My third flight in “Sky 12” became unexpectedly challenging when the GPS receiver for the microwave uplink failed. Normally the transmitter automatically aligns itself to point at the TV station and send them a feed from the helicopter’s camera. It can’t do this alignment if it doesn’t know where the helicopter is and without its GPS the only solution is for us to aim the transmitter manually. My supervising pilot was Rob Roberts, who has been doing this for 9 years and is an expert in every facet of the operation (see earlier story). Nonetheless if the helicopter changes its position or orientation the transmitter will need to be reaimed. So we are forced to do all of our filming from an out-of-ground-effect (mid-air) hover, which I establish about one minute before our signal is due to be broadcast. Rob doubles as “talent” and is one of the two pilots qualified to be an on-air reporter, for which we have a small camera pointed inside the helicopter. About 45 seconds before we go live, the guys back at the station say “we’re receiving your feed; don’t move!” This turns out to be one of the cruelest things possible to say to a helicopter pilot. Inset into the camera monitor on my side of the machine is a little window showing the actual broadcast coming out of the TV station and into homes. The little picture and the producer’s words serve as a constant reminder that “any kind of screw up and the screens inside 100,000 Richmond homes will go blank. This kind of reflection turns out not to be conducive to good flying.
For the rest of the week I was able to handle most aspects of the job without too much fear or incompetence. However at the end of every flight the fearsome dolly would be waiting. If we just landed on the ramp it would be too hard for the maintenance guys to pull the Jet Ranger into the hangar. So we land on a surprisingly small dolly, about 1′ high, which they then tow with a golfcart-style tug. The dolly is a few feet wider than the Jet Ranger’s skids and a bit longer fore-and-aft so it shouldn’t be all that tough. However, the one thing that you are taught as a helicopter pilot is never to look down at the ground when you’re trying to hover. You always look off into the middle distance. Looking down leads to overcontrol and wild oscillations. Another problem is that the skids of the Jet Ranger are not easily visible to the pilot, unlike with a Robinson R22. Finally there is the issue that if you get the helicopter into a position where it might fall off the dolly, or at least half off, there is a serious risk of dynamic rollover and having to go out and buy another $1 million helicopter. This is the bit of knowledge that makes the whole thing hard. If there were just some painted marks on the asphalt and the consequence of missing them were being embarrassed and picking the machine back up or buying lunch for the line guys it would be easy. But the consequence is spectacular destruction and this ruins almost everyone’s concentration. Apparently there is an expert instructor at the Bell factory school who refuses to land on a dolly. He doesn’t have to do it regularly so he sees no need to add this kind of stress to his life on occasion. Sadly at HeloAir one does have to do this after every flight and it turns my knuckles white. At the end of the week I’m able to do it with only a bit of help from Rob but I would not want to try it by myself.
Years ago I few as a paramedic with the WV State Police. Our flights would start and end on one of those dollies. Our pilots made it look easy. I never appreciated how hard it was. They were not so good about other things though. After 2 crashes with 7 fatalities in two years, the State Police got out of the Air Ambulance business and stuck with flying the Govenor around.
I was watching a documentary on the police aviation units in NYC and was wondering how the hell did they put the helos on top of these wheeled platforms, I had no idea they actually landed on them. Ouch.
Looking at the dolly, it seems like there’d be a bunch of ways to make landing on them alot safer.
For starter – make them wider? Even if you couldn’t have the platform itself with a wider landable area – have some kind of fold down, lockable wider slats, painted with yellow and black chevrons to help you align to a the dolly without having to look directly down.
Like you said – it’s only a million dollar piece of hardware, right?
Pat
This is an obvious question, which probably has an obvious answer, but why don’t the skids have wheels on them? Then you wouldn’t have to land on the dolly. You just roll the helicopter once it lands.
The wheels add weight to the ACFT with little benifit. Skids spread the weight of the aircraft over a wider area, allowing it to land on more surfaces without problems. For example wet soft ground. They do make wheel sets that you clamp onto the skids after you land. You see these used on mid-size helos with skids such as Bell 222 and 212 (Hueys) allowing them to be pulled by a tow bar.
This has clearly probably been thought out before, but I have to wonder why the dolly doesn’t have a vertical stick (think car antenna) dead center at the front, where the front of the helicopter goes? Kind of like people who hang tennis balls inside their garages so they can make sure they don’t hit anything backing in. The one really obvious thing is that you have no idea where you are around the stick axis, but assuming you’re pointed the right way, it would at least help get the helicopter in the middle of the dolly.