MD500 Tuna Boat Landing and Shutdown
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Hey all, wanted to share some more raw footage of what it's like to fly the OH-6A (MD-500) off of a tuna fishing vessel. I do my best to describe what I'm doing so it makes more sense for more viewers. It is not intended to be an instructional video nor am I a perfect pilot. I'm still a low time pilot just sharing what I do for a living.
First off, cool points for flying Jimmy Buffet style; barefoot in board shorts.
Secondly, the coolest helicopter ever!
Those MD500's are the sports cars of the sky for sure! This one looks like an older model. The ones I've seen the mast base that extends into the cockpit are much larger.
500’s are the best. I have hundreds of flights in a Bell 206B on a Tuna boat.
Good job. I only question bare feet.
Also I used to land downwind becouse it
limits turbulence on landing.
what I came to say, lol
Love your videos man! No music and constant narration with captions keeps it interesting.
no music is the big one
Those elements would have ruined the majesty
I'm impressed how clean the ship is, the heli pad is spotless.
Oh yeah, they take real good care of the ship. They're always cleaning and painting the thing
Well done - you made that look so easy. I've flown in helicopters and I know it's not all that simple. Great job!
Thanks! I definitely struggled a lot in the beginning and honestly still had those off days in the end. But I definitely grew a lot as a pilot out here
Thanks for sharing. Seems like a pretty cool gig! I hope you're having some fun building time.
Yeah it's definitely a pretty fun adventure. I've been enjoying it so far. I'll probably extend my contract a little while
I like the rug you landed on...really ties the deck together.
I see what you did there 🤣 it is a very Japanese thing to have an anime character painted on it though
I don't know if I would want to live on a boat like that but the heli flying looks awesome. Is it strange to fly in a blue void with no references besides your GPS?
You should see the Taiwanese boats that a lot of my coworkers are on. I've got a floating Ritz Carlton compared to a lot of them lol. It was pretty strange at first, especially with flat light in those more overcast hazy days. But you start to learn new reference points. Like you can see differences in the water from currents, or the position of the sun helps keep your bearings
Transmitter on frequency and an adf.
@@petesmith9472Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat.
@@sinfulldoubtwhat a lovely flying where are you from
@@sinfulldoubtis it hard to become a helicopter pilot in usa
Awesome to watch! I'm VR sim-learning to fly choppers in DCS, Russian stuff like the Mi-8 and Hind-24. It has been a struggle+ but getting there. Transitional flight and vortex ring state have blown me up more times than I can recall. I can now understand circling choppers trying to bleed speed and how difficult they are. Your vid is super interesting and informative - kudos!
Glad you enjoyed it! I need to get back into DCS. I used to play it back when it was only the black shark. Those aren't easy helicopters to learn on either. The mi-8 is pretty well known for being ready to get into VRS.
@@sinfulldoubt Hey =] Yeah I got the Hind a year ago and have only JUST started to get it sorted. Got the Mi-8 a month or 2 back and its been awesome for learning. You should check DCS out in current form, I'd say its hugely improved, theres a good free blackhawk uh60 mod if you get keen to DL DCS again, though if you do it on steam go for the openbeta version. Thanks for the reply!
@@bm4n1 oh yeah! There's so many modules I want now lol. I need to build a solid desktop with VR and then get the Apache and the F14 then basically every other module 🤣 I'll just never leave the house at that point
Nice one mate, only a fixed-wing pilot here, but you inspired me to get my rotary. Keep them coming!
Glad I can convince you to come to the fun side 😉
@@sinfulldoubt This looks way more fun than flying tubeliners lol
Given this is the original OH-6A have you ever encountered the Hughes "tail spin" or had to study the phenomenon? I believe it occurs in slow tight banked turns to the right when the canted tailplane starts creating lift resulting in the nose being pitched down. This killed a lot of Vietnam war scout pilots until they understood it and identified the method to recover from it. This is also the reason the later models had the T shape tail.
You know, this is the first I'm hearing about this but would explain a few things I've seen/experienced out there.
@@sinfulldoubt check the Operating Manual (-10), it has a caution against entering slow right turns when low to the ground.
The Hughes Tailspin, as explained to me by none other than a Vietnam war Army pilot who trained pilots on the recovery drill, is caused by the rotor downwash interacting with the stabiliser when it is banked to the right creating lift and pitching the nose down. As you can imagine these pilots operated very close to the ground so they didn't really have much time to react sadly.
