts, you have 13 feet clearance between the lowest point on your aircraft and the back of flight deck (the "round down").

 

The period, magnitiude and frequency between the ocean swells can make even a carrier pitch and roll well in excess of this. Thus, when one is approaching at 150kts, it can be a matter of luck in the timing and adjustments made for all the other states in between the maximums, either way (if you land while the deck it coming up fast, you can collapse the landing gear and essentially crash.

 

Couple that with the fact that the max gross landing weight of most carrier aricraft only allow 2-3 attempts before you are too low on fuel and you get the pucker factor.

 

So yes, we fixed wing carrier guys envied the helo's ability to hover and "wait" for the right moment, while they envied our huge flight deck and less relative ship motion. NEITHER OF US WOULD TRADE WITH THE OTHER CRAZY SOB's!!

[Utah Bob #35998]

Not bad.

For a Dane.