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18 NAVY NEWS, OCTOBER 2008
Can we fi x it?
ON A dark yet moonlit
Chinook was safe to continue its structural repairs in Afghanistan As well as fixing the crack, the
night in Afghanistan,
journey – with a caveat. – mostly the result of wear and team has also provided advice
the blades of a Chinook
“Gentle manouvres only and tear rather than enemy action, to the rest of the Chinook fleet to
monitor the crack for further and mostly involving RAF prevent other helicopters falling
whipped up the dust at propagation,” he advised. “If Chinooks. Beyond the obvious victim to the same problem.
Camp Bastion before
the crack starts to get bigger dangers, with the heat and the It’s easy to focus on
carrying the helicopter
rapidly, you’ll have to land dust, it’s a gruelling tour of duty: Afghanistan and Iraq – they are
into the Helmand sky.
immediately.” two months on, two months off. the concentrations of effort by
A few minutes later, the aircraft And it’s not just a case of Britain’s armed forces.
Tonight’s mission was routine
landed safely at Kandahar. sitting in a hangar waiting for a But there are eleven other
– or as routine as any flight in
Phew. Now the only thing left to helicopter to be delivered so you three-strong MASU teams
this troubled land is – an hour-
fi gure out was how to fi x it... can fi x it. Wherever a helicopter dedicated to the rest of the
long hop to Kandahar airbase.
Which is where the naval is damaged, invariably that’s world. And they’re no less busy.
The helicopter had barely
aircraft structural repair team where you’ll fi nd the Fleet FS(Air) The global map at the
lifted off the hub of British
come in; you might remember engineers. engineers’ HQ is littered with
operations in Afghanistan when
them as the Mobile Aircraft “When your aircraft structure dots marking recent repair
a loud bang startled the crew in
Support Unit (MASU), but they’ve fails it’s not always in a missions.
the rear cabin.
recently been reorganised (see convenient location,” says Cdr (Beginning of Judith Chalmers
Fearing the worst, they started
below for the new addition to Nigel Higgins, Fleet FS(Air)’s bit.)
looking for bullet holes.
the ‘family’) and renamed Fleet Commanding Officer. Vancouver, Japan, South
They found something even
Forward Support (Air). And if, in the middle of the Korea, Malaysia, Kenya, most
larger. A loadmaster realised he
They do what fl ight/unit/ Afghan steppe, you cannot fix of the Gulf, Sierra Leone, Belize,
could see stars through the skin
squadron engineers generally that Sea King or Chinook and Norway, Falklands, Bosnia,
of the aircraft above his head.
cannot. you cannot recover the aircraft Gibraltar.
After a quick look with a torch,
The entire UK Armed Forces’ by road or air, there is the last (End of Judith Chalmers bit.)
the crew realised that they had a
inventory of helicopters falls resort: blow it up to prevent And then there’s Istanbul and
problem.
under these naval engineers’ it falling into enemy hands. At a Merlin which almost fell of the
One of the main lift frames
wings – RAF, Army Air Corps, least three airframes have met flight deck of HMS Illustrious
attaching the rear rotor to the
Fleet Air Arm it doesn’t matter this fate in theatre. (you might have read about it
aircraft had cracked and the skin
(the RAF deal with fi xed-wing Even seemingly minor battle in the nationals, who thought it
had cracked with it, opening up
repairs). damage in Afghanistan can was most amusing...).
the aircraft to the stars above.
The flight crew pondered
“You know how they
have major ramifications in the A repair officer flew out first
their fate. Should they set the
advertise the RAC and AA
long term. to inspect the stricken bird, took
● Cracks in the outer skin (top) and inner fuselage of a Chinook – just
one of the many engineering challenges the Fleet Forward Support
Chinook down in the middle
as the ‘fourth emergency
You could, for example, leave copious photographs and finally
(Air) team must contend with in Afghanistan and (below) a Minigun
of Afghanistan, knowing the
service’? Well, we’re it for
a bullet hole in a helicopter produced an action plan for the
fi tted to a Chinook – with a chute to get rid of spent cartridge cases,
Taleban were down there – and
damaged helicopters.
fuselage. In the short term, it repair team… who flew out to
as designed by the naval air engineers
is just a hole and the aircraft is meet Lusty in Gib and fixed the
that a multi-million pound aircraft “Whenever there’s a call, we’re
still flyable. But over time, the helicopter, such that it could fly
might have to be destroyed by a there,” says Lt Andy Stancliffe.
stresses and strains placed on with the rest of 814 NAS’ Tigers
Harrier to prevent it falling into “Helicopters are helicopters –
the aircraft, plus exposure to when they returned to Culdrose
enemy hands? we can look at an Apache one
the elements, mean the hole will en masse.