Quote from a very old PPRUNE post:
"In the OH6a, (500C) the V tail can develop lift and force the nose of the helicopter down and to the right when you have a right quartering tail wind. This is not loss of tail rotor authority. It is the wind exerting a force on the LARGE stablizers. If you do not have enough altitude you may not be able to correct the attitude without ground contact."
@@andrewbergman9315 "ground contact" is a disconcertingly neutral way of putting it.
This is great, thanks. I flew a R22 a few years back in Trenton, Florida. At the Mosquito Fest.
It was a good time. Nice stuff to see and to fly!! Loved it. Thanks for this.
You have an absolute dream job 👍 Sea, ships, sun and helicopter flying.
Like TC from the TV series Magnum P.I. but you do it for real, great.
love your videos.
Always wish you a good and safe flight and always a good take-off and landing. Stay healthy and take care of yourself.
Many greetings from Germany.
Please excuse my bad English 😉
Brought back a lot of great memories. I flew off the boats for a couple years in Mexico. Of all the jobs I’ve had, that was by far the most fun. Only had one engine failure lol
Well good thing you're still here to talk about it. I don't think I'll ever top that job. As boring as the flights could be at times, it was such a fun adventure
@@sinfulldoubt we had 25 boats in our code group (Portuguese captains who regardless of what companies we worked for shared daily spotting and catch totals) Out of our 25 boats we had 7 crashes which was not considered crazy. Mexican maintenance was……sub optimal lol. Still it was so much fun
I like your landing mat 😜 looks like a really cool job. Thanks for these high quality videos.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it
What a cool way to build time! Hope you get that dream heli-job I know you are working for.
Thank you! Yeah I'm hoping to get into the heavy lift and firefighting world in the next few years.
Barefoot on the pedals. Just chillin'
Loved my time in the Philippines. Some challenging flying for sure. Great food too!
Oh yeah, I'm gonna miss it a lot
I never knew flipping the pedal locks the tail rotor into place like that. Very cool video, guys definitely have everything down pat
Yeah if we didn't flip it around, the wind coming off the bow would feather the tail rotor blades a lot.
Hands down the coolest job ever.
Oh yeah, I definitely miss it at times
Looks like a fun ass job man! I’d love to transition to helicopters at some point but the cost of training is hard to justify as a corporate airplane pilot. Very cool video.
P.S. Pretty sure the FAA recommends you wear shoes but I’m guessing they’re no factor where you’re at. 👍 Honestly, if you had to swim you’re probably better off without’ em!
Yeah I think they might, but I'd rather not try to swim with shoes on if I had to.
Sneakers (trainers) would be light enough for flying in the tropics, especially ‘doors off.’ They would also offer some level of protection from fire, torn metal or shards of Plexiglas, in the event of an emergency. Additionally, they would give you better grip on a potentially slippery surface, when evacuating.
Beautifully done, with bare feet! I think I found my newest dream job 😁 too bad I'm not a heli pilot or have the coordination to become one so I'll have to stick with my cessna 162 for now. Safe flying and travels!
Oh you got this! It just takes practice
Nice ship! Looks old enough to be a Hughes 500.
Damn things have changed names three times! Hughes, then MD, then Boeing!
I've always loved these eggycopters.
Yup! It's a Hughes OH-6A
Cool. Being from Nova Scotia, didn’t know helos were used for spotting. On the east coast there, tuna spotting is done from shore based modified super cubs carrying around 12 hrs worth of fuel that fly out to rendevous with the boat.😊
Oh wow that's an interesting way to do it
Sweet. It was pretty interesting to experience the raw footage.
Glad you enjoyed it
I've got about 3000 hours in D's and E's but I've never flown a C model, let alone barefoot.....lol. I used to love it flying front doors off as long it wasn't too cold. Kudo's to you man!
Thanks! It was definitely a fun adventure out there
Love how you fly barefoot. total chill.
It's the best way to go. I love that it's an option out here
Hope you keep all your toes.
@@dimitri9959 don't see why I wouldn't
@MarkInSavannah I was kind of thinking that, but hey, why not I bet you get WAY better feedback that way and can be even more precise.
It’s the on deck silence after shut down that always gets me before the wobble down to the galley.
Oh yeah, it's nice when you shut down that loud engine 🤣
It is so cool to see the whole process. Great landing.
Your flying is great. With skills like this I'm sure you'll get the last tuna real soon.
no one will get the last tuna, youre being a prick for no reason, eat a salad if you dont want to eat animals.
