Kodiak P-3 Story

[H60Gunner]

Looking at one article in the current Approach magazine, made me remember my P-3 days…..
According the article- “You can’t wave off if you mess up the touchdown; it’s too aggressive of a turn to downwind for most aircraft to negotiate. You can’t fly straight ahead because you will hit the mountain.”

We flew an approach into Kodiak one night that was pretty hairy. We had a 50kt tail wind, driving rain, and the pilot’s side windshield wiper was down. We aborted the first approach because basically the pilot couldn’t see. Pilots swapped seats, and we came around for another landing. Approach went ok, but we floated down the runway and ended up having to abort the landing because we were out of runway. We waived off, and made the dreaded right turn back to the 180. I don’t remember what number board we were at when we aborted the landing, but I do know that we almost stalled out making the turn.

The mighty Papa Three!

 

[webmaster]

Article on page 6, linky: http://www.public.navy.mil/navsafecen/Documents/media/approach/SepOct10.pdf

 

[xmid]

First off, why the hell would you guys land with a 50 knot tail wind?! Secondly, why did the pilots switch seats? Was the guy sitting right seat incapable of landing the airplane?

 

[scoolbubba]

I'm pretty sure there's only one way into kodiak, hence landing with the tailwind.

 

[webmaster]

http://www.airnav.com/airport/PADQ

 

[es101js]

First off, why the hell would you guys land with a 50 knot tail wind?! Secondly, why did the pilots switch seats? Was the guy sitting right seat incapable of landing the airplane?

I would argue if the pilot on the left signed for the plane or is senior..., and the pilots windshield wiper was inop, i imagine he wants to land the plane from the right in this varsity situation because he is responsible for the safety of crew and plane.

 

[zippy]

First off, why the hell would you guys land with a 50 knot tail wind?! Secondly, why did the pilots switch seats? Was the guy sitting right seat incapable of landing the airplane?

1) Looks like only one landing direction.

2) Because in the situation like that, you want the PPC doing the landing. When he signed for the plane he already bought the landing, and he's going to have the most experience on the plane. Landing in wx can be good training for upgrading pilots, but in a situation like that where waveoffs are not free you want to give your crew the best chance of survival when shit is going wrong. In this case, the PPC probably started out in the left seat so he'd have nose wheel steering, when the wipers didn't work and he couldn't see they probably conducted a seat swap to put him in the right seat with the 2P backing him up in the left so he could see the runway he was trying to land on, and the mountains at the end of it.

 

[NavAir42]

Holy Sh!t. 50 kts behind you on 7500 ft of runway. I don't even know if that's possible. I geeked out and was curious what the landing ground roll for that would be. The best I could do was a 20 kt tailwind and that gave something like 3000 ft to stop the aircraft with hard wheel braking on a bone-dry runway. Make conditions a little more sporty, like a wet runway and you start running out of runway quick.

Maybe you could do it if you planted the main mounts on the very start of the runway. I can't imagine setting down at 170 kts-ish ground speed then having to wait for the speed to bleed off to prevent pitchlocking and being able to come on the brakes and not blow a tire. This all makes me think the fish has gotten bigger over the years.

I do remember my dad telling me about going into Kodiak and Adak with a P-3 in the 1980s and saying that those were the least favorite landings of his naval career.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Is it really that hard to see without wipers?

 

[NavAir42]

It can be.

 

[Jim123]

Is it really that hard to see without wipers?

Moderate rain in the wiperless training command helicopters at 70-100kts SUCKS. Faster is worse and never mind heavy rain and I miss the wipers and heated windshields of the fleet aircraft. How fast are the P-3 and C-130 on final? Are those B or C approach categories? (Without adding 50kt tailwind.)

@H60Gunner and webmaster- nice thread/link. That kind of flying will put hair on your chest and gray hair on your head. :scared_12


...I will neither confirm nor deny whether rain-x may have been applied to any H-60 windshields once sufficient distance from homeguard was, uhh...

 

[Flugelman]

Back in the day, (don't you just hate it when an old fart starts off like that???) we would load up a P-3 in the summertime with pilots (PPC's and prospective PPC's) and make a 3 or 4 day trip up to Alaska from Barbers Point. We would hit all the fields that we might be tasked to visit later on so all could fly the approaches in good weather and have some idea what they might be facing in bad weather. I doubt that they still do that now.

 

[NavAir42]

Jim- Landing speeds are usually between 140-ish and 120-ish depending on configuration and weight. Not exactly blazing, but faster than a helo.

Flugelman- we don't get to do that anymore unfortunately. Sounds like a fun road trip.

 

[webmaster]

What NavAir said... typical LAND FLAP speeds into the flare would be between 114-127KIAS. Touch down 6-8 knots below.

We have to wait until our speed is below 135 before coming into reverse to prevent inadvertent pitchlock of the propellers (overweight/no flap emergency landings, etc...).

 

[scoolbubba]

Back in the day, (don't you just hate it when an old fart starts off like that???) we would load up a P-3 in the summertime with pilots (PPC's and prospective PPC's) and make a 3 or 4 day trip up to Alaska from Barbers Point. We would hit all the fields that we might be tasked to visit later on so all could fly the approaches in good weather and have some idea what they might be facing in bad weather. I doubt that they still do that now.

The sky falls when we go more than 350 miles away from home plate for field work, so...not really.