Helicopter Pilot, will travel

We had an airshow at our little Albenga airport here in Italy over the weekend. To be accurate, the airshow was flown at towns to the east and west of us on the Liguria coast. Albenga is the only airport of any size to base all the aircraft ,so we only saw the warm up routines performed. The Italian Air Force demonstration team the Frecce Tricolori was here and several other aerobatic and vintage aircraft.

There were also some helicopters and no, we did not fly in the airshow. We were one of the static displays and my Italian copilot stood fielding questions and explaining our firefighting operations. My limited conversational Italian skills prevented me from participating and chatting with the hundreds of visitors but we were well represented.

The copilot commented on a nearby MD 500 helicopter on fixed floats and asked if I had flown such things. I had, but it has been a few years since I have flown on bags. About 18 years to be exact. When I started my career in 1974 we flew on floats more than skids. We had Hughes 500’s, Alouettes, Bell 47’s and Hiller 12E’s all on fixed floats. The country we flew in was more water and bogs than dry ground so it was a practical but painfully slow way to get around. The Bell 47 and Hiller 12 E are slow to begin with but put some floats on them and you were going no where fast. I remember always carrying at least four 5 gallon jugs of av gas strapped to the racks on top of the floats. God help you if you missed or couldn’t get to your next remote fuel cache. Most caches were a group of fuel drums at the edge of a lake, logging camp, Indian village or just a little strip where an Otter or Beaver could land and push some drums out in the snow the winter before.

Caches were ‘owned’ by one  or more helicopter companies and cache borrowing and raiding was an unfortunate fact. If you found yourself flying over another companies cache and it was looking pretty full you might just drop in and borrow some fuel. Proper etiquette was usually followed. Don’t touch the last few barrels and take the whole drum rather than a partial making sure to write your aircraft registration and date on the barrel top. Not everyone was so honest and arriving at an empty raided cache in the middle of nowhere was no fun. If you arrived with your spare fuel cans still full you may be ok. If not, you got to drain the water impregnated dregs from all the drums into one drum and the mosquitoes would just about fry landing on your steaming head.

Water landings,start up and shut down on floats are interesting and take some getting used to. When the tail rotor rpm is low and the main rotor torque is high enough ,the helicopter turns opposite to the main rotor direction. A couple of eye opening shut downs and start ups will improve your decision making and skills. Its usually not a factor.

One of the first jobs I did on floats was a bit bizarre. I wouldn’t do it now, but back then I was young and well, you know, not seasoned.(not smart) We had a contract to ear tag Moose for what ever reason. Today we dart the big Bullwinkles and wait for them to take a little nap.Back then we came up with a less costly but considerably more dangerous method. Moose will take to water and they can swim pretty darn fast. Drive a Moose to water and land beside him and taxi over.Watch not to tuck the nose of the floats under taxing too fast and position the Moose tagger,(another smart guy) near the Mooses head and sometimes big antlers.

Kneeling on the floats the tagger clips a tag into the none too happy Mooses ear. Watch the Moose doesn’t get a leg up on the float I had been warned. We already lost a helicopter that way my boss had said.

And still we continue to do this I thought ? I do this.

I survived the experience and only one incident,which was a miracle in itself. A big bull had got a hoof up on the float rack and I pulled power and moved sideways fast which didn’t end in the dynamic rollover it could have but did manage to land my tagger in the water.

I set down a few feet away and my tagger set the 20 yard dash speed record for a man dressed in a Mackinaw jacket,jeans and no more rubber boots.

I can’t and won’t write the dialogue that followed his soggy climb back into the cabin but the engine noise and my laughter drowned out most of the swearing any how.

This was bad. I could see the sickening conclusion in my mind and I knew what had to be done to save the mans life. What I couldn’t do ,was communicate with the diver who was only a minute from getting himself definitely hurt and most likely killed.

