PEP, Part 4: Flight Operations in French Naval Aviation

Part Four of the Personal Exchange Program in French Naval Aviation

By LT Randy Perkins, USN

Welcome to Part Four of the PEP (Personnel Exchange Program) Pilot articles in Rotor Review. In previous installments, we discussed the background of PEP, requirements for the tour, the AS-365 Dauphin Helicopter, and experiences flying while speaking a foreign language.

In “PEP, Part 4,” my goal is to dig a little bit deeper into the day-to-day flight operations within a French Naval Aviation Unit. I will attempt to speak principally to the differences between the MH-60S Community and the French squadron with which I fly. To give you initial insight into the first major difference, I’d like you to think back to HTs or the FRS and the first time you tried conducting the Pre-Start, Startup, or Post-Startup Checklist from memory. Maybe you were near the end of your syllabus and feeling confident. Or maybe you were in a rush, behind the aircraft, and thought the checklist would just slow you down. Either way, your instructor or Aircraft Commander probably asked you “what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” You then immediately pulled out your checklist like a shamed puppy who had misbehaved. Well, the philosophy within certain French Naval Aviation Units is, in fact, the opposite of ours. ”Didn’t use the checklist? Is there even a checklist? No biggie, the aircraft is started up and we’re ready to go!” Now before you make assumptions about safety and adherence to general aviation procedures, I am going to play devil’s advocate and offer some explanations in the coming paragraphs. Keep in mind, this stems from an experience within a single French Helicopter Unit that is part of a larger French Naval Aviation Community.

Briefing

No more PowerPoints. All briefs, regardless of the event, do not use a PowerPoint or a pre-prepared standard briefing guide. Every brief is unique and drawn on a whiteboard. If you’ve ever participated in a MH-60S SWTP (Seahawk Weapons and Tactics Program), chances are you’ve experienced at least a few whiteboard briefings in your time before shifting to stealing someone else’s PPT and editing it to be yours.

Here at my unit, the co-pilot for the day generally draws the board an hour or two before the briefing begins. These outlines annotate almost every item found in the Standard/ NATOPS briefing section of the MH-60 PCL (Pocket Checklist). In addition to the outline, they draw out a diagram or schematic of any profiles that are typically found as discussion items in the Mission Specific briefing section of the MH-60 PCL. The final section of the board is the safety section. This section includes bullet points regarding emergency procedures, limitations, communications, fuel, and CRM in relation to the crew, aircraft, and mission.

This whiteboard process can serve as a good review for various flight maneuvers such as night automatic approach profiles or the French version of an “overshoot approach” prior to a CAL (confined area landing). Apart from the individual flight maneuvers, the admin and safety portions of the whiteboard remain largely unchanged from brief to brief. One could make the case that a pre-prepared list of standard briefing items, such as those found in the MH-60 Community PCL, would increase briefing efficiency and reduce time spent on writing out or drawing standard briefing items on a whiteboard.

Crew Resource Management (CRM)/Operational Risk Management (ORM) sheet is not completed for the briefing, nor is a discussion of the last time each member flew, currency, or crew rest. It is usually assumed that the flight schedule accounted for most of these factors. Generally, a thumbs up from each member implies that everyone is safe to fly for “CRM / ORM.” This is vastly different from the HSC world in which we would re-verify crew day, crew rest, human factors, IMSAFE (Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Eating), flight hours in model, additional ORM factors, etc. using our ORM/CRM Sheet.

In terms of power calculations, it is the role of the aircrewman to calculate the performance calculations before every flight. The aircrewman also re-calculates power requirements in flight prior to conducting a hover out of ground effect (HOGE) or high-altitude landing. In the briefing, the aircrew member will brief the day's power calculations followed by a discussion of max gross weight versus fuel load and passenger or crew capacity. This methodology has been partially adopted in the 60 community with regards to using TAB data for mountain flying as well through the crew mission planning mindset. During mission planning, each crew member participates and the aircrewmen are usually responsible for the day’s power calculations. By doing this, you gain an increased investment from each crewmember and enhance the CRM within the crew. The whiteboard briefing, in totality, takes 15-25 minutes.

