Sea King progress

Further to this post, there is some welcome news:

Military: Sea King pilot time up 35%
Flight time for choppers also up since 2006 crash

A Sea King helicopter lifts a crew member aboard off George’s Island in Halifax Harbour on Sept. 19 after taking part in a charity event. (Tim Krochak / Staff)

The amount of time Sea King pilots get in the air has increased considerably since a crash off Denmark nearly three years ago that investigators blamed on "an insidious combination of circumstances that led to a lowering of aircrew proficiency."

A recent report from the air force probe points to poor training due to a lack of working helicopters and available ships to practise night landings on as root causes of the Feb. 2, 2006, crash that happened when a Sea King tried to touch down at night on the deck of HMCS Athabaskan.

All five of the helicopter’s crew survived the crash into the ocean, but the subsequent investigation revealed pilots were only getting the bare minimum of training.

"The aircraft accident kind of happened at our low point and we’ve been climbing up ever since then," Maj. John Schwindt, the military’s maritime helicopter readiness expert, said Friday.

Since 2005-06, there has been a 20 per cent increase in the annual flying rate for Sea Kings, he said.

"And the average pilot time is up 35 per cent since that time."

The availability of ships to practise night landings on has also increased, said Maj. Schwindt, a Sea King navigator.

"The navy is willing and able to support the training," he said...

Attrition among technicians who service the 45-year-old choppers was a real problem at the time of the 2006 crash, he said.

But the air force has since increased the number of technicians who work on the Sea Kings. "We’ve had a significant improvement in the quality and the quantity of trained technicians we have that are doing the maintenance."

In 2006, the military trained 67 technicians and in 2008, it produced 76 technicians.

"Maintenance hours have been reduced by about 20 per cent and because of that, mean down time has decreased."

The air force only has one Sea King flight simulator, located at Shearwater, which the accident report says "is not of sufficient quality or fidelity to authentically replicate flying conditions."

Despite the lack of computer graphics, Maj. Schwindt said it sometimes runs 14 hours a day.

"Obviously, nothing will . . . ever replace flying the actual machine," he said.

The report on the 2006 accident says the pilots had "absolute minimum" training levels.

"We haven’t lowered the standards at all since then," Maj. Schwindt said...