Up till this afternoon it had been a challenging and pleasant assignment. A few months prior a Navy target ship,in this case an old World War II LSD named the “Tortuga” had washed up at the foot of San Miguel Island. Run a ground on the rocks, the heavy surf  pounded against the partially submerged wreck.San Miguel  Island sitting about 40 miles out in the Pacific off Santa Barbara was one of the Channel Islands and was owned by you and me and managed by our National Park Service.

The wreck was an eyesore  to the Park Service and the Navy had agreed to remove the wreckage to just below water level leaving what was considered good “reef habitat”. The flying was passenger transport and some interesting sling work. I had a Bell Long Ranger and my customer was the U.S. Navy and the salvage company they had hired to remove most of the ship wreck.

The Island was our base and everything we needed to complete our mission was delivered and removed by ship. That was where some of the more interesting flying came in.The supply ship had a helideck that required a landing sideways on the upper deck which meant a cross wind landing in winds that averaged 30 plus knots and sea swells that ran about 8 feet. To ensure you stayed focused on the landing you arrived to the pitching helideck with the knowledge that there was only about 6 feet of clearance between the rotor blades and the wheel house.

Fortunately most of my flying consisted of slinging material off and on the ship. Slinging to a small ship pitching in the lee side of an island can take some getting used to but I enjoyed the challenge. The other slinging was at times a little hairier. Two or three divers were flown to and “placed” on the wreck. Their work supplies were slung to them from the Island. The supply ship brought out new oxygen and acetelyne tanks and other supplies the divers needed which I slung to our Island base camp and then to the wreck as required. The oxygen tanks were the trickiest to handle. They had to remain upright at all times or they would vent off if tipped. Not so much fun when you are trying to place them on a slanted surf rocked ship wreck. It all worked fine. The majority of the slinging was even more interesting. To get the ship dismantled the divers spent hours with cutting torches slicing through various parts of the ship. The steel could not be just cut and dumped over the side. Each piece of steel was cut with the exception of small corner pieces that held the piece in place.My job was to fly the hook to the shackle on each steel piece and once attached to hold tension in hopefully the right direction as the diver cut the last corners of the steel free.

The wind blew hard almost every day and behind the lee side of the Islands cliffs the wind burble sometimes made the steel fly off like a deranged kite. There had been some scares but no steel to diver contact as yet. The steel was piled on the Island and when we had accumulated enough steel the salvage ship would bring the standard steel garbage containers out for me to sling the  scrap steel into. That operation required no finesse but the steel sometimes liked to spin and fly in a way that anybody who has ever slung plywood can relate to.

As the wreck shrunk the landing places did as well and eventually the divers were forced to swim out to the ship. Slinging them out was not an option the Navy or my boss would approve but I was happy that a safety harness was worn by each diver,just in case. We had a Billy Pugh on site which is basically a slung netted platform that was designed to move people. I had my doubts that it would work in the surf very well.

This afternoon I was willing to try anything but time and the divers waning strength was limiting our options.At days end the last diver leaving from a different point on the ship had got himself into a serious rip tide that was carrying him towards some offshore rocks. I had arrived overhead with my line and remote hook to help out. At first it seemed like an easy enough operation but the diver was clearly winded and weak from his swim. He tried initially to hang onto the hook but could not when I started to tow him. The rocks were getting closer.The diver signaled he wanted the hook lower and I could see that he was going to try a hook ride between his legs. That  attempt ended with a flop that would have been funny under any other circumstance. Finally he hooked both arms into the hook and spinning like a gut hooked fish on the line I watched the vomit spiral to the sea a few feet below him as I carefully slung him to shore.

Our dingy was now on the beach and ready to launch and I set the diver beside his coworkers. Familiarity with the job after several weeks had led to complacency . When our routine had changed we had not stopped to assess our new risks. If the helicopter had not started or got there quick enough or more than one diver had been in trouble,if the dinghy could not have been launched in time or failed to run ?

We had a safety stand down the next day. It was a good idea since we needed to regroup and frankly more than one of the divers looked like they may have discussed the events over a few too many beers the night before. I could not blame them.