Preflight

As helicopter pilots, we are natural pessimists, always considering what could go wrong and reflecting on how we can or will act in the chance that we encounter a change in mission or an emergency procedure. Anyone who has seen the “Helicopter Pilots are Different” cartoon from 1977 will understand to what I refer. This is evident in the MH-60S Preflight where we open EVERY compartment: the nose bay, hydraulics bay, engine cowlings, ECS and APU sections, the tail drive shaft sections, and transition section in the tail cone. We open EVERYTHING and double check the daily or turnaround inspection that our maintainers have done. We climb up and inspect the rotor head with every preflight. This is done as a safety practice within U.S. Naval Aviation and critical components require a "double look." In French Naval Aviation, specifically for the preflight of the Dauphin, the construction of the aircraft doesn’t necessarily allow for the same in-depth preflight. A preflight is still conducted before every flight in the Dauphin to verify typical items such as oil levels, filters, PDIs, electronics in the tail cone section, and the tail rotor. Dissimilar, there is no real opening of any compartments to get a once-over on the hydraulic lines, transmission, or the engines. This is considered to have already been completed by the technicians, synonymous with maintainers, during the daily inspection. Additionally, each person conducts their own preflight. Whether or not an item has been checked by another crewmember is irrelevant as each person conducts their own tour of the helicopter, re-checking and re-verifying every preflight item.

Checklists

For my first cockpit FAM I brought along a hefty, laminated checklist, similar to our pilot check list in the H-60 Community, to run through the pre, post, and startup procedures with a senior French copilot in the Dauphin. We hopped into the aircraft and after the copilot started to run through his procedures, I had to politely ask him to slow down and start over so we could follow the checklist and do things in order. He calmly responded - we don’t use the checklist, we use “un circuit visuel.”

Before continuing, it is necessary to understand that the models of the Dauphin present at the squadron I work at have significantly less avionics, screens, and tactical equipment. They may or may not have a Digital Electronic Control Unit (DECU) or Enhanced Digital Electronic Control Unit (EDECU) and most of the gauges are “steam gauges.” All this results in shorter prestart, startup, and postengagement checklists. Some of the aircraft have already hit their 10,000hour mark with equipment that has been around for decades. Instead of walking to the aircraft one hour prior to takeoff as we typically do in the H-60 Community, a comfortable 20 minutes is plenty of time to get the aircraft pre-flighted and started. Additionally, there are three different models of Dauphins at the unit. Contradictory to the current methodology, this should highlight the benefit of using checklists to avoid confusion in three similar but different cockpits. After doing the prestart, startup, and postengagement checklist several 100 times, many pilots in the H-60 Community could also likely do the checks from memory with little chance of missing any items. After a while your hands seemingly find the appropriate switch in the correct order and you flow through the process without pause. At my unit, pilots have developed a visual flow or tour of the cockpit, “le circuit visuel,” that they follow the same way for every prestart, startup, and postengagement. Whether it is top to bottom or left to right, the left seat typically has his or her responsibilities, and the right seat theirs. This can lead to an incredibly quick start but doesn’t avoid the occasional missed item that using a checklist might avoid.

Among other French Naval Aviation Units, a visual circuit is also conducted but with a re-verification using the checklist that every item was completed. Outside of French Naval Aviation, the French Army and French Air Force typically stick to using their checklists. Now, everything after the postengagement checks is inconsistent with this methodology. Everything after the postengagement checklist has its own checklist to include: taxi, takeoff, post-takeoff, climbing in IMC, leveling off in IMC, before approach, before landing, etc.. These checklists are read aloud by the crew member in the back and conducted in a challenge-reply form. This is obviously different from the typical challenge-reply-reply checklist method used in the MH-60S Community for pre-start and start checklists which is only performed between the two pilots up front.

An interesting aspect of including a surplus of checklists in the air read in a challenge-reply method is that, in a way, it enhances CRM by having back to front communication often throughout the flight. On the flip side, having an aircrewman read a pre-approach IFR checklist for an IFR approach and simultaneously communicating with ATC can interfere with external communications more than just having the pilot flow through an approach plate.

Piloting

In the MH-60S Community, the handling of emergency procedures is relatively standard across all squadrons, hence the name Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization (NATOPS). If you are in the midst of a training syllabus, such as Helicopter Second Pilot (H2P) or Helicopter Aircraft Commander (HAC), you might be asked to both recite critical memory items and fly while managing the given simulated emergency procedure. This methodology examines your systems and emergency procedure knowledge of the aircraft and tests your ability to fly the machine under duress in a potentially degraded state. However, once you have finished your evaluations in those syllabi, in a real-life emergency procedure we fully expect the 60S pilot not at the controls (PNAC) and pilot at controls (PAC) both execute the critical memory items for their respective crew position. It is also expected the PNAC, whether they be a copilot or HAC, will break out the checklist and go through the emergency procedure (EP) with the crew member in the back.

