I learn that even a helicopter can get stuck in the mud.
The idea was to show Mike’s brother, who is in town this week, a few of the more interesting spots out in the desert. So we took him to one of our favorites, an abandoned house north of Lake Pleasant.
The house sits in a saddle between two mountain peaks and there isn’t much clear, level ground near it. So I usually park on a dirt road that winds past it. That day was no different. I hover-taxied along the road, looking for a level spot to set down. I was quite surprised to see that the road, which was still wet from all the rain we’d been having, appeared to have been used recently by an ATV or some other narrow wheelbase vehicle.
The first place I attempted to set down didn’t seem level enough. The problem, I later discovered, was a CG issue. Mike’s brother is a big boy and having him sit in the front seat was pushing my CG much more forward than I was accustomed to. As a result, the fronts of the skids were touching down long before the backs of the skids. But on that first set down, I wasn’t thinking that. I just figured the LZ wasn’t level. So I picked it back up and moved a bit farther down the road.
I set down in another spot and although it didn’t seem level (probably due to the CG issue again), I put full collective down and we settled into the ground. Unfortunately, I mean that literally. We settled into the ground. The ground on my side was soft and the right skid sunk into it.
I looked out my window at the skid. It was sunk in about 1/2 inch, mostly in the back. It didn’t look too bad. We decided to get out, walk around as we’d originally intended, and deal with the sunken skid when we got back.
I don’t know if it was a bad idea or not. Mike claims the helicopter sunk in a bit more while we were away — perhaps 45 minutes. While we explored the ruins, we picked up discarded pieces of lumber, blackened with age. We each carried some of it back to the helicopter with the idea that we’d somehow lift the skid out of the mud and slip the wood beneath it for support.
I really don’t know what we were thinking. The helicopter weighs 1500 lbs empty and it had about 30 gallons of fuel on board (180 lbs). Although the left skid had settled onto relatively firm ground, the right skid was definitely sunk in. Mike slipped a metal can top under the back of the right skid. Then we had his brother pull down on the tail rotor gearbox to lift the front end of the helicopter out of the mud so we could slip wood pieces under the fronts of the skids.
That was definitely a bad idea. Although the fronts of the skids sat nicely on wood, the backs of the skids — both of them! — sunk deeper into the mud. Now we had a real problem.
At this point, you might be saying, what’s the problem? It’s a helicopter. Just start it up and take off.
It’s not that simple. If one of a helicopter’s skids is stuck in something, it could create a pivot point. Then, when you start to lift off, the skid remains stuck. If you keep going, the entire helicopter could fly over onto its side. This is called dynamic rollover and it’s the cause of more than a few accidents. As far as I was concerned, the skid could be seriously stuck in the mud, creating a pivot point. I was not about to take off until I was sure the skid was clear of mud. So we dug. The ground was very soft and the pieces of wood we’d brought made relatively good digging tools. As we dug, we hammered pieces of wood under the skids, using rocks as hammers. Of course the trick there was to keep those pieces of wood relatively flat so they wouldn’t create pivot points. We worked on it for about an hour. We got very muddy. Our shoes kept sticking in the stuff and, more than once, my foot slipped out of my shoe when I tried to walk. (I hate when that happens.) At one point, I thought I might have to call for help — we just didn’t seem to be making the situation any better. But then we cleared most of the mud aside and I was satisfied that we’d done the best we could do.
Mike’s brother and I got in while Mike stood outside, watching to see if the vibrations of the helicopter’s engine and blades would cause it to sink deeper into the muck. I started up and warmed up the engine. Everything looked good. Mike got in. I told them both to keep quiet so I could concentrate. And then I very carefully pulled up the collective, making sure that I didn’t move laterally in any direction as we got light on the skids.”You’re off the ground back here,” Mike told me.
I’d picked up so smoothly that I hadn’t even felt it. We were airborne, I pulled more pitch and rose two feet off the ground. Then I pushed the cyclic forward and we took off, over the edge of the cliff and into the valley beyond.
Another learning experience. But a messy one.
I could have hurried right back the airport, but since none of us were in any rush, I figured I’d take the opportunity to check out the river. We flew past Kay El Bar, which had water right up to its front lawn, and headed up the river. A number of ranches had some water flowing through their low spots. I watched some cattle cross a stream. But the most dramatic scene was at the narrow slow canyon north of town — the water was squeezing through the slot and had reached a depth of at least 20 feet. There would be no driving through the slot anytime soon.
We flew over town and circled the area around the bridge. Mike got some excellent photos of the damage on Jack Burden Road — which you really couldn’t see from the ground — and the carnival right across the river. Then we headed up the river so I could show Mike how full the slot canyon was. It was raining up there, so I turned around and headed back down the river, in search of what was left of the house that had gone downstream. We hit a pretty nasty downdraft just past the bridge and since neither of us liked that, I climbed an extra 200 feet. It was a good thing I did, because when we got to the Morristown area, a helicopter flew under us, going up river. I don’t even know if he saw us. I turned around and followed him upriver, keeping some distance between us. At about that time, Don from LifeNet made a call for his departure from the airport. A moment later, I heard him on the radio again, asking the helicopter over town if it was on frequency. Although I expected the helicopter ahead of me to answer, it was Ray who replied. That meant there were four helicopters operating over town at the same time.
Of course, now that the rain has let up to a drizzle, the water’s flow is receding. An hour has gone by since I woke up and the flow is now no more than a narrow stream of brown water. An hour ago, it would have been impossible to leave the house; my driveway was under two feet of running water in some places. Now, I could drive — or even walk — across. A few years ago, I was home alone when a big storm hit. The wash filled with water, all the way across, to a depth of at least four feet. We had some trailers parked in the wash and one of them — a 12-foot flatbed — was washed a mile downstream (see photo). It took a back-hoe to get it out of the ground. The other trailer, a 3500-lb 2-horse horse trailer, was slowly washed about 150 yards downstream. Thank heaven it didn’t get washed over on its side. As it was, we had to replace all wheel bearings in both trailers before we could use them again.