Hydraulics off...!!!

[VERTICAL REF]

This one is also going on the other site and actually has me a little concerned so thought it would be worth reiterating over hear.

 

to all the newer helo crews, do not, DO NOT turn off the hydraulics switch in the aircraft if you are trying to secure the flight controls so you can leave the cockpit while the rotors are in motion...this habit has been around the industry for decades by some and is wrong information...bad llama..

 

"learn from the mistakes of others cause you will not be employed long enough to destroy as many helicopters as your previous peers..." something like that...

[CTD]

Excellent advice Mr. Ref.

 

I think this is one of those things where people believe what they feel - because it''s harder for them to move the controls with the hydraulics off.

 

As you said before, just because something has been done for years, doesn''t mean it''s right.

[Puddle Jumper]

I had read the posts on this topic at the other site...but I had a few questions. Did these pilots just turn off the hydrallics and then jump out?....or did they turn off the hydrallics put the frictions on and then get out? Personally I believe in shutting down the machine ....although I have seen others hop out with machine running.

[Winnie]

Leaving with the machine running:

This is a story I read  in a book once, and may not be entirely correctly quoted but here goes:

" in the 60''s during helicopter training there was a solo student in a Hughes TH55 who needed to go really bad (US ARMY obviously), so he did his checks of a confined and landed. He rolled the throttle down to idle, and frictioned the controls, then promptly jumped out to go about his business. since the feller was on the shy side, he decided to go hide in the bushes for his work. As he was in the bushes, the collective friction vibrated off, and in a few moments the helicopter lifted off and turned the otherway, before it rolled onto its back and crashed . as this happened, an instructor with a student witnessed this horrible crash and promptly landed, frictioned the controls, ran to the crash site to look for survivors and render an yassistance. Right about this time our friend in the bushes is done, comes back, jumps in and takes off. As he departs he see these two fellers running up from the wreck, and decides to land to render help... It took a lot of explaining and a look in the logs to explain that the helicopter buddy was in was in fact theirs, and the one crashed down the hill was his, but he got it afterr a few moments..."

 

Very boring situation if you ask me, and I think trying to explain that to TC AND your company will not be very funny if you were in that situation. So my moral is, never leave the machine running with noone at the controls, and since I''m an instructor, this is what I teach my students.

Well well, that was my loonies worth, thanks for listening

[Jammed left]

Ok, so here is another along the same lines. A medium on a log pad and the pilot gets out to hot refuel himself from a flight tank. He believes that ''rigidity in plane'' will provide him with more stability on the tenuious pad, therefore leaves it running 100%, and forgets to put the force trim on. He hasn''t left the machine for more than a few moments before the combination of the pedals working themselves left and a healthy gust of wind gets the machine light enough to start spinning on the pad. He hit the dirt as the tail boom passed over him. Impressively, the machine did a perfect 360 before coming to rest tail low, sans tail rotor and broken skid gear.

 

Just more evidence that old thoughts and old habits are not always good ones!!

[Puddle Jumper]

Wow....great stories. Heres one that came from my flight instructor. A guy landed on a small cliff in order to take a leak. He brought the engine to idle and put the frictions on. As he stood beside the machine with his pride in his hand a gust of wind came buy which caused the machine to lift off and proceed to fall down the cliff. As the story goes the machine was damaged beyond repair and so was the pilots job!

[CTD]

Similar story out of BC in the 90s, a 206L4 tumbled off the side of a cliff while the pilot was outside. It was his own aircraft, which really stings! Luckily, he had a cell phone and called for help.

 

Unfortunately, we lost him in another accident a few years back.

[Reddog]

CTD. Tell us the story of that aquaintance of yours that was known to mutter nasty things about "Puma brains" while inbibing on Friday nights on George Street.

 

Something about saving a competitors aircraft out on the ice.

[RDM]

Nobody tells that story about the Maggies better then "icefloe" himself, he just got back to town and will probably see him tonight, well let him know about the new site and see if he'll tell the story,

[Biggles]

Biggs has a huge late night working weekend,  soooooo, definitely looking forward to this (and others) story (ies), for a good Saturday night - take a break - snap out of it read!  These forums is what its all about, good stories, good reads, passing on the lessons learned ......