Where this differs slightly in French aviation is that, as the CA or “Commadant d’aeronef” (HAC), once you have completed the aviate portion of aviate, navigate, communicate (ANC), or in French Naval Aviation the the fly portion of fly, identify, treat, decide (FITD), you immediately pass the controls so that you, as the aircraft commander, can manage the emergency procedure. You are releasing controls to free yourself of the stress of flying in order to properly manage the EP. Then, after having completed ANC or FITD, you take the controls back for any sort of single engine landing or procedure you are going to do.

Often in the MH-60S, we stick to simulated EPs during NATOPS Checks and, at some units, general familiarization (FAM/EP) flights for proficiency every 30-90 days per Squadron standard operating procedures (SOP) Here, amongst the French Dauphin Community, every flight in your Aircraft Commander syllabus is a blend of any type of currency flight Vertical Replenishment (VERTREP), Search and Rescue (SAR) Jumps, boat hoisting, etc.), a HAC Checkride, and a NATOPS check mixed into one. The emphasis is placed HIGHLY on your ability to handle emergency procedures during practical missions. This again branches away from the H-60 Community training methodology. Typically those currency flights are not currently conducted as part of a syllabus post-FRS.

In the H-60 Community, we tend to place our emphasis on the ability to tactically employ the airframe, thus spending the majority of our training in a tactical syllabus. These tactical syllabi and their flight requirements often do not facilitate the constant practice of emergency procedures while conducting the mission at hand. The lack of tactical equipment and tactical employment of the Dauphin F at this unit allows the focus to turn towards the opposite end of the spectrum with the focus on EPs during relatively simple missions. In comparison, in the MH-60, a more powerful and overall safer aircraft (with exception of perhaps the tail rotor Fenestron on the AS-365 F), we can potentially reduce the time spent practicing simulated EPs during everyday missions as we focus on the tactical employment of the airframe. I leave the debate floor to the age old battle of FRS versus Weapons School.

Pubs & Instructions

NATOPS? CNAF? Squadron SOP? LHD NATOPS? Ships Resume? MESM? If you can name the pub there is likely an equivalent or three in French Naval Aviation. Although size, language, and the Atlantic Ocean separate the two navies, both use a relatively similar process of documentation and publications. Anyone interested in relearning all their HAC Syllabus publications in a different language?!

CRM

Annual CRM is conducted for every pilot with a focus on mishaps and how the mishap could have been prevented. A discussion of how CRM, the 7 basic CRM Skills, and human factors played into the mishap does not necessarily occur, but more so an identification of what went wrong and how to potentially correct it.

To further illuminate the CRM mindset here, it is usually prohibited to have the lower ranking pilot act and be designated as the HAC during the majority of flights. If a higher-ranking pilot is present, he or she will be the HAC. Additionally, but not always, the highest qualifications are often attributed to the higher-ranking positions of the Squadron such as OPSO, XO or CO. There is a significant concern about the CRM troubles that could arise between a young HAC and a higher-ranking co-pilot. We, in the H-60 Community, do not typically follow this same methodology. We have a Lieutenant who flies often and has a deep understanding of NATOPS act as our NATOPS Officer. We have a Super JO or Tactics Officer/Training Officer who is the most current and proficient for the instruction of tactical syllabus flights. If a young HAC is current Night DLQs or Night TERF Landings, they will be the HAC for a flight with a Department Head or Skipper whose currency has lapsed. We talk extensively before the flight about “no rank in the cockpit,” and for the most part, do a great job managing the cockpit as a team. We leave pride and rank outside of the aircraft and focus on the safe completion of the flight. In my experience, having flown with my Commanding Officers, Deputy Commodores, or Commodores, it is often the senior pilot who mentions during the briefing that there is “no rank in the cockpit.”

ORM

I was lucky enough to grow up under a few aircraft commanders who highly emphasized the full ORM (Operational Risk Management) process of IAMIS. Identify the hazard (a condition with the potential to cause...), assess the hazard (in terms of probability & severity), make a risk decision, implement controls, supervise. We applied this to any and all HAC scenarios leading to a fantastic decisionmaking process and ability to analyze whether the “juice was worth the squeeze.” In U.S. Naval Aviation, we normally do a great job of implementing ORM. Some might say it can be to our detriment in terms of adding more paperwork to the pile or preventing us from conducting what might seem like a fun event. That being said, the majority of the time it can be to our benefit. Usually we’ll catch certain higher risks and decide how we can best reduce them or implement controls to avoid them.

An AS-365 Dauphin F conducting VERTREP training at sea. The Dauphin max load is ~2000lbs which is never put into practice due to a max gross weight of 4100kg limiting loads to 200 – 300kg.

