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Scariest Day/Night Flying

WheelsUpHeelsUp

WheelsUpHeelsUp

Banned
CV 580 Bu# 550299 call sign RAT 51, did deadhead cross country WITHOUT box lunches and only 2 packs of cigarettes, 3 gallons of coffee and full honey buckets. Sweated bullets the entire 9 hour flight. Wanted to raise TIT to 880 to expedite but was vetoed by the AC.
 
Screamtruth

Screamtruth

นักมวย
A Comment

gatordev said:
Did you or anyone else do a doppler to the ship and then just drive in? I've heard of others doing that, and it was always a trick I kept up my sleeve, but never had to use it. Just curious how successful it might actually be.
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I was headed out to a rig in the GOM, and it was IMC through and through, but those PHI guys are real good about Scudn' it below the ceiling. I was talking to them about IFR rules when heading out to the rigs, and he said that they actually have a published approach using the Doppler to tag the rig. None of the rigs I have been on have any type of approach system, so it is down to vis. I have been on a few flights when we did not know if we could make it back to the helo base due to weather and fuel..........................and not being able to land anywhere.
 
Gatordev

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Screamtruth said:
I was headed out to a rig in the GOM, and it was IMC through and through, but those PHI guys are real good about Scudn' it below the ceiling. I was talking to them about IFR rules when heading out to the rigs, and he said that they actually have a published approach using the Doppler to tag the rig. None of the rigs I have been on have any type of approach system, so it is down to vis. I have been on a few flights when we did not know if we could make it back to the helo base due to weather and fuel..........................and not being able to land anywhere.
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By doppler, I'm guessing you (or the PHI guys) are referring to their radar. What I was talking about was doing a coupled approach to the water like we do when deploying swimmers/SAR. They're referred to as "Dopplers" because the system uses the RadAlt/doppler system to control the approach altitude and speed.

In the particular model of -60 I flew, we had radar (non-doppler, so not as accurate) and one of the approach methods was for the crew man to give a self-contained approach using the radar. He just vectors the pilot based off of the bearing of the ship to the helo. The unwritten SOP is to do that and when in close enough, hit the coupled-approach. Once you're w/in a mile, the radar is pretty much worthless.
 
FLYTPAY

FLYTPAY

Pro-Rec Fighter Pilot
pilot
None
Old NFO said:
The about VFR brought another "set" of instances to mind- VFR Departures out of NAS JAX, because we would routinely chop VFR as soon as we cleared the coast to go operational... We took off from JAX, got the old climb and maintain 1200' proceed 090 to XXX... I'm looking North and see a Piper Cherokee has us boresighted 1100 constant bearing decreasing range, I call up flight and tell him to break right, the Nav SCREAMS- Break Left Traffic 0100 level, so flight sucks back on the stick and up we go... one of the aft observers was able to keep an eye on the 1 o'clock traffic, and he reported the two airplanes almost hit directly underneath us... ATC claimed they never saw the two birds and bitched at us for breaking the assigned altitude. I got ticked and told them we would file a NMAC report when we returned and I wanted the radar tapes held...

Later in became a standing joke at Jax about transiting Indian Country between NAS and the beaches... More than one crew got the S**T scared out of them in that 20 mile space because of all the VFR traffic-
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And you ought to hear the joke we had about P-3's in "the break".
 
Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Night time, coming back from OIF after 5.5 hours of jack and sh*t (and jack was cnxed). Summertime in the NAG, so max Hot and Humid. Port engine runs away right after we go past single-engine bingo range to Kuwait. Boat says come on in, charlie on arrival. CAPC dirties up and tries a simulated waveoff...not so much. "Not trying to sound dramatic, guys, but if we bolter or wave off, we're going swimming. I got no climb here." CAPC flew an awesome pass, picked up the OK3, but, man, that was a long scary ride in the tube. They really got to put some ejection seats in that pig.
 
Pcola04/30

Pcola04/30

Professional Michigan Hater
pilot
E2/C2 Rag CQ

Case III
BOSS: 99 Taxi lights on

Boss: E-2 hold down 2.8 Bingo 2.1

CATCC: Well left of couse, well below glide path say needles

Rag CQ pilot: Neg needles, neg bullseye

CATCC: roger, come right 15 degrees

Pilot: right 15

~20 sec later

CATCC: well left of course, below glide path 3/4 mile call the ball

Pilot: CLARA Ship, state 2.2
(thinking to himself: This is fucked up)

Boss: (this is fucked up)

Catcc: (he's fucked)

LSO: Paddles contact (I think I see him, GOD I hope I'm not fucked) Continue, 50 knots

9 seconds later

Pilot: Ball

Paddles: Roger Ball (ohhh, there he is)

5 seconds later

Trap

commence cleaning shit out of pants

(me: God I'm glad that wasn't me.....continue sipping coffee)
 
Bio

Bio

Member
None
Catmando said:
Totally dark, night FCLP's at NALF San Clemente, going in and out of fog banks. Got called once by the LSO for "rough power at the 180," I was that spooled-up. :eek:
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Man, you nailed it!! I can still see it as clear as yesterday. In and out of fog was great, seeing the other jets when you were out of fog, and I watched them on radar when we were in it. I remember thinking, "I probably won't get killed on this exact flight, so this should be okay."
 
busdriver

busdriver

Well-Known Member
None
I was flying in Afghanistan on a medevac mission way up in the northern mountains near Bamiyan. The illum was basically zero with about a half mile of visibility under goggles and a mile or so from the flir. I had the pilot fly a "safe altitude" giving us 500' of clearance according to Falconview and DTED. Enroute the big challenge was keeping the pilot from descending closer to the terrain he could see, since he couldn't see the big ridge line in front of us. Once we got to the scene, we had to have the guys on the ground move the patient up to some guy's front porch since we had 15' hover power, and couldn't possibly hoist him out. On short final the guy decided to turn off his porch light, so we flew the approach into a blackhole and were greeted by a 10' nose up and 10' left slope in a total brownout. After we got the patient on board, we briefed that as we were taking off the pilot would turn left 20 degrees to avoid hitting the large castle type building directly off our nose (didn't see it prior to landing). After taking off, I had to repeat the moving map PAR trick for the next 2 hours until we got into the "Qalat valley" and could proceed direct RTB.

I have a definite love-hate relationship with that country.
 
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