Civil Air Patrol Helicopter

[Lloyd Bumanglag Capt,CAP]

Just curious, with the except of $$$$, Why aren't there  Helicopters used in CAP? 

[heliodoc]

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Let's see here

COST

Depending on the size of helicopter --- its hourly rate

Maintenance -- approx 7-10 hr per flight hour

LIABILITY

training requirements that may reasonably exceed any CAP standard

The average CAP Form 5/ 91 would need restructuring to reflect the rotary wing world

AND Don't get me started on "CAP Standards" that "exceed PTS standards"  CAP could not even dream of keeping up in the rotary world

[A.Member]

Just curious, with the except of $$$$, Why aren't there  Helicopters used in CAP? 

Well, you can't exclude money from the question.  That speaks to the core of our organization and very specifically to the operations (ES) mission.   It's a cost/benefit issue.  We provide bang for the buck, that's our value proposition.

[SJFedor]

Current regulations prohibit it.

Not only keeping members qualified, but current, would be rather cost prohibitive.

Our insurance carrier would have a proverbial cow and, no doubt, our premiums would skyrocket.

Maintaining a fleet of helicopters would be very expensive.

We don't have that many rotary wing CFIs around that would be qualified to serve as check pilots for the even fewer people who have rotary wing ratings.

[sardak]

CAP allowed helicopters in the past. CAPM 55-1 "CAP Member-Operated Helicopter Operations" dates back to at least 1983, my earliest reference.  Per the manual:
"The mission of CAP member-operated helicopters is for search and rescue on emergency services missions. Helicopters can be used for concentrated search efforts, confirming sightings and recovery of victims when justified.  Member-operated helicopters will not be used for the sole purpose of transportation of personnel or equipment."  There were even Helicopter Mission Observer and Scanner ratings, as well as training for flight line personnel.

CAPM 55-1 was superseded by CAP Regulation 55-1 which still allowed member-operated helo ops for SAR, DR, CN (CD) and OPLAN 1000 missions. The manual and reg contained helicopter marshalling signals, LZ setup and a section on remote area helo ops.  Helicopter ops were removed from CAPR 55-1 in the October 1998 revision.

The program died for all the reasons listed.

Mike

[Flying Pig]

Piston helicopters would not work for the type of flying we do for SAR.  Hence, you would need turbine powered helicopters.  Our MD500E's that we have at work cost us about $300 per hour to operate with maintenance, fuel burning at 25 gallons per house, and cost, and thats ASSUMING, you own or CAP owns their helicopters outright.

Training for helicopters to facilitate the types of environments they would be used in, ie. the Fossett search, require hundreds, if not thousands of hours of training.  My Dept. does not let our pilots fly in the mountains until they have minimum 1500 hours Turbine helicopter time.  Your R-22's and Schweizer 300 Pistons arent going to cut it. 

Helicopters require extensive training far beyond whet is even required for a helicopter CFI to allow them to be used int he environments where they are the most effective.  If you have a helicopter just to fly back and forth in a grid, you are wasting money.   If you have them to facilitate rescues, you are going to need training and experience that goes far beyond a lot of abilities of most helicopter pilots.  There are several private individuals that have used their personal helicopters to assist in SAR, and many have been met with devestating results.

[NIN]

You'd think I'd be a huge proponent of CAP helo ops, but I'm here to tell you I'm not.  Why? Simple currency.  SAR flying, and in particular rotary-wing SAR flying, is such a perishable skill that CAP and its pilots simply cannot afford to stay appropriately current for the mission.

I flew in a unit that had as one of its core competencies "search & rescue."  Our pilots got the barest of SAR training, and the only reason we had any clue at all about SAR flying was that I'd gotten my old CO to send me the old SAR manuals (back when all the SAR management and grid search stuff was in one manual, etc) so we had something to train with.  So here I was, 12,000 miles from home, teaching Army helicopter pilots how to fly SAR using CAP fixed-wing manuals and techniques.   We did things like hoist operations, pinnacle landings, water landings, contour flying, etc, in support of SAR ops, and we had the time and flying hours to actually practice these things, and still we spent more time just doing "flying," and not "rotary-wing SAR flying."

And thats not even addressing things like operating & maintenance costs, insurance, pilot qualifications, etc.

I suspect that "Member Owned Helicopter Operations" was due to someone on the NB/NEC either owning/flying a helicopter, or having a DO or someone else with a helo. Spacing - MIKE

[SarDragon]

Remember, a helicopter is nothing more than a large collection of parts flying in close formation, held together with grease and copper wire. 

[wingnut55]

I think we should just contract with "TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE" for all our SAR and Homeland Security Missions, it would be much Cheaper, and they have cool Uniforms

[Flying Pig]

Remember, a helicopter is nothing more than a large collection of parts flying in close formation, held together with grease and copper wire. 

