The Creek Fire is the fifth-largest wildfire in recorded California history and the second-largest single fire.
The flying you will get to hear about in this episode is a reminder about the difference your helicopter skillset can make to people that are in harms way, and that there is nothing quite like these machines. It also earnt those involved distinguished flying crosses.
In September 2020, the California National Guard rescued nearly 400 people trapped by the Creek Fire.
This episode comes care of Max Trescott from the Aviation News Talk podcast and was first published in 2020 while the Creek Fire was still burning. The fire took almost 4 months to be contained.
Max does a great job of editing together several interviews to capture different viewpoints of the rescue operation conducted out of the Sierra National Forest. To see the location and terrain you can review this map.
Some of the voices you hear are Col. David Hall of the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, UH-60 helicopter pilot Kipp Goding and Henri Laborde, one of the rescued hikers.
Thanks to Max for re-mastering this episode and providing it for use. In this episode I also mention some thoughts about the future of the Rotary Wing Show,
Pause at 6:57 and look at the hellscape that the crews were flying into for the pickups!
Links from this week’s episode: This episode first appeared on Max Trescott’s Aviation News Talk Podcast
A California Army National Guard UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter from the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade hovers above Mammoth Pool Reservoir before picking up evacuees the night of Sept. 5, 2020. Source
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
Kylle Fenton is an Air Crew Officer (ACO) involved in air rescue and ambulance operations supporting NSW, Australia communities. He is more accustomed to being the one to bring the resources, rescue and safety to others in “the worst day of their life”. In this episode Kylle tells a gripping story of when he and his family needed that rescue support returned during the flooding of the Township of Eugowra in Nov 2022.
This episode is being pushed out the door half cooked so that you can hear it sooner. Please forgive any short comings in the polish.
Before Kylle was part of the HEMS world he had years of experience as a Blackhawk loadmaster in the Australian Army with time in special operations and as a loadmaster instructor. We discuss this career path and the many, many tasks that a loadmaster can find themselves doing.
Important – please look at the link below to the GoFundMe page for the Fenton family discussed in the podcast episode.
The township of Eugowra NSW has suffered a very major and overwhelming flood catastrophe earlier this week. pic.twitter.com/cprEaWDccZ
James Koens is a Check and Training Aircrew Officer on very expensive rescue/aeromedical helicopters. He also finds time to be a helicopter charter pilot, Army Reserve aircrewman, volunteer rural firefighter and a podcast host.
This episode is being pushed out the door half cooked so that you can hear it sooner. Please forgive any short comings in the polish.
In this episode James talks about some of the challenges of operating complex missions in the world of helicopter rescue and ambulance services. We then change track and discuss what James has learnt from ferrying small helicopters across remote parts of Australia.
Important – please look at the link below to the GoFundMe page for the Fenton family discussed in the podcast episode.
4300Kms, 30hrs, 16 fuel stops, a Robinson R22, and a whole lot of nothingness – From James’ LinkedIn post comment
Matt Johnson heads up a weather training program for Metro Aviation. He is a Gold Seal FAA Flight Instructor and FAA Designated Pilot Examiner.
Have you applied the idea of situational awareness to weather before? Knowing what the weather was doing, what the weather is now and what it will be in the future. With access to the right weather products and knowing more about how they are developed you can level up your pre-flight weather assessment.
Weather is a contributing factor to a significant number of helicopter accidents. It is easy to see why looking at the photo below – even without considering flying into cloud, just the reduced visibility and the reducing ceiling that poor weather brings with it can up the work rate and concentration that it takes to get the task done.
For many aircrew we stop learning weather theory after qualification and only brush up on it before check rides. And we can get rusty at it. Same goes for making the most of the different weather forecast products that are available for reference before going flying.
In this podcast Matt Johnson walks us through some of the weather briefing considerations and useful briefing products that are covered in the weather training program that is run in-house for Metro Aviation’s several hundred staff pilots. Matt’s own experience covers flying for law enforcement and 12 years in the helicopter aeromedical sector.
Yuck! You can already feel the workload increase, taking away free mental cycles from other decision making tasks.
