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| (Flickr.com) |
Awakenings
In September of 2012 I
experienced one of those events which keep pilots up at night. The
memory of such an event, we replay in our minds over and over. As a
fairly professional helicopter pilot, I war-game many scenarios in my
mind, both before and during various flights. One of the most common war
games I play out is the one in which the engine quits, and I am forced
to enter an autorotation with a termination to the ground.
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| (American Photo Mag) |
In
many of these war games I imagine being over the mountains, at night,
in a hopeless scenario with bad weather and have to eat what I call, a
"shit sandwich," in a scenario where the successful outcome is highly
in doubt. I once had a dream where I was flying an A-Star, in the
mountains with a weather ceiling which obscured the mountain tops where I
could only see out the right door but ironically, I could only make
left turns. Talk about weird.
On that beautiful
September Sunday one of my worst case war game scenarios occurred. My
engine quit over the amazing rolling terrain of the far corner of
northeastern Iowa. Ironically, this area is the ancestral home of the
oldest known relative which bears my last name. Before the caution
lights came on, the engine noise stopped and simultaneously the aircraft
violently yawed. My left hand instinctively dumped the collective to
full down and my awareness focused inside for a quick check of the
caution lights and engine instruments. In about 1/4 of a second I knew
without a doubt, I had lost my engine.
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| (lulu.com) |
A new movie now
plays out in my minds eye. The movie which starts from the time my
engine quit to the time I found myself looking at Iowa dirt at the end
of the sequence. A pilot, prior to experiencing such an event, may ask
himself over and over, how will I respond to such a scenario? The answer
is, you don't know until it happens. In my case, the war-gaming and
self talk, in addition to a great deal of practice autorotations, paid
off in spades.
After my initial look inside at my
instruments, I moved my awareness outside the aircraft. How long did I
move it outside? Just long enough to make a decision on where I was
going to terminate my autorotation. The amount of time was probably
between 1/2 to 1 full second. Unlike an airplane pilot, who may have a
10:1 glide ratio, a helicopter is coming down at a rate of around
1700-3500 feet per minute. An immediate decision is required and I had
no lack of training in this realm. Because I was, generously, estimated
to be at about 500' above the surface of the earth, I needed an
immediate and really, really good landing decision.
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| (Canadian Govt Pub) |
I
am sitting in the left seat flying over the top of a hill which had a
farm positioned on the top. To my right, numerous outbuildings and cows.
To my front, a heavily treed river embankment and small power lines. To
my left, a cornfield, maybe 80 acres. (I also noted but ruled out, a
gravel road which would have required a 270 degree left turn which I
somehow intuitively knew I couldn't make) So in this case I will be
required to make a 180 degree left turn from 500' with a planned
termination point in the center of the unpicked cornfield. In perfect
concert with my decision to land in that field, my right hand is rapidly
rolling the aircraft to the left. Now, in hindsight, it gets really
interesting.
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| (Democraticunderground.com) |
Have you ever experienced a moment where
time slows down? Where even the smallest detail now becomes acutely
apparent? At the point in which my engine quits, time now has changed
for me. It is no longer loping along at it's usual pace but has slowed
until it is like watching slow motion replays of an NFL game. My
awareness, in my opinion, is now moving at 10 times its normal speed.
Because of the lack of time, there was no panic, no "Oh Shit!"
exclamation, just a series of inquiries and decision gates. What is my
rotor rpm? Unacceptable, make an adjustment. Outcome? Acceptable. What
is my airspeed? Slowing, make an adjustment. Outcome? Acceptable. And
for what seemed like minutes I played out, over and over, these decision
gates and made rapid adjustments to arrive over my intended landing
area at exactly 10' with 0 forward airspeed. In reality, the entire
autorotation event probably took less then 10 seconds.
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| (netstate.com) |
Now,
I had never trained nor had I ever planned to autorotate into an
unpicked cornfield in Iowa. The corn was about 8' high. My seat
position, as I rolled the aircraft level and began to settle into the
corn, was probably about 13'. I detected the rapid vertical sink rate
and began applying rapid collective to arrest this rate as I sank into
the corn, with no sight of the actual ground. Probably about 5-7' above
the ground I was low on RPM and out of ideas. The aircraft landed vertically, at about 2-3 gravities, enough to
activate the emergency locator beacon, which I now heard in my helmet.
Surprisingly, the initial contact was nicely cushioned by that beautiful black Iowa loam. At this point, the main rotor blades violently flexed down and chopped off the tail
causing the entire tail assembly to fly through the air and land about 20' in front of the
aircraft. The aircraft rebounded into the air and rotated about 45
degrees to the left and landed again, rolling onto its right side.
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| (David Tappe Photo) |
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| (David Tappe Photo) |
Experiences
Neither
myself, nor my passenger experienced any injuries. I would like to tell
myself that it was because of my sharp acumen and skill as pilot, but
is that really true? Obviously I was VERY happy to be alive, having
survived one of my worst case scenarios, without a scratch. But I would
not have been in this position were it not for a long trail of decisions
I made in this chain of events leading up to this accident. So, despite
my best efforts, I found myself sideways in my shoulder harness and
seatbelt in a cornfield with nary an injury. I have friends who have
died in this career under much less difficult circumstances. Why? Why
did they die while myself and my passenger lived?
This
blog is replete with stories of my own near-misses. But there are more
near-misses, both in and out of aviation, which I have not written
about. Time and time again, I have survived very close calls, without a
scratch and found myself back in the saddle. In 1982, despite literally
hearing a voice tell me to put on my seat belt, I survived a vehicle
roll-over at highway speed, with my belt off. During operation Desert
Storm, in what I can only describe as the intervention of the Hand of
God, my helicopter was lifted out of a fatal situation, allowing us to
us clear a sand dune as we suffered a long and drawn out compressor
stall. My conclusion? God put me here for a reason.
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| (David Tappe Photo) |
And that's how I got this scratch on my new helmet.
