What is Different

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Brianna T. Thompson Today?

By LT Lauren “Bender” Chavis HSM-74 Swamp Foxes

January 21, 2020, was the day before my 28th birthday. I was a last-minute addition to a flight assigned Surface Search Coordination (SSC) in support of the USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER Carrier Strike Group as we transited east across the Atlantic Ocean. The crew was fairly senior. The Helicopter Aircraft Commander (HAC) had over 1,000 hours of flight time and was on his second deployment. The co-pilot (H2P), had nearly 650 hours and was deep into the aircraft commander syllabus. The aircrewman, on loan from a sister HSM squadron, was chosen to join our squadron for our deployment preparations specifically because of his muchneeded experience. The HAC and I were also quite comfortable flying together, with over 100 hours of flight and simulator time as a crew. However, I was very new to the carrier environment, having landed on the carrier only once, never at night and never to the spot which would become fateful that night.

The original co-pilot scheduled for that night got sick, so I was added to the flight schedule. The flight was planned for what we would call a “gentlemanly” 1.8 hours. At this point in our work-ups, the whole crew was accustomed to flights in excess of three hours, flying day and night in complex missions in preparation for the deployment. By comparison, this flight was benign—short in duration and simple in scope.

We took off in “pinky time,” the time just after sunset when the sun’s glow still illuminates the sky—too bright to wear Night Vision Devices (NVDs), but dark enough to begin to degrade vision. After takeoff, we flew most of the flight unaided, waiting for it to get dark enough for our NVDs to be useful. We donned our NVDs on the way back, trying to give ourselves enough time to get acclimated to them before we arrived back at the carrier.

A pilot’s “scan” and how they reference their instruments, changes in different flight regimes. For helicopter pilots, an outside scan is critical. We are trained to determining our altitude, airspeed, angle of bank, and rates of climb and descent by outside references, occasionally scanning inside to our flight instruments. At nighttime and when weather conditions degrade our visual acuity, our scan moves completely inside, trusting our instruments to tell us what the aircraft is doing. An NVD scan is a mix of both and must be practiced to maintain proficiency. We are often warned that NVDs do not “turn night into day,” reminding us that they are, in fact, just another instrument and we must continue to scan the rest of our tools to get a good sense of what the aircraft is doing.

With training and experience, these scans become subconscious, so much so that many pilots become complacent to their complexity. As a practiced crew, on what was a relatively benign flight, we were resting on the laurels of experience.

We returned to the carrier as she was conducting fixed-wing carrier qualifications. As such, our aircraft was cleared to land on Spot 7, a helicopter landing spot just aft of the tower, which allows rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft to operate simultaneously. The HAC, who was sitting in the left seat, took controls for the landing.

We positioned ourselves next to the spot, and the HAC tasked the aircrewman to “call the tail clear” of two jets that were positioned behind the location. As the aircrewman looked backward to ensure there was enough clearance between the tail rotor and the parked jets, the HAC slid the aircraft over the spot.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alan L. Robertson

Visual references to land on Spot 7 are particularly troublesome at night. The rightseat pilot has few ground references until the aircraft is entirely over the deck, and outside references consist mostly of the superstructure of the ship until the line-up line painted on the tower comes into view. Therefore, much of the task of landing on Spot 7, especially at night when peripheral references are scarce, falls on the left-seat pilot and the aircrewman. Additionally, as I was entirely inexperienced landing on Spot 7, the sensory overload of new experience made me even less of a help.

While the tower was lighted, the spot was in a shadow, requiring the HAC to scan through the NVDs to the butt-line on the deck to determine fore and aft drift, then under his NVDs to his instruments to determine our altitude, then forward through his NVDs to the Landing Signalman Enlisted (LSE) and the line-up line to determine lateral drift, then repeat. He did this expertly, as we steadied over the spot. Meanwhile, as we were cleared to land, so too was an E-2C on short final. The E-2 trapped just as the HAC reduced power, committing to a landing on the spot. Just before our wheels touched the deck, the E-2’s wing-tip vortices, circular patterns of rotating air left behind a wing as it generates lift, produced turbulence in its wake. The helicopter, struck by the wake turbulence, began to slide right.

The HAC, scanning left to determine his fore and aft drift; the aircrewman, scanning backward to clear the tail rotor; and I, the H2P, with an inexperienced scan in this new environment, did not notice the slide. As we lowered onto the deck with right drift, the tailwheel caught the lip of the deck and we began to roll right. I looked out my window and saw the nets that surround the flight deck and the water beneath them. We were banked dangerously. Noticing the potential for rollover, I came on the controls and froze them in place, counteracted the roll, and then relinquished the controls back to the HAC, who brought the aircraft back up to a perch and landed again without incident.

A post-flight inspection revealed a cracked rim on the tail wheel, as a small reminder of what could have happened.

The lesson is one that is often repeated in flight school and safety briefs: complacency kills. It is especially prevalent in experienced crews who are comfortable with the aircraft, the mission and each other. Developing instinctual reactions is the goal of most aviation training. To utilize those reactions, we must be constantly vigilant to changing situations.

I was relying too much on previous experience, thinking it would carry me through this new one. Instead, I should have had a healthy respect for the differences between what I knew and what I did not. Before, during and after the flight, we must always ask ourselves, “What is different today?”