Sea King Problems

[graunch1]

I watched Global TV news last night and they had a bit on new procedures for the Sea King operation. It seems the military is going to be teaching single engine landings/autorotations prior to deplying another Sea King to the Adriatic. According to this very hacked up news report, this will take 3 months of training in "how to crash" before a heli will be shipped out to the Balkins to catch up with its ship.

To me, assuming there was any validity to this news report it seems that is a long time to train a couple or so crews so they could take the heli on the ship just departing from the east coast. Train the left-behind crews after the deployment guys are finished.

Am I missing something here :huh:

 

[Randy_G]

I got the same impression about that terrible report. I thought it was sensationalist (is that even a word ?? ), and to me, getting really close to bull manure, or worse a complete fabrication. It would be nice if they could get someone with at least some knowledge of the area they are reporting on. Maybe Ned, or Mike could do report on what is really going on.

Now I may be wrong, but doesn't the military already teach single engine stuff already ??? I can't see this report being true, or the training as being something new. Not training for s/e emergencies in my opinion is stupid, and dangerous. I really hope that the report was just sensational nonsense, and doesn't represent the state of aircrew training.

Cheers

 

[Blackmac]

Maybe we better check with VORTEX RING if he knows how to ditch.
We never had any problems when I was in the navy, we only had one engine on the HO4S3 and no floats, inflate the MAE WEST once you hit the water. Sank pretty fast.

Cheers Don

 

[Vortex Ring]

Although the investigation to date has not found one big "smoking gun" fault for the uncommanded torque splits, they have found numerous, most likely unrelated snags.

What has happened over the years is that when some of these snags all line up at the same time you could get these torque splits.

The three major snags are:

1. Mismatched engines (power output over the life of the engine)
2. Faulty or erroneous torque indications due to air in system
3. Throttle quadrants out of tolerance

1. We will now be verifying power output more often and ensuring that engines are better matched in each aircraft. They come out of overhaul with nearly identical power output but over time each engine changes at a different rate and this could be a cause factor.

2. The torque system maintenance recently changed with the new gearbox. With the old gearbox we used to change the tranny and leave the lines installed. We would plug them off and then upon re-installing a new tranny the lines were still full of fluid. When we changed to the new gearbox, the procedure now included removing the lines right up to the gauges. Upon re-installation we were not refilling the lines first. The introduction of air has been found to indicate wrong when bench tested and probably introduced significant torque splits despite our aircraft gauges showing matched torques. The procedure has been changed and all systems are being drained, bench tested, recalibrated and re-installed.

3. The throttle quadrant is original 1963, we are the only pilots flying H3, S61, Sea Kings, whatever you want to call this beast, with the original throttle quadrant. It is worn out and when checked at the beginning of the investigation 85% of the aircraft were out of tolerance. We are re-rigging all quadrants and increasing the inspection interval to ensure they remain in tolerance. Those that require parts are very very hard to repair as parts are nearly impossible to get.

Now there are other little things as I have stated but those three were the big three. Considering how poor our supply system is for parts and that that most aircraft need something fixed and that explains the three month timeline a bit.


The concern about training comes out of practicing simulated single engine failures in the aircraft. With the new engine-transmission combo we had ceased to practice those because the extra power from the "new" engines could easily overtorque the transmission. The safest way for us to practice these is to use our waterbird. This is an aircraft specially rigged for water landings. Although the aircraft is amphibious, it is far from watertight for long duration water ops. So we will now rig two airframes and re-train all pilots in single engine from hover in the waterbird. By using the waterbird we avoid the risk to hard landings on wheels. AETE from Cold Lake working with HOTEF from Shearwater developed a revised procedure for us to use. One aircraft is rigged and the other will be done soon. For now we will have both in Victoria at 443 Sqn. By summer time one of them will return to 423 in Shearwater. We use to have the waterbird only in Shearwater and only during the summer, not all pilots got the chance to fly it. We will now have at least one machine available all year and all pilots must fly a complete single engine failure training curriculum every year.

So I hope this all makes more sense. Before all the restrictions are lifted, all the aircraft have to be checked and repaired or recalibrated and all pilots must do their training in single engine failures. When the press made the remark that we would now be taught "how to ditch", they were referring to our waterbird training. So first we fix all the machines before the aircraft is released from the restrictions then we re-train the instructors who then re-train all the line pilots before we are all released to full ops again. HMCS Toronto Detachment will be the priority. Once they are ready, their aircraft will be shipped by commercial vessel to meet up with their warship and the personnel will be flown over to fly it onto their ship. They should be heading off in about a month at most but it will be summer before the entire fleet is released.

As you can see there is much more to the story than they printed and they took the training for single engine failures by using our waterbird as "how to ditch training" so it was taken somewhat out of context. So there you have the straight poop in a very wordy answer.

 

[CTD]

V-R, great response, thanks.

It's sad that the media screws this stuff up so badlly. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but do you think the media may have botched it with a little help? Time to pressure old Paul to get off his promise-breaking ass and live up to this one? If so, fair game. Fight political bullshite with political bullshite. What a system we have.

Do you guys have a sim for that thing?

 

[Vortex Ring]

Our "sim" is very very old technology and suitable as a procedures trainer. It resembles the old sims Trans Canada had for their turboprops in the 60s. No visuals whatsoever, you can get better sound out of your pc and motion is primitive at best.

We have a few guys who flew with CHC and tried valiantly to arrange for us to use the sim in Norway. CHC was more than willing and cooperative but the bean counters didn't see it as "cost effective" which is why we were told to revisit the waterbird usage. Thanks eh... Man and I was so looking at posting pictures of myself in that hot tub too, oh well.... maybe in another life.

For the past 15 years we have heard the same song, "well there's no use (changing, upgrading, improving) spending money on the Sea King, it's about to be replaced soon......" That is why we still do not have NVG, an HSI, a GPS for the pilots and on and on and on...

 

[CTD]

I fail to see how sending you to Norway is a waste of money. Christ, this pisses me off - you're going to be flying these buckets for many years yet, even if ther stupid contract is awarded tomorrow.

You know it's bad when CHC is held up as a standard.

Might be time to pull the pin there, compadre.

 

[Vortex Ring]

I'm workin' on it CTD, hope to write exams to get an ATPLH by late spring.

Looks 99% sure now that I am headed off to Portage to instruct on the mighty Jet Box. Family still in Alberta though so I may not last another three or four years.