Why helicopter pilots balk when asked to hover at 50 feet.
Last year, I joined a listserve group of professional aerial photographers. These folks, who are based all over the world, have been working at their profession for years. I’m a relative newcomer to the aerial photography scene and arrive as a pilot — not a photographer. (I want to take photos, but it’s tough when my right hand is stuck holding the cyclic during flight.)
I introduced myself and an engaging conversation about flying helicopters ensued. As you can imagine, many of the photographers had worked with helicopters. One of them was even on board during a crash!
One of the photographers in the group told a story about photo flights he’d taken with helicopter flight school instructors. He included this comment:
I was shooting a lot of sailboat races at the time, so where I wanted it turned out to be in a hover at 20 to 50 feet above the water which made some of the instructors nervous. I told them to get over it.
A lot of pilots won’t work in what’s commonly referred to by helicopter pilots as the “deadman’s curve.” All helicopter pilots should know what this is, but here’s a brief explanation for those of you who aren’t familiar with helicopter flight.
The “Deadman’s Curve”
The Height-Velocity diagram in the pilot operating handbook (POH) shows the combinations of airspeed and altitude at which an experienced pilot (or test pilot) should be able to make a safe autorotation in the event of an engine failure.
The diagram shown here is for a Robinson R44 helicopter, but they’re all very similar. The idea is to stay out of the shaded area. Generally speaking, you want either altitude or airspeed — or (preferably) both. Hovering at 20 to 50 feet puts you in the “deadman’s curve” — it’s a combination or airspeed (0 knots) and altitude (20 to 50 feet) at which a safe autorotation is not possible. So if the engine quits, you’re dead.
The height velocity diagram also clearly shows the recommended take-off profile. When a pilot does a “by the book” take-off, this is what he’s doing: picking up into a hover less than 10 feet off the ground and accelerating through 45 knots. Then pitch up slightly and climb out at 60 knots. (You can get an idea of this in my “Shadow Takeoff” video.) Doing a “straight up” take-off like you see in the movies or on television puts the helicopter smack dab in the middle of the deadman’s curve until he’s moving faster than 50 knots or has climbed several hundred feet.
Wondering how the chart is created? With test pilots and helicopters. If you take the Robinson Factory Safety Course, you’ll see videos of the flights they used to build the chart — including one flight that demonstrated what happens when you attempt an autorotation while inside the deadman’s curve.
My Experience with the Deadman’s Curve
I get some photo gigs because I’m willing to operate in certain areas of the deadman’s curve to meet my client’s needs. I’m a single pilot operator so I’m responsible for myself. Other organizations are responsible for their pilots and tell their pilots not to do anything that could be “unsafe.” This is often the situation at flight schools that do photo flights for extra revenue. Those pilots are usually the school’s CFIs, sometimes with only a few hundred hours of flight time. The school makes a rule — no operations under 300 feet — and all the pilots are required to comply.
Operating in the deadman’s curve requires that you have a lot of confidence in your engine and mechanic. The engine failure statistics on Robinson helicopters show that the engine — a Lycoming, after all — is very reliable. And I take meticulous care of my aircraft with two experienced mechanics to do the work. I’m confident in my aircraft. So I take the risk and I get the job.
But I do warn my passengers of the risks inherent in that type of flying. And If a maneuver puts me too close to obstacles or requires me to do something I think is beyond my skill level, I won’t do it. (I don’t have a death wish.)
Get Over It?
“Get over it,” is a pretty funny thing to say to a pilot when requesting (or demanding) that he perform a maneuver he’s not comfortable with or authorized to do.
The pilot who balked at hovering 50 feet off the ground was doing it for safety — his and his client’s. The photographer who told him to “get over it” was unfair to expect the pilot to operate where he was not comfortable. At the same time, the pilot should have clearly stated the limitations of the flight before accepting the job so the photographer wouldn’t expect the pilot to perform maneuvers beyond his normal operating scope.
Unfortunately, more than a few pilots will simply cave in under pressure to please the client. Sometimes this is can be a very bad thing that both the pilot and his client don’t live to regret.
A good pilot will evaluate the risks, make a decision, and stick to it. A pilot who is easily bullied by passengers (or management, for that matter) needs to look for a new career.
Misleading Statements in Popular Fiction
I actually wrote most of this post months ago and mothballed it to finish at a later date. But yesterday, I read something in a novel that made it clear how little the general public understands about helicopter operations.
In the story, the protagonists are passengers on a helicopter that’s running out of fuel. The lead protagonist tells the pilot to lose altitude. His reasoning:
Helicopters sometimes survived engine failures at a few hundred feet. They rarely survived at a few thousand.
The above statement is false. Reverse the facts and you get the correct statement, which I could word like this:
Helicopters rarely survived engine failures at a few hundred feet. They usually survived at a few thousand.
