Welcome back to Helicopter Lessons in 10 minutes or less. I'm Jacob and this video covers techniques for landing a helicopter into a confined area. Now simply put, helicopters come with the idea that they must be able to take off and land just about anywhere since it's not like an airplane. which needs a runway.
Customers or missions may dictate landing in areas just big enough for the helicopter and not much bigger than that. Since it's important to know how to do so, just about every reference suggests starting with some sort of high area recon. to get started.
Now there's a few different techniques for doing this but the high area recon generally takes place about 300 to 500 feet above the intended landing area to survey the site. There are a lot of techniques like I said the first one I'll pick out is just the Army's reference of SS Bat W. Now going through the acronym here, the first one's going to be size, suitability, barriers, approach and departure direction, takeoff point, and winds. The first being size, this is the size of the landing zone itself.
Is it big enough? for your helicopter. Now experience and comfort level play a big part here. Some pilots are just better at seeing and gauging the size of landing zones, you know, more so or worse than other pilots, but consider using known size of objects whenever you're trying to consider it. So look in the surrounding area.
Do you see something like a semi-trailer or 18-wheeler trailer? Those are roughly 50 feet long. Now, most civilian helicopters are less than 50 feet long and wide. Does it appear that a trailer could fit in the proposed LZ? You know, maybe you're looking around in the surrounding area doing that mental math or just shifting those pictures or the known size of that object to, say, the LZ.
What about cars? The average car length is 15 feet. Do you see any nearby cars that you could use to visualize or size compare to see if you could stack four cars? cars in a row for that 60 feet of clearance in the LZ. There's tons of techniques for gauging size of an LZ.
This is just one being the known size of an object, but pick a technique and kind of hone that skill to work it. Next is going to be suitability. Now think of things like slopes or surface conditions.
Is it loose gravel? Is it blowing dust or blowing snow, waving grass? Evaluate how this could affect the last 50 feet of the approach.
Next is barriers. Is it surrounded by trees, hills, buildings, etc.? What are the nearest tower or wires that are depicted on a map, or what have you found that is maybe not depicted on a map? that could affect this landing. After that, consider the approach or departure direction to consider the takeoff before you find yourself on the ground with no way back up.
But is there a preferable long axis? Is it different than say the winds or something like that that may prove a more favorable approach or takeoff direction? Next up is the T for touchdown point. What specifically are you using?
You may not be able to use an entire field because say half of it is a marsh or you see in higher or recon that you know maybe some of it is not usable maybe some people have set up tents or vehicles or you just don't want to fly next to some of that so pick a specific touchdown point that you're going to aim to and amend or go around if it looks like on the approach you cannot make it lastly most importantly probably is going to be the winds both at altitude and at the surface how are they affected by the objects around the lc is there any kind of potential swirling effects i've got two videos that outline winds specifically and how to determine them i recommend checking those out as well. I've got a link in the description. But what happens if the winds increase or decrease in speed or they change direction on you? Have a plan for it. So that was the ARMYS acronym for considering an LZ.
There's a lot of other methods for selecting or evaluating these LZs. The next one that I'll pick for this video is just the NAVYS acronym of SWEEP. Sweep with the S being kind of an all-encompassing S of size, shape, surface, and suitability. The W being for winds. The first E being for elevation, so pressure altitude, density altitude, or AGL altitude because they may be terminating to an OG hover.
Your egress or how you want to get out of that LZ. And the P being... power available versus what is required for the approach.
That's another really good one to consider too because once again you don't want to find yourself in a situation that you can't get out of. Another great acronym comes right out of the FAA's manuals is going to be SWOT. Slightly reshuffled around from the manuals, but that's going to be suitability. Next up being wins, O for obstacles, approach and departure axis, and touchdown point.
You'll see a lot of these acronyms cover the same principles here. They're looking at the suitability or the size of the LZ. They're looking at wins. They're looking at approach departure, the takeoff point, things like that.
Ultimately, you need some sort of method for analyzing the LZ prior to initiating a confined area approach because it's just less for... forgiving than other types of approaches that have plenty of room and potentially plenty of power margin. Now following the high area recon analysis, move over to a low recon.
This low recon is going to be on the approach path to a decision point. So you get to a point where you're either going to commit to a go-around and this should be prior to ETL, that's effective translational lift, or you continue the approach. Are the factors that you considered in the high area recon true all the way through and you can commit the approach?
Or did something change between the high area recon and the low area recon? If that's the case consider a possible go-around if it jeopardizes the approach. Now from here I'll talk three different techniques that are commonly used for getting the actual approach itself accomplished.
Now if you're using something else make sure you leave a comment below I'd love to hear it. But the first one is going to be a steep approach. So if this is our LZ let's say I've got some trees on each side of it Our first option being a steep approach.
So if I'm a helicopter up here, I can at roughly a 15 degree descent angle start a steep approach all the way down into the LZ. The benefit of this type of approach is that you can maintain visual contact with the touchdown point and the obstacles throughout the entire approach. The downside is that this type of approach can require OG power and it's more prone to a loss of tail order effectiveness condition.
if you have high winds and power limitations. But to optimize the tail clearance for this approach, if you shoot for generally the last one-third of the landing area, you should have a clear tail all the way through throughout the approach. Now the next type of approach is a low level or a terrain flight approach. Let's say in this sense I'm flying right at treetop level towards an LZ. In this type of approach the visibility is going to be limited and clearing the tail can be more difficult.
But once again, it's a lower altitude approach But for this reason you want to find some sort of rock Tree puddle or some sort of terrain feature in the LZ to clear that tail or help you clear that tail By using it as in a beam point. So let's say I find a little rock right here I'm gonna fly my helicopter roughly to a point that I'm a beam that feature at that point I can either descend straight down or forward and down but I've kind of cleared it from the high area recon or the lower area recon of That obstacle should clear my tail based on I know the size and the distance of just estimating where that that feature is in the LZ. But before that point I'm going to maintain my say treetop altitude to ensure tail clearance. Once I beam I can descend down.
Now the last technique is an L-turn technique where you fly perpendicular to the final inbound heading and parallel the obstacles. So from a top looking down that would look something like this. So if I have trees all the way around this LZ that I want to land in, I'm flying my helicopter here at treetop altitude and I want to land to that X.
Let's say I've got the long axis, I've got the winds, everything conducive. I'm going to fly just inside this LZ. I'm going to keep the intended point of touchdown out of my left door. I'm going to make sure I keep obstacles out my right door and have visual of those. Once I know I'm about halfway through the LZ, I can clear out my left, clear out my right.
I can start an L-shaped turn. descending decelerating turn to my touchdown point for the L turn. I'm maintaining treetop level until I get to roughly this point where I can see out my left and right door that I'm clear of the obstacles. At that point I can do a descending decelerating turn. But be sure in all of these that you have some sort of go-around plan, specifically what heading and power setting are you going to use if something changes on the approach and you need to abort it.
Also do your performance planning. Are you landing to pick up people or equipment? Will you have the power once you're on the ground and you get heavier?
Are you going to have the power to be able to take off with that extra weight? Don't ever get yourself or the helicopter in a position where you have no way out. That wraps up this video is the confined area approaches and how to diagnose and kind of analyze the LZs and the approaches themselves. Be sure to hit like and subscribe. And once again, leave your comments for other techniques in the section below.
But I'd love to hear it. As always, I'm Jacob and this is Helicopter Lessons in 10 minutes or less.