BLACK HAWK‘s??

[toms3]

I know we have problems with our 30 year old Sea Kings, however, I have noticed a few Black Hawk crashes. Are they having their own set of problems? Maybe it is just that they have so many more Black Hawks then we have Sea Kings it just appears they are having problems. Maybe just a percentage game.

 

[Michael OLeary]

As long as the Seakings remain the political football they have become, any problems with the fleet will be blamed directly on the Liberal‘s decisions not to replace the fleet when the Cormorant had been ordered. What we have never seen openly presented is actual comparative fleet statistics to place accident rates in perspective against flight hours and fleet size and age. There has yet to be a comprehensive analysis of how well the fleet is actually doing, and the media ensure that any problems, even minor set-downs in reaction to faulty gauges, become instant national news.

Your comparison to the US‘ Blackhawk fleet is interesting. This article: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/militarycrashes001004.html reviews some of the US Forces‘ helicopter crash statistics for the year 2000. In that year they had 57 major accidents (damages over 1 million US$) and they declared it their best year ever.

Mike

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Check out the stats for the Osprey if you can find them - a real Marine-killer, that one. Or perhaps another case of perception fuelled by the media?

Who cares - one crash is bad enough, much less dozens.

 

[Jungle]

Everything is about perspective... for example: our static line parachute is very similar to the US. However, the US version has a pin preventing the snap fastener (the end of the static line that attaches in the plane) from opening accidentally. It was probably found that it did accidentally open 1 in a million times... so the US probably had this occur a couple of times a year. Here, it takes decades to jump a million parachutes, but we had 2 incidents involving this problem recently (3 years ago) so we finally added the pin to our system shortly after.
Moral is: the more you have, the larger the number of accidents. You need to look at statistics to see if they have "more" than us.

 

[excoelis]

Hey Jungle,

Imagine the feeling I had as UEO working the airhead for one of those ‘incidents‘. I received the call from the DZ Controller as he was running to investigate the complete malfunction on that ramp jump. Thankfully, all turned out well, and the jumper proved that ingrained drills can and will pay off! He still jumps with us to this day, and it had very little effect on the other jumpers in the unit.
I have the utmost faith in our system, but there is something to be said for sheer volume, and the odds of accidents increasing. Our track record with para is excellent but I‘m sure there would be an increase in accidents relative to the frequency of jumping. Having said that, not jumping enough can increase the odds too, as the experience and proficiency decrease. Unfortunately, we don‘t dictate the number of jumps. We do, however, control the level of proficiency, through basic para training, continuation training, and the para refresher system.
I find it interesting that I was just reading flight safety last night at this site: web page
‘Great minds think alike‘ or ‘pure chance‘?

 

[Recce41]

Hey Fellas
Do any remember, when they pulled all the 5 pts. The snap fasteners kept on coming undone. I had a leg strap open twice. It was the bearing and spring getting worn.
I jumped with the Marines in93. **** everyone of their canopy releases were rust, or salt. I did JM checks and was shocked how bad they were. The rigger that we brought with us, lost it.
As for the number of jumps I have to agree, I have about 300+static and 100 MFP. The more you have the more you feel comfortable.
I believe our safety record speaks for itself.

 

[Jungle]

Excoelis, I was also the UEO in my unit at that time. I decided to go for a dispatch that day and ended up stick cmder on the opposite side of the jumper who had the "malfunction", and found myself right above him during descent. He deployed his reserve and managed to miss the runway by a few meters, but the ground was very hard. The jumper broke his back. He was fine and back to work a few months later, but he will not jump again. The training and the drills saved his life though.
You probably did the same thing: when I traced his static line on the ground and saw his snap fastener was closed, I had a hundred questions running through my mind...

 

[excoelis]

Hey,

Small world!

Even smaller community(thanx to the Liberals)

 

[excoelis]

Sorry, I‘m way off topic here.

Jungle,

Shot the **** with some old familiar faces when I was in Trenton last, they where graduating P.I. crse. Great guys, good to see the para side of your regt is sending some quality NCOs.

Recce41,

I feel for ya with the rust thing. I was in Europe in ‘94 for the NECIC comp. Thanks to the exchange officer we had with the Brits at the time, we got to tag along on the jump into Arnhem for the 50th anniversary of Op Market Garden. We jumped the rustiest, shaggiest lookin‘ chutes I had ever seen(Brit PX4s)! It looked like they had been used for nothing but salt water jumps, then dragged through sand before being re-packed! The flight sucked, the weather wasn‘t even close to marginal, and we where tail-end charlie of a zillion plane formation from England to the Netherlands. I‘ll tell you though, to a man, we where extremely grateful to be there, and any worries we had where assuaged by our feelings of gratitude.

These experiences with foreign armies just reinforce my faith in our eqpt, riggers, and para system.