Why the difference? The H-V Diagram is a big part of it. Take a look. If a pilot is flying at 200-300 feet, he’ll have to be moving at at least 50 knots to stay out of the deadman’s curve. The H-V Diagram clearly shows that the higher you are and the faster you go, the farther you are from the deadman’s curve. Altitude and airspeed are two energy management components that can save a pilot’s life in the event of an engine failure.
If you’re operating outside the deadman’s curve, the thing that makes higher altitudes safer is time. If you’re cruising along at 500 feet AGL at 100 knots — a perfectly safe combination of altitude and airspeed, according to the H-V Diagram — you’re going to be on the ground a lot quicker than if you were doing the same speed at 1,500 feet AGL. That’s less time to correct any problems with your autorotation entry, pick a good landing zone, make a Mayday call, brief your passengers, etc. Now imagine cruising at the unlikely altitude of 3,000 feet AGL. In a good gliding helicopter, like my R44 or a Bell LongRanger, you have lots of time to set it up and do it right.
Clearly, higher is better.
There were some other errors in the book as far as the helicopter was concerned, but I’ll save them for another post. (It really does bug me when books, movies, and television send inaccurate messages about how helicopters fly.)
Why Not Get the Facts Straight?
Time passes. I don’t recall when I started writing this post, but I know I didn’t last long with the photographers in that group. They were very full of themselves and highly critical of newcomers. And some of them echoed the same uninformed ideas about the safety of helicopters that I hear everywhere else. Worst of all, they didn’t seem interested in learning the truth.
I wrote a post earlier this month titled “Why Forums Suck” that describes the atmosphere in this particular group. Maybe it’s me, but I simply don’t have patience for people who behave the way some of these guys (and women) did.
And, in case you’re wondering, I e-mailed the author of the book with the errors. I hope he didn’t think I was being rude. But I want him — and anyone else preparing material about helicopters — to get the facts straight before releasing it to the public. In his case, any helicopter pilot could have pointed out the problems I found and reported to him. A few minor changes to the manuscript would have made it accurate without impacting the story one darn bit.
I just wonder if other pilots who read the book were as irked about the errors as I am.
Probably not.
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Hi Maria, nice post. I came across this Youtube video a couple of days ago and kept thinking about the HV diagram. I particularly like the ground run. http://youtube.com/watch?v=jH03stFao4k. A classic example of ‘don’t try this at home’. I don’t think you should train for a situation you are not supposed to let happen.
Don’t know if you’ve done the RHC safety course, but they ran a video when they were determining the figures for their HV…with a couple of messy ‘landings’. I saw an R44 in an OGE hover over a large public event last year in Houston. He was only about 400′ up, I remember thinking he was nuts, even at that altitude.
Anyway, keep up the good work and send more video from your helicopter. Maybe next time you fly over a town or city?
Great post and spot on, Maria!
Are you, like me, amazed at the dis-information out there?
In the EMS field, I wonder how many heart attacks we worsen by loading a patient aboard that worries about the rotor coming to a dead stop if the engines quit. And we both know, there ARE a few that think that.
Along with “It’s an aerodynamic brick if the engine quits, right?”, you can add, (indirectly related to your post):
“It can take off vertically over that 200 foot obstacle, right?”
As an industry, we’ve done a terrible job of educating the public and our customers. I’m hopeful blogs like yours and mine will help remedy that.
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As old chopper IP’s used to say to me, “Young ‘pileit” beware of the knee,” referring to that curve. But in all truth that can be misleading.
It was not uncommon for some checkrides to include OGE hovering autorotations in UH-1 series aircraft. They can be done safely, if you have the experience. They are also NOT an approved manuever! :)
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I agree with your blog completely. Furthermore I am stunned how many fixed wing pilots have the same silly ideas in their heads. I am often confronted with comments like “if the engine quits you drop like a brick” and I normally laugh at their ignorence. If a fruity photographer tells me to “get over it” I would simply tell him/her I am the captain. I decide whats safe not you. I dont tell you how to take your fruite photos, dont tell me how to fly this million pound machine. If you know so much fly yourself. Whenever I interview or quote for any job I allways clearly stipulate “I will never fly unless I am satisfied with the safety of the flight. If you cannot agree with that then I cannot agree to the job” People will walk all over you if you do not stand up for yourself. Yes people will call you an Ahole but alteast you will be alive.
This is a fantastic article, because the public is so uninformed about helicopters. The lack of public knowledge is very understandable, because helicopters are so mechanically and aerodynamically complex.
Most helicopter pilots are required to operate outside the H/V curve on every flight. Some examples are long line work, firefighting, EMS, search and rescue, powerline work, rooftop helipads, offshore rigs, and just getting in and out of a tight LZ. The helipad I operate out of requires hover OGE take offs and landings every time, because it’s surrounded by buildings.
