Thursday, November 12, 2009

Sharing my "NURI" helicopter experience

combat !!!!! yoo.ho.hoo
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,my flying office ??. yoo.

Capt's Longhouse said...

,,,,just to tell you more about the Nuri and some of her hidden hazards, mine caught fire while night flying overhead PK (Pekan) with co-pilot Mat Sulong, firstly, we lost No.2 Gene as such were down to essential buss, remember it was pitch dark nite, yoo and then the Primary Hyd. was also lost !
,,,things were getting bad to worse and the smell of burning oil plus smoke covered the cabin/cock-pit too ! From "Pan to Mayday call" were made BUT we could not make an immediate emergency landing since we also lost the No 1 Generator soon after !. Geee...!!
,,,nil ac electricity except for dc emergency buss bar and no landing lights to aid for an landing away from the Kuantan airfield, which we were aiming for and snaking in !! ...using the street lights plus moving cars and finally the airfield lightings as ref. ,,,,,,(it was the craziest flight of my entire life..Yeop Oii !!,,,,,but I flew the darm ass burning chopper for God's sake,,,"just fly her" I kept telling meself all along the ride of Hell !!)
,,,Crew chief could not contain the fire at the rear of the MGB cos. of the bottom cover...so I ordered him to axe it away, which he managed to with almost bare hands plus me having to fly without AFCS and only stand-by horizon with smoky cock-pit blinding eyes & lungs !

,,,To make it even worse,.......the MGB was also making funny rattling noise since we were fast losing gearbox oil too. (In fact, later we found out that the gearbox would had kaput if flown more than 3 - 5 minutes after our emergency landing at the airfield !)...phew OomakDatok !!.
,,,It does NOT ends there mate !!..upon landing as instructed the co-pilot jumped out of the Nuri side window to fight the fire at the rear from outside the chopper and I had to perform an emergency shut-down alone. The fire fighters arrived alongside and they sprayed foams at the rear, inside the cabin plus when they saw smoke from the engine exhausts due to the stray foams,,,,,,,,,,guess what ??,,,,,,,both the engines were foamed up !! So now we also lost two bloody good engines too .......while safely on the ground Geeee !!
,,,Well the co-pilot is still in the RMAF, you can ask him more about the incident-lah. Had a hard time coaching a turtleman with the likes of him too hehehe !!....but guess he made it, now a 'one or two star' Dato General Mat Sulong !! ......Yoooo.....good for you buddy...well done !.

October 11, 2009 10:02 AM
Capt's Longhouse said...

,,,,its the accessories gearing's at the rear of MGB that could cause such multiple-failures since the over heated bearings/gears would affect the others since they are grouped closely together-lah.
,,,we nearly lost the secondary hdy pump too, very very nearly and close to it! ...if that had happened it would be the end of Uban.
,,,the leaking MGB gearbox oil gave fuel for the fire and lucky me, the aluminium did not burnt out cos. the metal bearings were red hot.
,,,the foaming of the cabin area caused further damage to the AFCS controllers positioned at the bottom of the broom closet. This was again unfortunately only discovered many months later during its 1st test flight !. ( the flight controls went hay wired, moving on its own due to electrical shortings !!)
,,,so in future, don't take it too easy even for a single gene. failure yaa !!... if its the bearings not electrical causing its failure, don't continue flying as per checklist but land asap and check-out the primary cause of failure. (Electrical fire Vs Oil base fire smells different too.)

October 11, 2009 11:16 AM