We're landing there?

I'm now learning how to land in confined areas. After learning how to safely land and take off from a slope we are now venturing to the Perth hills to find relatively small clearings between trees to put the chopper down. Sounds simple enough when you think that helicopters can go up, down, forwards, backwards and sideways; surely you just manoeuvre it to wherever you want? More or less, yes, but there are myriad of important things to consider. Where a plane may be limited to only land at an airport or airstrip, a chopper does have a lot of options. However the airport and airstrip have been developed to be, through the planning stage and continually reviewed thereafter, as safe as possible and often have documents to follow to ensure the safety of all movements into and out of the landing area. In contrast, the responsibility for ensuring non-airport landing sites are safe and suitable in a chopper lies wholly with the pilot, hence to following steps.

Power: Do I have enough of a power margin (due to the weight of the aircraft, the ambient temperature and the elevation that we're landing at) to get the helicopter safely in and out of there? This will be different for every location, on different days, with different all-up aircraft weight and with different aircraft. If it's a small spot then you may have to approach and depart vertically and this requires a lot of power, whereas if it's a bigger spot then you have options to approach at a shallower angle and use less power.

Passenger brief: The passengers are stakeholders in the safety of the landing and have extra sets of eyes that can help ensure the pilot is fully aware of all dangers at the landing site. Hence we brief the passengers to look out for dangers such as buildings, people, wires, animals or anything that may pose a hazard to the aircraft.

The seven S's.

Surrounds: What's around the landing sight? Buildings, people, fences, trees, wires, etc? Size: Is it big enough to fit the helicopter? Do I have enough power to put the machine in there? Shape: If it's not super big perhaps I could take advantage of the shape so as to keep my approach as shallow as possible. Slope: Often hard to assertion from above but does it look to be within the safe operations of the helicopter? Surface: Long grass can catch fire when you land a hot engine on it, dry dirt can reduce visibility by throwing up dust, etc. Sun: Is it at an angle that means I'll be landing into the sun? This may change you're approach to the area as landing into sun obviously reduces visibility. Stock: Are there any animals around that could jump into fences or wires as we approach? What approach ensures that we don't scare them?

Wind: Where is the wind coming from? We need to try land into wind as much as possible to help with generating lift on the blades. As we fly we are constantly looking for signs of where the wind is blowing. We start the flight with a look at the forecast wind and also the observed wind at the airport so that we have a rough idea of winds in the area. Smoke, flags, wind waves on water, flocks of birds taking off into wind and aircraft drift can all help maintain an awareness of the wind at your location as topography can often create very localised winds and turbulence that changes the direction that you (particularly if you're a meteorologist!) expect it to be coming from.

Wires: The big killer. Wires are responsible for a significant proportion of helicopter crashes as they are very hard to see. We need to look out for anything that requires power such as buildings, sheds or outhouses. We then look for cuttings in the trees to enable a power line to travel through the forest. Lastly we look for power poles. Looking directly for the wires will prove almost impossible. They may be viewable when on the ground with a blank sky behind them but from above with the ground as a backdrop 20/20 vision doesn't really cut the mustard.

Approach and departure: As stated in the above areas there are many reasons our approach and departure will be in the direction we choose them to be. We need to land into wind, we need to try keep things shallow if we are power limited, miss obstructions and wires and not fly over animals.

Turning points: To ascertain all of this information we are flying a reconnaissance circle around the landing area at 500ft above the ground level. Choosing turning points allow us to fly a normal circuit prior to landing and choose where we turn onto our base leg (second last leg) and final leg of the circuit. So, for example, we may elect to turn base at that rock and turn final over that hill.

I had been doing these with the instructor and then after one of the landings he jumped out and said the next one will be solo. Without the extra body the chopper instantly had a heap more power and I flew out of there and repeated all of the above, safely brought it back down and collected my instructor, just as I'd promised - such a dude. I've now been cleared to do these solo which includes taking off from the airport, departing to the hills, finding the area and putting the machine down. After a few takeoffs and landings I then point the aircraft seaward and return to the airport. The weather has cancelled a lot of my flying recently so I'm looking forward to racking up the hours again this week as the winds abate and the skies take on their cloudless view and beautiful shade of blue.

One of the landing areas from the ground. I'm basically in the centre of it here so think of the distance to the trees being the radius of the space.

This is the other spot, and this picture was taken on the far side of the location so you are basically seeing the diameter of the space. Some pretty big trees ahead!

The other chopper in the police airwing fleet, the BK117, also a twin engine chopper with winching capabilities.