The captain was patched day, Lynx the next day, Chinook grow. And that’s not good. So, a Whether it’s working on a ship
through to Kandahar. There the day after that. We have stitch in time saves nine. rolling around in the Atlantic
was a specialist team of aircraft corporate experience going back It’s the environment and or stuck out in the middle of
structural repairers on the base. over 40 years to call upon.” tempo of operations rather than the Afghan steppe, what’s
In his pit, a naval aircraft Most of the 100 or so MASU enemy action which takes its invariably required is ingenuity
engineer offi cer slept soundly staff are based at Fleetlands toll more than anything else in and innovation.
– until a duty offi cer roused in Gosport, but given Britain’s Helmand, however. “It’s a job which requires
him and hurried him to the ops current emphasis on operations One lesson from Afghanistan improvisation,” explains Cdr
room. in Afghanistan, a fi ve-strong is the strain of flying Chinooks Higgins. “Take one Chinook
After a quick brief, the team of engineers is permanently with the rear tailgate down, repair the team did recently. A
lieutenant was passed the based in Afghanistan. The invariably with a gunner perched ‘full’ repair would have taken
radio mike to advise the team covers repairs to all UK on it. Engineers began to notice six weeks. We did an expedient
Chinook fl iers – only too well helicopters out there – and even cracks appearing in the rear repair in 12 days.”
aware of the consequences has a limited fi xed wing repair of one of the helicopters. They Expediency and innovation
of giving instructions to land capability thanks to the addition called in the ‘fourth emergency invariably lead to invention…
immediately. of a sergeant from its RAF service’ to have a look. and here we come to another,
He discussed the crack with cousins at St Athan. “Had it failed, the whole rear critical role for the MASU team:
the aircrew, weighed up the The Kandahar team has turret, including rotors and aircraft service modification.
situation, then decided the conducted more than 100 engine could have come off.” If a helicopter needs an urgent,
An institution where
TO ALMOST everyone in the constant monitoring. upon, a huge database of the scientifi c work done by the
aviation world, mention the
Given the emphasis on British metallic wear conditions has MIG team. Their aim is the same,
letters M I G and the most
operations in the Gulf and been compiled allowing the MIG however: to assist in determining
likely response is Russian
Afghanistan in the past decade, team to pinpoint which particular the cause of an aircraft crash.
jets.
there’s been particularly close component the metal came “The $50,000 question is:
Except in Gosport.
scrutiny of the impact of those from – allowing the scientists in was the damage caused by the
Less publicised than the fabled
harsh environments on the hard- turn to advise the front-line units crash or did it actually cause
Soviet aircraft manufacturer, but
worked whirlybirds. whether the engine or gearbox the crash?,” explains one of the
crucial to the safety of Britain’s
Squadron engineers carry out needs to be replaced . scientifi c investigators.
helicopter fl eet, is the Fleet FS
regular servicing, but they also The system works. “I’ve been Take a Lynx which came down
(Air) Materials Integrity Group
send regular samples containing working here for 24 years and heavily on Salisbury Plain: its tail
(MIG), housed in a collection of
small metal particles in the oil I have never lost an aircraft on rotor drive shaft – vital for the
anonymous brick buildings at
worn from the bearings and my watch due to a predictable aircraft’s stability – had failed.
Fleetlands.
gears, back to Gosport. failure,” says the head of the Was it the heavy landing
MIG is a mix of internationally
Here, using processes ‘wear debris analysis’ team which caused it or had it failed
NEED initial FREE
recognised scientists (there are
ranging from the Mk1 (the nature of their work means before the Lynx came down?
remarkably few men and women
Eyeball, to sophisticated the MIG-ers must remain An inspection from the MIG
in white coats wandering around
analytical equipment such as anonymous). experts determined it was the
LEGAL ADVICE?
its corridors, disappointingly)
spectrometers and electron That, of course, does not former… and thankfully it wasn’t
Then contact:
and Service personnel who throw
microscopes, the samples are mean that helicopters have not a problem across the entire Lynx
their front-line experiences and
analysed for what should – and been lost for manifold reasons fl eet.
expertise into the mix.
shouldn’t – be there. over the past half century. “One simple indication is
Their aim is to ensure that a
Such is the nature of engines Most people will have heard of the fi laments in the lights on a
helicopter does not fail (ie crash)
and gearboxes that there will the Air Accidents Investigation warning panel. If they can prove
because one of its components
always be some traces or Branch. Perhaps less well to have been heated at the
failed materially (hence the
particles of metal in oil – the known is time of a crash, then that’s an
group’s name).
important questions are: how indication that one
But any helicopter, be it
much and which metal?
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