Why didn't I listen...

[gwk]

In 1989 or 1990, I can not remember, but we were building a power line in Sask., near La Ronge, over the rocky Canadian Shield type ground, and I was on a 206.

We were flying long hours, doing lot's and lot's of hovering at 100 ft plus, dropping guys on platforms at the top of the towers, short lining, nuts and bolts. long lining cables onto pully's, you get the picture.

I was about half way through my morning, and came in for fuel, being alone, I chose to hot refuel. So I am standing there with the hose in the aircraft, and look through the cowling, and see fuel coming out of the fuel filter housing at a pretty impressive rate. I shut off the refueling hose, open the cowling, and decide to give the filter a twist to see if it is loose, or what, and  the god dam thing twists in my hand. I give a a bit more of a twist and the worst of the fuel dripping out stops, so I shut it down and call for the engineer who worked on the machine the night before.

 I won't go on about how badly the engineer felt, as we can all imagine, but I will say I don't think I stopped shaking for days, thinking about all what if's.

 It is times like that I wished I had listened, and stayed fixed wing, and had a quieter, boring, and more lucrative career.

[Northward]

5 hours ago, Lunchbox said:

Those 16+ hour shifts wrenching aren't worth the risk. Had some close calls and got lucky that nothing major happened. You will miss things and make mistakes. There's human factors requirements for a reason, and yes it's all relevant... But it's almost like you have to be there or see it/live it for it to sink in though. The theory can sometimes only get you so far.

100%, Took all too long as a quiet guy to have the stones to say no to that sort of thing.  Never any incidents personally but there's been potential there... Not worth it at all...  The bird will fly another day.

[tipspeed]

+1 to that. 
 

I have wondered about making the switch to FW, I know that side has its own problems too as you don’t just magically end up flying airliners. 
 

That said I don’t regret one bit making the switch to the IFR side. Predicable schedule, overtime, time off….. Sure it’s not as exciting as some of the stuff the VFR side has but after a couple thousand hours of that BS I don’t miss it at all.

[DGP]

I could give you a million of those...I was flying a prescribed burn near Long Lac...in a jetbox...had an ignition boss in the left seat...he asks if I can run another line of fire down thru an area that we had just lit up...this fire is getting crazy...I said I aint going into that gap...I said this engine needs to breath air just like us...in another split second the engine out horn comes on...my passenger is screaming as I look at the rotor tach and it is at full speed...I reach up and pull the caution breaker to kill the noise and tell buddy that we are not about to crash in an inferno of our making....lots of sh@t like that. N1 tach had failed.

[DGP]

Just for your interest...in those old jetboxes that had a caution switch for the lights...you can use the switch with the  overhead instrument light...the twisty one...you can mute the warning horns.

[DGP]

I did this trick and kept on working...when we finished and we had landed I pulled the tach off the right side of the engine...tach shaft had sheared!

[DGP]

Had to start the engine without the N1 tach ....just go by the sound...flew back to TBay in some real fine weather...rain fog low ceilings...and I had a real bad oil leak happening around the freewheel which I will tell you about later!!!

[DGP]

Then there was the time I had guys in the back of a longdog using a ping pong fire starter...they put the glycol syringe in with the ping pong balls...you know what happens when it leaked...had a huge fire going in the back seat....guy grabbed the box of flaming ping pong balls and thru the whole mess out the open door...nice!!!!

[wcobra]

 

9 hours ago, gwk said:

In 1989 or 1990, I can not remember, but we were building a power line in Sask., near La Ronge, over the rocky Canadian Shield type ground, and I was on a 206.

That was likely 1990.  I seem to remember in July or August 1989 crewing a Bell 204 with you on a fire out of Stewart Lake NWT.  One night/morning at stupid o'clock coming back to the tent for some sleep and you were sitting on your a cot wide awake with an axe in your hands due to a good ol black bear rooting around your side of the tent!  Same bear was watching me do the Tailrotor Pitch Control Chain Inspection from 20 feet away a couple of hours earlier.  There's more to that story but you just can't get paid enough for experiences like that can you? 😂

[DGP]

OK...back to the leaky freewheel...I pull the driveshaft out of this 206...the oil from the freewheel has leaked into the driveshaft and filled both ends with engine oil...I open one end cap and pour a sh#t pile of oil out of this shaft...call up for a new driveshaft...it looked okay but it was going for o/h.