It’s what helicopters were designed to do, they are VTOL aircraft (Vertical Take Off and Landing). We avoid being outside the H/V curve when we can, to reduce risk, but it is simply not possible all of the time. If a pilot wants to stay outside the H/V curve all the time, then they should fly an airplane.
That being said, if a pilot does not feel safe performing a maneuver because the risk is too high, or its outside the abilities of the pilot, or the capabilities of the aircraft, then they should decline and not cave to pressure.
Is that ever true! Thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree entirely. Pilots who are afraid to operate in the deadman’s curve aren’t likely to have successful helicopter pilot careers.
The reciprocating engine can and does fail. It can occur without warning Me, I would prefer to fly with a pilot who knows about the curve and has had experience and practices regularly doing auto rotations. I’m not a pilot but have loved helos since going up in Bell 47 for $10 at the La State Fair when I was 10.
I don’t think I was insinuating that engines can’t fail or that helicopter pilots don’t know how to do autorotations. Every kind of engine can fail. All helicopter pilots are taught about the height-velocity diagram. All helicopter pilots are required to demonstrate autorotations for their check rides. I take a check ride every year for my Part 135 certificate and I do at least two autorotations for each test (straight in and 180°).
The point is this: if you have an engine failure while flying in the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram, there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be able to do a successful autorotation no matter how much you practice or are tested. That’s why they call it the Deadman’s Curve.
But does that mean we shouldn’t fly there? Of course not. Sometimes a mission requires it. Cherry drying is a perfect example. Some photo work, too. But we’re aware of the danger of these flight profiles and minimize them whenever possible.
And, for the record, when I do rides at an event, I don’t fly in the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram. Doing so would be reckless, putting my passengers at risk unnecessarily. I blogged about that here: https://aneclecticmind.com/2016/05/14/maximum-performance-takeoffs-and-judgement-calls/
I came here from the news of the Leicester City helicopter crash which was in a dead man’s curve. Thanks for explaining it so well.
Yeah, I read about the crash a bit this morning and figured the Deadman’s Curve had something to do with it. While it’s true that helicopters can take off straight up and sometimes, if there are a lot of obstacles around, it HAS to take off straight up, it does put you in a dangerous spot in the unlikely event of a power failure.
It annoys me intensely when people who know nothing call the shots. I’m a fixed wing pilot, but you’d be surprised how often we get bullied by management or passengers. I fly and teach PPL in a Piper Warrior. The sheer number of students who want a loop or a spin, and just wont have it that the machine isn’t rated for that activity. Naturally, they’re the first to complain, (and on one occasion attempt to sue) if things go wrong.
We seem to have got ourselves into a world where everyone has a right to comment, even if they know nothing about the subject they’re commenting on…sometimes, ESPECIALLY if they know nothing. Ignorance seems to be revered these days. Everyone has a right to comment. They forget they also have the right to silence!
I had an engine quit on me unexpectedly at 3000ft agl. Not a big event in a warrior, and plenty of time to attempt a restart, trim for the glide and send a Mayday. The same student who was demanding I show them barrel rolls or loops had the audacity to attempt to sue me for a perfectly uneventful engine off landing at my home field.
Good pilots, and I’m including you in that comment, must never be bullied. Not by clients, not by CFIs, and not by examiners either. On my PPL nav exam, I was given a route which, given the winds and weather that day didn’t allow for an alternate on the final leg. I refused the flight. The examiner gave me a real hard time. “You realise, if you refuse to fly, you still have to pay me?” and even “examiners talk to each other…word gets around when there’s a wise-ass student,” I stuck to my guns. Fortunately, that was part of the test. He smiled and said “Well done….NEVER let anyone bully or intimidate you. If you had attempted the flight as I gave it to you, I’d have failed you before we left the ground.”
Well said.
And you can’t imagine how tired I am of dealing with comments and advice from people who are absolutely clueless about the topic. I don’t mind questions — I like to inform — but don’t tell me how I should do something until you have as much real life experience as I do.
Thanks for taking the time to share your views on this. Fly safe!
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A single engine fixed wing airplane is in the dead man’s curve until it is high enough to turn back to the airport unless the airport is surrounded by safe places to land. Flying always has its risks. A twin is always in the dead man’s curve unless the pilot takes his single engine operations recurrent training seriously which all too often is not the case.
I’m not sure you’re understanding what the “Deadman’s Curve” really means in the world of helicopters. It’s created by testing combinations of airspeed and altitude. It has nothing to do with safe landing zones, pilot skill, or other conditions. It’s simply plotted test results.
Is there a height-velocity diagram like this for airplanes?
And of course flying has its risks. So does driving a car. Or walking down the road. Or eating a lot of fried food.