One of the things we talk about is the limitations of weather radars especially for lower level flights like many helicopter operations. Due to the curvature of the earth as you move away from the radar ground site the radar picture can fail to show rain areas up to several thousand feet above ground.
Below – This may only be a US aviation product but it is called the HEMS Tool and is avaliable directly off the National Weather Service’s Aviation landing page. It displays a range of information from low level weather forecasts.
Perhaps Matt’s first stop when looking at the weather before coming on shift is the Aviation Forecast Discussion product. This is an amplifying comments area where the forecaster can give additional context and editorial to the normal ‘coded’ style products such as TAFs or area forecasts. It can indicate the possibility of developing weather that wasn’t modelled strongly enough to make it into other forecasts and the forecaster’s thoughts about the upcoming period.
Matt Johnson has flown law enforcement and helicopter aero-medical sector roles. Along with his flight instructor and FAA Designated Pilot Examiner duties, Matt is active in promoting better weather knowledge and training amongst helicopter pilots.
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
Dan Parsons is an airport safety professional where he tackles airport safety and regulatory issues all day long.
You have probably seen the video clip on social media multiple times – a OH-58 comes into land and as it touches down the blades contact another helicopter ground running beside it. Both aircraft are destroyed in spectacular manner but luckily there is no loss of life. In this episode we give a lot more context than you get from the seconds long clip.
There are a handful of helicopter videos that get recycled frequently on social media groups – yes we have all seen the BK117 toe into the steep snow slope to affect a rescue, there is no need to post it as if it is brand new 🙂
One of these video clips is of an accident that occured in 2012 between two Pasadena Police Department OH-58 (Bell 206 similar, in the episode I mistakenly refer to Bell 407) machines. The video clip is only a few seconds long and is a good example of just how quickly things can go wrong in a helicopter. Inevitably after the video is posted on social media the comments start to pile on fast and there are strong opinions thrown around.
Dan Parsons is an airport safety geek and works in the field. I saw his LinkedIn comment some time ago and his write up of the circumstances surrounding the accident and the steps taken afterwards to prevent a recurrence. In this episode Dan and I talk about some of the investigation findings and, very carefully, speculate on some of the factors. The goal here is to learn from others and to try and protect ourselves from getting into the same situation.
Source: aviation-safety.net – Aftermath of the collision and a good angle to see the positioning of the marked landing spots.
The photo above shows part of the aftermath of the accident and ground markings at the heliport at the time. Compare this to Google Earth imagery now to see the massive reworking of pad locations and marking that happened afterwards as a risk treatment.
Next time you see this clip on social media you will know a lot more of the context and if you can’t help but comment on it, then we can improve the quality of conversation and lessons learnt for all of us.
Case Study Risk Identification – this is safety course assignment based on the Pasadena PD 2012 accident with a lot of background information and investigation findings.
Longer before and after video of the accident. I hadn’t seen this particular video at the time of recording the interview but again it gives additional context over the short clip normally shown on social media.
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
Now a helicopter instructor in the UAE, Clive Richardson flew Apaches in the British Army and was part of the Blue Eagles helicopter display team.
As aircrew we spend a huge amount of time training for different circumstances and emergencies. Dealing with a burning flare in your cockpit fired from a wingman’s aircraft is not one of these circumstances!!
Add in the complications of being a few thousand feet in the air, over hostile controlled land and in a sealed Apache cockpit with your own personal weapon ammunition at risk of cooking off and you have a fun time ahead of you.
This is the situation Clive Richardson found himself in. Perhaps strangely enough his prior HUET experiences in the pool dunker kicked in to some degree.
Meanwhile in the front seat of the Apache, unable to see what is going on in the back other than a lot of smoke in the mirror and no comms (Clive’s intercom lead had become unplugged) and just after a large ‘bang’ , Clive’s co-pilot was trying to work out what the hell was happening.