Well, Ill tell you this much, I would rather have an engine failure in a helicopter long before I would take one in an airplane.  Being someone who sees the helicopter I fly in dismantled and put back together just about every two weeks, I can vouch that they are unbelievably complex a machines that are held together under strict tolerances.  Although grease and copper wire is meant as a joke, they are made of some of the highest strength materials around.  I would never fly SAR with anyone in a member owned helicopter that I did not know personally, and did not know first hand how their helicopter is maintained.  Seeing the civilian world, and talking with our full time mechanic who came from the civilian helicopter maintenance world, he has some eye opening horror stories of what "professional operators" have done to cut corners to save money, and some even scarier stories about what he has been quietly asked to do by some of these operators looking to cut costs.
Here in CAP we can fly with as little as 200 hours and a Private.   The training our helicopter pilots receive could only be reached in training with the military or Law Enforcement, or by working full time with a company who is footing the bill, who even then rarely take a newbie with a fresh certificate for employment.  So again, you need to come to the civilian operator with 2500-3000 hours minimum just to start.  If you think Im over stating, go to any helicopter employment site and some of the "minimums" for even entry level jobs are staggering.

Helo ops for SAR......heck yeah!  Helo Ops for CAP.....ummmmm,  NO.  Not to mention, there are but a handful of pilots nation wide who would even qualify to do what would need to be done to exploit the value of a true SAR crew.  Helicopters are very unforgiving, and turbine engines are even less forgiving.  And yes, to do what we would morph them into, we would need turbines.

[Lloyd Bumanglag Capt,CAP]

Thank you everyone for your input........

[Nathan]

Something else to keep in mind...

We don't really NEED helicopters for the type of flying we do in SAR. We have little slow planes that fly over an area (slowly) with people looking out the windows. What could a helicopter do in this area that a plane cannot?

I suppose we can hover, but I hear that's much more difficult to do than people think, and it doesn't serve much more of a purpose than flying around in a circle does. Even if we could use helicopters, we certainly couldn't zipline out of them like pararescuemen, so that use of it is not an option.

I think the typical Cessna serves our purposes well enough. Until we get our SpecOps CAP uber-hardcore rescue teams into place, we just don't have much of a use for a helicopter at this time.

[Flying Pig]

^ :clap:

The only reason we would need them would be to insert or extract people or medivac.   We dont do any of that.  Even at that end, we dont hover for SAR unless we are going to land.  99% of the time, we are flying in an orbit.  It takes a beast of a helicopter to even hover at 10,000 ft, not to mention actually performing  any mission.

[Ned]

So in all seriousness, would an airship be a worthwhile CAP platform?

They would seem to offer advantages in low airspeed and virtually unlimited loiter time for things like grid searches, border, and CN type missions.

I suspect they probably don't do well in windy places like the mountains, however.

There are a number of old Navy blimp and airship hangers still around in California.

Whaddya think?

[G+10]

^ :clap:

The only reason we would need them would be to insert or extract people or medivac.   We dont do any of that.  Even at that end, we dont hover for SAR unless we are going to land.  99% of the time, we are flying in an orbit.  It takes a beast of a helicopter to even hover at 10,000 ft, not to mention actually performing  any mission.

I guess it's all in how you define "beast" I flew UH-1Ns out of Cheyenne Wyoming for 5 years and did a bunch of mountain flying and you guys are right, it's all in the training. Min power takeoffs at 12,000 density altitude can be tricky at times, but not impossible.

I think the one benefit from helicopter SAR is the fact you can land and check things out. Went out on a "search" for a B-1 hatch that blew off in Colorado so we set up an expanding square search on the coordinates and out in the middle of nowhere in the search area there sits a junkyard. "What are the chances?" I thinks to myself! Well we get over the junkyard and we spot something that looks like it might have come off of an aircraft, but nothing like the description we got.

We land and sure enough it is the hatch with the the interior surfaces blown off exposing the zinc oxide painted interior. It was nice to be able to land, flip the thing over and say "Ah Ha!"

John Gniewkowski

[G+10]

So in all seriousness, would an airship be a worthwhile CAP platform?

They would seem to offer advantages in low airspeed and virtually unlimited loiter time for things like grid searches, border, and CN type missions.

I suspect they probably don't do well in windy places like the mountains, however.

There are a number of old Navy blimp and airship hangers still around in California.

Whaddya think?

As long as we could advertise off the side of it I wouldn't have any problems with the idea...

[Climbnsink]

I thought it was purely historical- since no German submarines were sunk with a CAP Helicopter we can't have them now.

[Flying Pig]

In the civilian world, a Huey is a beast.  The one my Dept is looking to buy is $4.5 million dollars pushing 1800 shaft horse.

[G+10]

In the civilian world, a Huey is a beast.  The one my Dept is looking to buy is $4.5 million dollars pushing 1800 shaft horse.

Must be a 214 you guys are looking to buy, the old H model (212) was something like 1100 shaft horse power.

Spent 3700 hours in various H-1 models in Army training and in the Air Force and never appreciated it as a beast--in a world of MH-53's and H-60's even a twin Huey is the VW Bus of the helicopter world! 

[heliodoc]

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The Huey isn't the beast .... it's the $4.5 mil that is.

Worked on em 21 yrs ... built pretty much like a small tank.  Unlike some of today's plastic helicopters