This ORM process starts as the flight is being planned by OPS, continues on the flight schedule, is deliberately discussed with the ORM/CRM Sheet prior to the flight, and used as a decision making tool within the aircraft in flight. This process, as stated earlier with regards to briefing, is seemingly present here within French Aviation, but to a much lesser degree. The human factors are not emphasized nearly as much as they are in U.S. Naval Aviation. Is it due to culture? A smaller force? I haven’t quite figured it out, but it warrants a discussion.

A significant point that falls within the scope of ORM as a human factor is crew day and crew rest. Before every flight in the H-60 Community, we complete an ORM Sheet detailing currency, proficiency, sleep, crew day, crew rest, and verifying each member is “IMSAFE.” We do a great job at trying to catch one of the biggest contributors to aviation mishaps, the human factor. If someone has a personal trouble in their life, was not given the adequate amount of crew rest, or didn’t sleep well, the idea isn’t to punish the crew member or view them as weak with U.S. Naval Aviation. We identify the hazard and see if we can make a schedule change or simply cancel the event if needed. This isn’t always true on the other side of the world where to mention fatigue or stress can be seen as a fault. It is true that, as one of the largest militaries in the world, our size allows the flexibility to cancel, reschedule, or change crews for flight events. If a smaller military were to operate with the same “flexibility," it might be to their disadvantage. A smaller supply of aircraft and a lower quantity of pilots results in an increased value of every flight if that unit or navy wants to perform at an operational level.

In U.S. Naval Aviation, the cardinal rule in CNAF 3710 is a maximum 18 hour scheduled crew day. This is often put into practice by MH-60S crews holding the Search and Rescue alert at sea and normally reduced to a maximum 12-hour day when possible or when stateside. This is usually in tandem with no less than anywhere from 10-13 hours of crew rest and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. We start our clocks for crew day and crew rest at the first military obligation of the day and the final landing of the evening respectively.

In French Naval Aviation, particularly amongst the French Naval Helicopter Community at sea, the rule is that within 24 hours your flight hours plus your alert hours cannot exceed 13. Additionally, your night hours count for 50% more time than your day hours when calculating crew day. However, there is no mention of a limit on the “scheduled day.” In terms of rest within those 24 hours, you shall have 8 hours of “rest,” four of which should be between 2000 and 0800. If either of these are broken, the crew member receives 8 hours of continued rest. You can see how this can start to get complicated, especially without the notion of a crew day commencing with the “first military obligation.”

At the French Helicopter Squadron level the “homeguard” unit rules are more similar to that of a U.S. squadron in that you have a 12 or 13 hour maximum crew day with anywhere from 11-13 hours of crew rest. The biggest difference, however, is that in U.S. Naval Aviation we try to condense the workday if a member is flying regardless of the hours. In French Naval Aviation, at least within this specific unit, you can be scheduled for a 0800 flight as well as an 1800 flight regularly. The notion of shifting multiple flights in a day closer together in order to maintain a flight box is typically absent. This is seemingly a direct transition from the French culture which prefers long mid-day pauses for lunch and post lunch combined with a longer workday. The same mindset is reflected in the flight schedule as demonstrated by a large break in-between flights rather than pushing the events closer together.

Anti-Exposure Suits

I am ignorant of the dry suit requirements for USCG Aviation as well as civilian passenger transport, but within U.S. Naval Aviation, dry suits are a requirement anytime the water temp is less than 50 deg F for an overwater flight. The equivalent in Celsius is approximately 10 degrees. Compare this to the 20 degree nighttime (and within two hours of sunset) and 18 degree daytime limits imposed by the French Navy, and you can see that their drysuit requirements are double what we require in the U.S. Navy. You will often find yourself on a beautiful sunny day sweating away your breakfast or lunch in a drysuit in the cockpit of the Dauphin with a balmy water temp of 17 degrees.

Summary

Hopefully you have found this insight into French Naval Aviation Operations, CRM, and ORM interesting. Upon arrival to this unit, almost all of my assumptions and habits on how helicopter naval aviation functioned were put into question or challenged. Each and every step within French flight operations are similar but different to the extent that it makes you question the ways you’ve been operating for years. I leave it to you to take the positives and negatives of what you have read here and reflect on how we operate in U.S. Naval Aviation. Do we do certain things just because “that’s how they’ve always been done?” Or, do we constantly search for new ways to improve and to become more efficient? Are our current methodologies used in day-to-day flight operations safe or do they need revisiting? As always, contact me at randyperkinsIV@gmail.com for corrections or questions.