The police air support unit takes on a fleeing armed robber. See who wins!
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Utah DPS Pilot Terry Mercer got national and probably some international media attention after a series of landings on an extreme pinnacle, during a hiker rescue. Here Officer Mercer talks to a local TV station about the rescue and landings. This video contains good footage of one of the landings. Pretty extreme!
]]>This very dramatic video literally brings you inside the cockpit of a police helicopter as it loses power, and enters auto-rotation. Like so many of these videos we are often dependant on comments others have posted to learn more about what happened. Here is what I have learned.
Officers Edward Ramirez Jr and Mike Welborn had just launched their police helicopter, a Schweizer 333 turbine powered helicopter-configured to seat 3, to respond to a vehicle pursuit in the City of San Antonio. Their call sign is "Eagle or Blue Eagle." While both are pilots, only one of the officers would be at the controls when then engine quits. The second officer, occupying the TFO seat, puts out a mayday call and gives some quick verbal guidance to the PIC. According to the NTSB report the pilot in command had a total of 493 hours in helicopters.
Now I am going to go out on a limb and speculate a little, but here is how it seems to me. The PIC was still a pretty low time pilot (493) hours and it was night time, 0243 hours to be exact. While every agency is different, the PIC was likely paired up with a senior pilot (probably for an entire shift rotation) for his night time pilot orientation. Not only is flying at night time a whole different animal, but working police calls at night is really a different animal, requiring a significant amount of orientation and training beyond that of a day time patrol pilot.
So when you hear the primary voice on the tape giving the command(s)"come on auto.....auto"it sounds like someone who is already in somewhat of a position of authority, combined with urgency of the situation, adrenaline!
At the beginning of the tape you are looking through the opened FLIR camera, which was set to record not only the video seen through the camera, but also the cockpit conversation. The first thing you see are the city lights below, but notice the video image shifting back and forth. It has been explained to me, and it makes perfect sense, that this is the engine surging and about to fail (the engine surging with power would result in various torque settings on both the main and tail rotor, causing the nose of the helicopter to shift back and forth in forward flight.)
It was during this time that the TFO (senior pilot) told investigators that he looked over and saw the torque needle in the red, and asked the pilot if he had "over-torqued" the engine.
If you listen carfullyyou can hear the engine as it loses power and winds down. The beeping sound is the audible engine out warning horn in the cockpit. We will get to the NTSB's findings in a minute, but I will tell you now they found no fault with the pilot or his actions.
I have written a lot about auto-rotations on this site, and how they work every time, if performed correctly. This is a text book example of an auto rotation performed correctly that save the lives of both police officer/pilots.
A couple of things that I noticed on the tape. First, you don't really see any significant difference in the picture, other than a gradual right turn. Nothing too radical here. As long as all (or most) of the pitch is immediately removed from the blades (lowering collective)the helicopter continues to fly pretty normally. The only difference is that you are coming out of the sky and you are going to land in about 12-15 seconds (assuming a minimum altitude of 500' agl.)
The other thing I noticed is that you never hear the voice of the pilot. I will speculate again and say that the most likely reason is that the pilot was focusing 110% of his brain power on performing the auto, and that clicking the intercom button to verbalize anything would serve only to distract him from the task at hand. From the pilot's perspective the only thing that matters is performing the auto, everything else can wait.
Most experts agree that this auto was close to perfect until the bottom when power lines appeared in their flight path. The pilot reported to the NTSB that he pulled in some collective to avoid hitting the power lines. According to the NTSB however the helicopter did strike power lines and landed hard causing damage to the helicopter and minor injuries to both pilots.
Near the end of the recording the TFO shouts something similar to "Flare" "Flare." The flare is a vital component of the auto, it is what slows forward and vertical air speed and is normally entered into at about 50 feet agl. When I first heard the tape it certainly sound to me as though the TFO is shouting "flare." I did read one comment where someone purports that the TFO is shouting "Wire." I guess it doesn't matter at this point however as this was an outstanding job by both the TFO and the ever silent PIC.
Here are the NTSB's findings:
"The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The loss of engine power due to the axial movement of the compressor rotor blades contacting the compressor vanes resulting in a subsequent compressor stall. A contributing factor was the improper assembly of the compressor section during the engine overhaul by unknown maintenance personnel."
]]>This crash landing of a Topeka PD R-44 patrol helicopter was caught on a night time camera in the parking lot of Washburn University on the night of April 5th 2008. The Topeka PD helicopter unit was effectively ended on 8-18-09 by a vote of the Topeka City Council.
]]>This video was shot from the cockpit of a Sheriff's Fire Helicopter during the Harris Fire in the fall of 2007. The pilot flies from the right seat in this helicopter with the left seat occupied by a Cal-Fire Fire Captain. The viewer gets a small taste of what it is like to fly into the fire environment. The helicopter being flown in this video is a Bell 205 (Huey) helicopter. This video was posted on Youtube in October of 07 by "meanuncledavid".