10 Years ago today, marks the anniversary when I learned why you should always fly with your visor down. Having a 2000 degree magnesium spectral flare smash into your face at the speed of a low velocity round, while over Helmand Province with no landing options will usually focus you mind. After hitting my visor with such force I smashed my head off the opposite window the flare melted my chest rig before causing a fire in my navigation bag containing 150 rounds of ammunition. The fire persisted and filled the cockpit with black acrid smoke. I held my breath and was able to shake the still burning flare out of my nav bag to the floor. After burning my trousers and melting my boots it eventually burnt out. So glad the Apache was not equipped with a cockpit fire extinguisher…..but at least I had a visor! If you fly with a visor, use it! – Original LinkedIn Post
Entry point of the flare through the lefthand windscreen with burn marks.View from the inside of the Apache cockpit.“You will note in the photo how only the lower part of my face was affected by the fire due to the visor and the hole in the bottom of my nav bag where the flare exited.” – Clive
A slow motion look at the flares firing from an Apache. You can see the forward firing spread.Clive in the cockpit. In this photo you can see the bulky visor housing on the front of the helmet. Crews would remove this so that they could attach the ‘modified’ NVG mount with single tube. Clive’s desk at work. Left is the remains of the flare weight found in the nav bag. Right is a flare housing that would have been loaded into an Apache before missions. (Left) Clive Richardson (Middle) One of the ground support crew (Right) Phil – front seat pilot/gunner
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
Outside of the ATSB, Rob is a Technical Councillor and Safety Officer for the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia (SAAA), is currently building an experimental kitplane (‘Van’s RV8’), and is the Deputy Wing Aviation Safety Officer with the Australian Air Force Cadets.
Halfway through 2021, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) put out a call for assistance for information from the aviation community.
What they are looking for is feedback or more information about any ground handling incidents on Robinson type helicopters, especially focused on the aft tail cone bulkhead or tail rotor gearbox areas
If you think back to whenever you have taken someone for their first helicopter ride, especially in smaller machines – there is an amount of trepidation in their eyes – “are you sure this thing is safe?” has to be going through their mind even if they aren’t one of the ones to ask that out loud.
And when you look at a helicopter as a collection of parts, it still amazes me that it all works together correctly even today.
A part of the reason that helicopters are so safe and that anyone would actually insure them is because of the rigur that has gone into investigating previous accidents and incidents. Organisations such as the ATSB, NTSB, AAIB and others have built up decades of experience retracing the events that lead up to an accident.
Over time those lessons have been incorporated back into designs and regulations. Rob Chopin has been fixing helicopters since 1988 and for the last 14 years has worked at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
In today’s episode Rob gives some background into the ATSB’s current request for information about helicopter ground handling damage and then we chat a bit about the accident investigation process that results in a report and how that comes together.
Source: ATSB, R44 accident Broome Airport, Western Australia
Sam Chisholm grew up on cattle properties and got into helicopter flying early. He has spent the last 16 years flying and mustering in rural Australia.
Cattle are big business in Australia. Rough round numbers has us at 25 million head of cattle and the industry employs somewhere around 200,000 people. Australia is the 3rd largest beef exporter in the world.
The cattle industry also contributes a sizable chunk of the annual helicopter hours flown in Australia.
One set of figures I had from 2004 was that 62% of all Robinson R22 flight hours in Australia were conducted in aerial mustering. I’d have to assume that holds true today if not a higher number.
I know helicopters are used for mustering a little bit in the US in Texas, a little bit in new zealand and I have to assume in Brazil also but when I look online – and this partly could be a factor of Google’s filtering because I’m here in Australia – but helicopter mustering is well and truly over represented in search results as a chiefly australian type of flying.
All photos – supplied Sam Chisholm
Mustering hasn’t always had the best reputation – it has sometimes been characterised as being a bit loose.
A lot of it happens hundreds of km’s away from any regulatory oversight and you could argue that because they are rarely carrying any passengers that CASA and other regulators aren’t particularly interested. The flip side of that is that CASA has on occasion come out with regulation changes without much consultation with the mustering part of the aviation community.
Mustering has also had its share of casualties and incidents. These can happen a long way from any emergency services. I’ve seen a documentary on one particular accident where the rescue AW139 had to stop and refuel enroute just to get on scene.
