Night Flying Helicopter Cockpit

Share

We had 230 miles of sea to cross before we got to Kupang and it was already 4.30pm. It would get dark at 6 o’clock. We were going to be landing when the light had gone. The headwind was down to 10 knots as we headed out to sea. An hour later the instrument lights blew and the last of the twilight was starting to go. In another 45 minutes we were in pitch darkness and there was no moon. The sea, the sky, and the islands with their high volcanoes were all as inky black as each other.

I couldn’t help reflecting that we were again being forced to confront increasing and cumulative levels of risk. We were flying, exhausted, in total darkness, over a sea with no rescue cover, into a headwind, running on totally unsuitable fuel, navigating with a map faxed from England, towards a tiny airfield surrounded by volcanoes of unknown height, and out of radio contact. How long could our luck last, I wondered?

With another 30 minutes to run, our eyes had got their night vision but we could still not see land, and it was very lonely. We were tense, quiet and apprehensive, Martin concentrating on the instruments, lit now by torchlight. I was peering outside in case I had made some huge navigational error using the faxed maps and we were about to crash into a volcano or run out of fuel in the middle of the sea, miles from land. But it was hard to see outside, because the torchlight was reflected in the Perspex of the windscreen, making outside seem even more absurdly dark.

With about 15 minutes to run there was a faint glimmer of yellow light in the distance, which turned out to be Kupang town, and we tried to raise Kupang airfield on the radio. Silence.

Learn to fly helicopters with Tim.

4 Responses to “Night Flying Helicopter Cockpit”

1. fizzysmith says:

   January 26, 2011 at 8:59 am

   This is amazing especially the last few minutes with the approach and landing. Do you have a night rating for helicopters?

   I am working towards my cpl(h) and I’m trying to work out whether I should spend precious flying hours on a night rating before doing my cpl and flight instructor courses.

   Fizzy

   Log in to Reply
2. Tim Gilbert says:

   January 26, 2011 at 9:27 am

   Hi Fizzy

   Yes, both of us were night rated. I think the night rating is worth doing partly because like all further training it sharpens up your flying, partly because you sometimes get into situations where you are glad of the skills, and partly because it saves you 5 hours on the UK CPL(H) flying course.

   Obviously if money is tight, it’s best to go for the minimum requirement to get qualified as CPL(H)/FI, but if you can stretch to it, I recommend it. I must say, though, personally I find there are very few nights in the UK when I think it’s safe to choose to go flying around in the dark.

   There’s the old joke…in the event of engine failure at night, switch the landing lights on as you approach the ground, and if you don’t like what you see, switch them off again.

   Good luck with your studies.

   Tim

   Log in to Reply
3. geddon436 says:

   April 22, 2011 at 12:48 am

   Hi Tim.

   I’m Anthony. I just signed up to your website and am very glad i found it. After watching your video and reading your post I am curious. Had you thought about bringing a satellite phone? a Emergency locator transmitter? or night vision goggles? I am not a licensed pilot, but i have had a few hours in a R22.

   Log in to Reply
   • Tim Gilbert says:

     April 22, 2011 at 7:54 am

     Hi Anthony

     Thanks for that.

     We did have a satellite phone. It wasn’t much use in the air, as you have to orientate the aerial to the available satellites, so there’s a lot of messing about to do before you can make a call. I did get a call through in flight once, just to try it out, but I think I was just lucky there was signal in the right place.

     We both had locator beacons on our life jackets which we were wearing. We were also holding emergency dinghies on our laps, as we were permanently over the sea on this flight.

     NVGs were a bit outside our budget and outside our training scope, and in any case we weren’t actually planning any night flying. This flight ending in the dark was a result of a developing headwind and fuel delays earlier in the day. We both had night ratings. Our main worry was that the airfield might be closed, which might mean landing there without permission, which might be an imprisonable offence. Not great in Indonesia or anywhere else for that matter. From a flying point of view, if it was closed we may not have been able to find it easily, which might have meant groping about in the dark hills looking for it. We planned to land in the town instead. And the cockpit instrument lights had blown a circuit breaker, so that made flying with reference to instruments (eg altimeter on the approach) trickier. Fortunately the airfield stayed open, and I was eventually able to persuade them to switch on the runway lights, as you can see in the video.

     All in all it was safe, but needed all the training and available equipment we had to make it so.

     Good luck with your R22 stuff. I’m training on the R22 for my CPL(H) with Mike Horrell at the moment, which I’m really enjoying.

     Tim
     ps for anyone else interested in this video, sorry it’s a bit long. If you’re looking for a night approach to land in a helicopter, check out the last 4 minutes of it.

     Log in to Reply