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This video of a San Diego Sheriff helicopter was posted on Youtube by Aligerous on 7-3-09. The helicopter is an MD500 series, most likely an E or F model. This video is an excellent example of the utility and versatility of the MD500 helicopter. Due to the relatively small rotor diameter and the rugged landing gear (skids) the pilot is able to get in close to the hillside in front of him. It is hard to tell whether his skids actually touch the hillside, but this is basically a "toe in" maneuver. Excellent piloting skills on display here!
]]>This video of one of our helicopters and crew at SDSO ASTREA performing a toe in maneuver, has become a very popular video on Youtube with over 4,000 views.
I have talked about "toe in" landings on this site before. To perform a toe in landing you simply place the toes of both skids against the mountain side in front of you, while monitoring your main rotor blade tips to ensure you do not make contact with any obstacles. Once the tips of both skids are set against the ground, it is a reasonably stable position to hold. While a toe in landing is generally not performed by newer pilots, it is not an extremely difficult maneuver to become proficient at.
This maneuver is probably performed over a hundred (or more) times a year by pilots in our unit, both during training, and on actual calls.
The primary reason to perform a toe in landing would be to drop off or pick up your partner when there is no suitable landing area to put both skids completely on the ground. Primarily in mountainous terrain. The toe in, (along with the one skid landing) is extremely valuable in rescue work. You can see from this video that we can pluck a person off the side of a mountain, with no landing zone, with relative ease.
Landings such as this is not without risk however. Catching a skid on a fixed object or striking an object with your main rotor blade are just a couple of the dangers. Deputy Pilots performing such maneuvers approach them in a slow methodical manner utilizing their observer/TFO's to help guide them in, and clear obstructions or hazards.
This particular call was of a vehicle over the side on Nate Harris Grade Rd, on the west side of Palomar Mountain. Scott, the pilot in this case has already dropped his observer off to check the vehicle and is coming back in to pick him up.
Notice that the Tactical Flight Officer is in position and the helicopter comes to him. Basically the pilot flies the helicopter to a position where the windscreen bubble is within inches of the deputy on the ground. This is done so the person on the ground doesn't walk down hill into the path of the rotor blades, if the helicopter got into position first. Remember, depending on the steepness of the terrain the tips of those rotor blades may be within one or two feet of the terrain above the TFO's position.
While this is a dynamic maneuver, and must be approached with an abundance of caution, training and experience, law enforcement- rescue, and other pilots perform this maneuver all over the world on a regular basis.
In the history of the San Diego Sheriff's Aviation Division I am not away of any injuries or significant incidents occurring during a toe in landing. It goes without saying that we depend on the reliability of the turbine engines in these helicopters, as well as the care and maintenance provided by our top notch team of helicopter technicians.
The helicopter in this video is one of our older MD500D models of which we have three.
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The record feature is not only great for evidence but it is also a very useful training tool. It records the cockpit conversation so officers and deputies can go back and review their cockpit resource management during the incident. It can also be useful for discovering mistakes that might have been made during a FLIR search, or which techniques work best.
It also lets officers on the ground see and understand the capabilities and limitations of both the helicopter and the FLIR camera. The FLIR camera in this video appears to be a 8500 model. While the picture on the screen may give the impression that camera operation is a simple procedure, I can tell you that there is a fairly significant learning curve to this particular model. Lastly videos like this are important because it gives the citizen and tax payer a look at his or her tax dollars at work. The music is a nice added touch. Great job Brevard County Sheriff's Office!
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For the record, and in defense of the SDPD Air Unit, this video was never officially released to the public. It goes without saying that a copy somehow made it's way to the internet, kind of hard to put this cat back in the bag.
We so often see these type of videos but seldom any analysis to go along with them. It is my understanding that this was a carjacking suspect, so I can only imagine that the shotgun was used in the carjacking.
The San Diego Police Aviation Unit "ABLE" is our sister agency/unit so to speak. It goes without saying that our beats and jurisdiction borders each other around the county. We each assist the other when the need arises.
The primary voice on this video is that of one of San Diego PD's senior pilots, on this night however he is obviously sitting in the TFO (tactical flight officer) seat. This particular pilot is quickly becoming a nationally recognized expert on FLIR operations, so there was probably no better person to be on the FLIR on this night. The second voice on the video is most likely the pilot. The system is set up to not only record the radio traffic between the helicopter and the ground units, but to record the police helicopter's intercom which the pilot and TFO use to communicate.
While the TFO has his eyes glued on the FLIR screen, the pilot can often be a second valuable source of information by viewing the scene below both on night vision goggles, and with the naked eye. This is an example of excellent team work in the cockpit between the pilot and TFO. The pilot is able to double check the map and confiirm which street they are on, and he is able to provide a clothing description of the suspect, (probably thanks to the night sun).
Would the officer have gone over the fence after the suspect had the TFO not issued his urgent warning? I don't know but I can tell you than many suspects who commit suicide in a situation like this have no qualms taking a police officer with them. I think the value of the police helicopter and it's crew proved itself on this night.
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