Wonderful landing views, thanks for very beautiful video congratulations, excellent photography 🙏
Awesome! I love that perspective, just perfect! Nice landing, too! :)
Of all the helicopter approaches and landings I've seen, this is the first one I've seen were the the pilot is shoeless haha. Good landing friend!
😂 yeah that's the best way to do it lol. Gonna have to start wearing shoes again at my next job though
@@sinfulldoubt Ahh interesting! Hope to see videos of that in the future. :) I'm in the middle of my CPL course.
Really cool job and very nice landing. So, are you the Tuna spotter for the ship? Fly a certain radius or free flying ahead of the ship in no particular pattern? I chuckled when I saw your bare feet but realized it would be good not to have shoes if you go down in the drink. I'll check your playlist so I don't max out on my questions. LOL Definitely a different type of aviation. I'm not a pilot but had 35 years in the USAF and in Vietnam my barracks was across the street from Hotel 3 Army Helipad. Saw every kind of helo in the inventory. Cheers, Bob (CMSgt, USAFRet)
Thanks! Yeah we are the fish spotters. Our job is to fly around and help the boat find fish quicker, since we can cover much more area than the ship can. Most of the time we fly point to point and the fish master directs us to where he wants us. But sometimes they just have us fly I giant kinda box pattern in front of the ship. That's what I fly barefoot though, no need for shoes out in the water if that's where I end up.
This two video capture was absolutely awesome. Can you tell me a little bit more about spinning the blades backwards and how that helps the engine during the cooldown process?
Also, I am shocked at how clean the ship looks, and the chopper for that matter. I always see fishing boats that are, lets say, have lots of room to improve in the cleanliness department. From what I could see in the two videos, it looks very tidy and with rather nice equipment.
Thanks! Yeah it's a really nice ship. I won the lottery with this boat. As far as turning the blades backwards, it helps evacuate some of the hot exhaust stuck in the engine and also helps prevent oil from coking on the bearings immediately after shutdown
@@sinfulldoubt How much do you rotate the blades in order for it to be effective?
@@VictoryAviation Typically, one reverse rotation is sufficient for the Allison turbine, used in the Hughes 500.
Andy’s stylin and profilin with those pants.
Oh yeah, I needed to get myself a pair as well lol
Heli's are so much fun and landing on a ship that pitches and rolls is an E ticket. Rainy, rough weather makes for memorable adventures. 😉
Oh yeah I'll definitely always remember those landings when you were racing a storm back to the ship
One of my first flying jobs wayyy back in 1993 was doing air tours (fixed wing in a c172) up and down the beach in ocean city MD. No shirt no shoes, boss' policy. Nice job, you need the theme from Magnum pi playing next time
Lol that would be pretty awesome
I love this video. Man's got a fascinating job.
It was certainly an awesome adventure
What are those round, silver things on racks with number labels on them? There was on on the floor of the cockpit in the previous video. I'm guessing some sort of floating, radio-beacon marker that can be dropped on a school of fish for easy location... As a pilot, I'd be afraid of losing the boat and having to swimm... 😮 Super video, thanks!
Flying barefoot made me laugh. Makes sense but I wasn't ready for the toes lool. Cool job.
Lol nobody was ready for the toes 😂
How is nobody going to comment on Andy's PANTS! Those babies were amazing! I think I'm team Andy.
This channel is now called " THE BAREFOOTED PILOT "
Lol works for me 😂
Definitely subscribing…love the content man!
Thanks!
You’re a skilled pilot…subbed…what’s with the No shoes thing? In case when you have to ditch in the ocean?
Thanks, appreciate it! Yeah I didn't want to have to try to swim with shoes on if it happened. Plus it was nice getting more feedback from the pedals without the shoes
Man that's a clean tuna boat!!!!
Oh yeah, it's very nice
@@sinfulldoubt They'd love me. I'm viscously clean. I oughta do that.
My guys living the dream flying without shoes 😂
I did not know that the rotor on the top was connected with the rotor on the tail, but I gues I learned something new today😊
Yup! They're connected through the main rotor transmission
Flying the help with bare feet…quite cool !
Wow! For an average pilot, you can probably fly helicopters off the US Navy aircraft carriers! 😄👍❤️ Wonderful video, thanks!
What an amazing job.. I cant say that I am not jealous... What an adventure every day it must be..
Oh yeah it was the adventure of a lifetime. I definitely miss it
@@sinfulldoubt miss it? You dont do this no more?
@@13skills65 yeah I definitely miss it. It was simpler times and a sweet adventure. But I do like being home as well
@@sinfulldoubt well i hope you have a great time in your new adventures!