CASA’s 2015 sector risk profile of the industry summarised the danger. ‘Mustering, by definition involves low-level flying and is a hazard rich activity with the inherent danger of being only a few seconds away from impact in the case of an emergency or pilot distraction.’
Having said all that I have no personal experience with mustering at all, everything has been second hand. A big thanks to David Logan who is a listener and Patreon supporter that has just starting out on his helicopter licence and is tackling the theory exams. Dave put me in contact with today’s guest and its well overdue for us to jump in and learn more about mustering.
Sam Chisholm grew up on cattle properties and got into helicopter flying early. He has spent the last 16 years flying and mustering in rural Australia getting to see a good cross section of not only the industry but also the country. Sam paints a picture of a sector that has been maturing for a while now and that is using the helicopter as an incredibly important tool for station owners and beef production.
Miles Dunagan is the President of the National EMS Pilots Association (USA) with a goal of promoting safety in the industry.
Chatter in the cabin starts to die down, you have reduced power and started to bleed back the airspeed. Outside your world is starting to shrink as the conditions start to deteriorate. You lean forward in your seat to try and see a little further ahead. The VSI is showing a descent as you keep visual contact with the ground. What do you do next?
Enroute Decision Point is a tool that you can use to shift your mindset into a deliberate decision making mode when you find yourself in deteriorating conditions. It aims to avoid the situation where the helicopter gradually gets into a worse and worse situation before a decision is forced upon us and risk has greatly increased.
Miles Dunagan is the President of the National EMS Pilots Association (NEMSPA) in the US. In this episode Miles talks about the history of the organisation and the origins of Enroute Decision Point as a safety tool.
Different from Point-of-no-return (PNR) or Equal Time point (EPT) which are calculated using a formula to define a point on the route leg – Enroute Decision Point is more a trigger to make a flight decision that could occur anywhere on the flight.
“Down by 30” – the first aspect relates to airspeed. If you have slowed down by 30kts or more from your cruise speed due to conditions.
Minimum enroute height – If you have already descended to the minimum enroute height for that leg. (May depend on the area you fly)
If either of these occur then it triggers an Enroute Decision Point. You can turn around to better conditions, land or transition to IFR recovery at a suitable airfield.
Chris Ryan is the owner of Ryan Aerospace – a company building virtual reality flight simulators that are changing the way pilots train.
How would you like to have been holding a steady hover and taking off and landing at 3 hours of helicopter flight time? Chris Ryan couldn’t afford helicopter lessons so he built himself a simulator to practice at home. His instructor was so impressed at his progress that he encouraged Chris to turn the simulator into a business.
From a humble PVC pipe contraption to now selling hundreds of virtual reality helicopter flight simulators into the military market, Chris Ryan (Ryan Aerospace) has taken a long road to get to where he is today.
Back in 2017, in episode 61, I spoke with Sérgio Costa from helisimmer.com where we covered a lot of information about virtual reality (VR) and how it applies to flight simulators.
There are almost 9000 members of Sérgio’s facebook group now and it is a very active place for people interested in helicopter simulators. To the point where he’s been able to influence the development of big name consumer sims to make them more helicopter friendly.
In this episode we revisit VR sims and see where they are up to. This gear has the potential to reduce in-aircraft training time by up to 40% – which given the cost of helicopters, is going to grab anyone’s attention.
US Army pilots training in virtual reality on the HELIMOD Mark III Helicopter simulators
Chris talks about what it takes to turn an idea into reality and some of the journey that this technology has taken to get to point where it is standard for pilots training at Fort Rucker.
Along with the simulators the goal is to develop a learning management system which will allow a student to move through sequences with a simulated instructor and features such as being able to see and follow the path for a demonstrated circuit.
We also cover:
sim sickness and how it affects some people
new technology that is coming out in mixed reality and hand tracking, and
what gear you should be looking for if you want to make your own home VR setup for training
Links from this week’s episode: Support the podcast on Patreon Ryan Aerospace – This is Chris’s company based on the Gold Coast, Australia and building simulators for customers around the world including the US Army and US Air Force.
Chris had his first helicopter ride while in the Australian Army Reserves. His Dad owned planes growing up so Chris was on the controls from an early age.
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