@@13skills65 thanks!
love the doreamon landing pad at 1:50
Lol it took me so long to realize that's what it was
Time to go down to the galley and get a slice of pie and some coffee.
Great Landing!
So, despite reading the description and knowing it's the Civvie version and this is all above board...
I'm still thinking in my head "When he fast ropes in those Operators, the boat is gonna have a bad time"
That would be a good way to drop off the spotter when he needs to get on his speed boat lol
Awesome! How to do find the ship again? What GPS / Nav equipment do you have and what's the procedure?
I'm not entirely sure how they had it setup but they used a Garmin GPS designed for a boat and had another beacon on the ship. My GPS always showed home on my screen so I knew where the boat was. But also depending on the visibility I could see the boat from 30+ miles away a lot of the time
Hey Bubba, Tell my cousin Andy that I like his "Floral" pajama pants.
-Maynard
😂 will do lol. He got a handful of those from the fish master and wears them all the time.
The graphics are amazing
Almost like real life 😉
Yeww, I've built a couple 530's in Mesa, amazing aircraft
Oh yeah, I wanna try out one of those 530s eventually
Any flying job where you can be in bare feet rocks!
dudes coming in for a landing bare foot! hahaha that made me laugh! Love it nothing said about that in the video lol.
That's the best way to fly 🤣
love the safety boots!!!!
I miss flying that way 🤣
Very impressive. I can barely land a little Mavic Drone on a moving boat.
I wouldn't be able to land one of those either I bet 🤣
EXCELLENT Skill.. You either know your bird or you do not. This was seriously intune! Put a s,ile on my face, for sure!!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video
I remember those tuna boats when I lived in American Samoa. Some of those helicopter pilots were crazy.😇
Oh yeah there's some long time pilots out there that are very good. Always made you question your skill after watching them 🤣
I’ve never flown barefoot before, I may need to try lol 😂
How does turning the head backwards prevent oil coking up on the engine bearings? Doesn't the free wheel unit disconnect the engine/PT from the tranny? I have never worked on a little bird so have no idea.
Yeah on a turbine engine is does disconnect but when you turn the rotors backyards, it's about the same thing as making it think that the engine is turning faster than the rotors so it will engage. You can hear the wheels turning inside the engine as we move the blades backwards.
Radio audio ?
Not really anything worth grabbing.
Love your videos! What's your background if you don't mind me asking? Tuna Boat flying is something I'd love to take a shot at in the future but not sure about prior experience/hours required.
Thanks! I really didn't have much of a background before this. I did one season of cherry drying before this. Then I did a bit of time with an AG company before I finally got hired on for tuna with about 200 hours. So you don't really need a ton of hours. You just have to show them that you can fly and handle life on a boat really
@@sinfulldoubt Nice! keep up the videos!
I’ll be finished with my commercial license and instrument rating in December but man I would love life on a boat and flying like this! Where are you based out of??
@@Hug_life my ship is based out of Japan. I got nice and lucky
@@sinfulldoubt how's the pay on a scale of 1-10? Sorry for the personal inquiry.
You've got yourself a great job.
Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to miss it
damn, whoever modeled this in arma did a good job, the reflections almost look ray-traced!
😂 almost like real life
@@sinfulldoubt fr it's crazy
I love aviation and this video is realy cool. I also noticed the technical expense for tuna fishing here. Thinking about how much tuna you need to catch to be profitable, twist my mind and makes me sad somehow.
Yeah it's pretty crazy how much fish we snag. But there's a lot of people that get fed by it.
What skill landing!
Thanks!
More tunacopter videos please!
you made that look so easy. hows the salt treat the little bird?
Thanks! It definitely didn't feel like it 😂 unfortunately we were always battling corrosion out there though
Yeah, Andy has balls of fucking steel.
Because he put up with me for a year? 😂
How many flights did you make total on your trip, takeoff to touchdown? And of those flights how many times would you spot fish? Yellowfin are crazy fast, what prevents them from simply moving off from the area you spotted them? Great videos
I made about 250 flights out there. We usually spotted multiple schools just about every single flight but not all of them were good catches. They could have been juvenile or had too many whales in them etc. they do move fast but usually not when they're feeding. But generally once the ship got within 15-20 miles or so, they'd launch us again to help find the school if they were having trouble finding them again
@@sinfulldoubt Incredible stuff, not sure which is cooler Tuna boat heli or NYC heli. They are so unique. Next you need to start flying mountain rescue or wild boar hunting flights haha.
I swear to god from the thumbnail I thought this was a game
Lol a lot of people think this is a flight SIM 🤣
Just a safety thing, you *might* not want to allow your passenger to put that lifejacket in front of the starboard petals, in case the ship did roll and you needed to react.
There's no pedals at all over there so no worries luckily
Awesome video!
Thanks!
Awesome video, why do you have to cool down the engines before a full shutoff?
The manual requires a 2 minute cool down for basically every helicopter before shutdown to stabilize temps and help cool everything down with the airflow. The turbine outlet temps can pretty easily reach 1100+⁰F on landing depending on how much power you have to pull in
最高な仕事、綺麗な海にOH-6😆🚁
それに何故か？😓
ドラえもんの着陸ポイント😂。
OH-6A（JとD）は、日本では飛んでません🇯🇵
1番好きなヘリコプターでした。😊
Well that was excellent to watch. Im inspired mate. Put some shoes on eh?
Eh I'll put shoes on at my next job lol
I have so many question, Is this your work ? For which company are you working for ? How this work is called ? What an helicopter licence cost ? How many hour do you have to be able to work for a tuna boat ? Do you have an email so we can contact you ? Thank you very much !
Question: Is it hazardous for you when your passenger ,when he exits the heli , throws his orange life jacket on the tail rotor pedals, because if you have to take off suddenly before they tie-down the heli, the life jacket can perhaps get entangled in the pedals and you might loose control of the tail rotor??
Good observation. There's actually no pedals on his side, just a welded foot rest so no danger to me. In other helicopters I would be much more concerned
Care to share how to get a job like yours mate? I fly offshore with s76 for 10 years now, but your job seems way more fun!
I’m trying to pay for flight classes now! It’s expensive, going to try and save up all the funds for atleast the private license, and see if I can pay enough for commercial after or keep it as a hobby. I’m fascinated by helicopters
I wouldn't have thought that it would be efficient to send a helicopter to look for fish. Pretty crazy.
Yeah kinda a weird thought. But makes sense compared to sending the ship everywhere
A nicely put together video. I was wondering: Is this aircraft an ex-US military OH-6, fitted with the Allison C-18 turbine?
From the paint scheme, I wondered if this aircraft had also seen prior service with the US Border Patrol?
Yeah it's an OH-6A with a C18. Not sure on it's past though
Sweet gig man
It definitely is, I'm gonna miss it when I move on
@@sinfulldoubt come to hawaii, tons of jobs opening
Great video, what speed is that boat traveling when you approach and land? looking at the video seems like a challenge to just plop down like that.
Yeah it definitely was a challenge at first. Usually they were doing 11-13 knots which is much easier than when the boat stops
Looks like one of mine from Viet Nam but it does not have enough dents and bends. How many hours TT does that bird have?
All the bobbing around must make landing on a boat a real headache
What's the purpose of having heli on tuna boat? Shuttling workers? Supplies?
We mostly just searched for the fish so that the ship wasn't literally burning tons of fuel chugging along at 13 knots
Pretty cool
Love your shoes!
Lol thanks! I was born with them
You need to replace that missing fire extinguisher.
Don't imagine I'll need it out there
How long are you on the ship? Do you have other duties on the ship besides flying?
Our contact is a minimum of one year. My only responsibility is the helicopter. I fly it and help the mechanic when needed. Otherwise I get to just lounge around in the ship playing video games or whatever sounds good
@@sinfulldoubt jeez that sounds good, where is this? Is this considered to be a entry level heli job or is it something you only get with a bunch of hours?
@@rickardrisberg6999 I'm based on a Japanese boat so we go to Japan every time we offload. A majority of boats our company contracts to are Taiwanese though and they go to the smaller Marshall Islands usually. It's more of an every level job for a lot of people though. They prefer more time but a lot of us got hired on around 2-400 hours
@@sinfulldoubt Cool, are you employed in Japan and reside full time in Japan or are you working as a contractor through the US?
@@rickardrisberg6999 I'm a contractor through a different company. So no residence in Japan. I just get a shore pass every time we come back to offload
Ain’t that heli a Hughes 500 C? rather than a MD 500?
Great stuff. want to do that just once, maybe for a season?
Well if you've got your heli certificate, we're always hiring. But it's a 12 month commitment for the contract
I'm impressed how clean th
Yeah they did a great job taking care of the ship
dam those rotors are so loud.
even when i'm using noise cancelling headphones in my room I can still hear the sound. 🙃
Oh yeah, that's why I had to have ear plugs or headphones under my helmet