AROUND AIRCRAFT: HELICOPTER AND FIXED WING SAFETY

The Technique

1. **Treat the main rotor as a moving wall, not a ceiling.** The blades turn fast and they are not rigid. They flex, they cone, and they sag. At low rotor speed during start up and shut down, and in gusty wind, the disc can dip well below the height it sits at when the machine is at full power. That is why a blade can be at head height even though it looked high when you were standing back. The ground makes it worse, because the ground is rarely flat and the disc stays level with the machine, not with the slope. The working rule is simple. You approach and you leave in the pilot's view, in the arc forward of the cabin where the pilot can see you and stop you. Your briefing will describe the exact arc for that machine, often using a clock face, and the arc is not the same on every type. If you ever need to get to the other side, you walk around the front, well outside the disc, staying visible the whole way. You never cut through under the blades to save time.
2. **The tail rotor is the one that kills, and it is invisible.** A turning tail rotor is close to impossible to see. It sits lower than the main disc on many machines, it is often near head height, and it is not guarded. People have walked into tail rotors in daylight, on flat ground, while sober and calm, because there was nothing there for their eyes to catch. So the rule is absolute and it does not have exceptions. You never walk behind a helicopter. Not to grab a bag, not to reach the other door, not because someone else did it, not because the machine looks like it is winding down. The safe ground is forward of the cabin doors and out to the sides toward the front. Everything from the cabin doors rearward is a no go zone until the blades have stopped and the crew tells you otherwise. Teach this to anyone in your group who has not flown before, and watch them, because it is the mistake first timers make.
3. **Move only on a clear signal, and never invent one.** Nobody approaches the aircraft, and nobody leaves it, until the pilot or the guide gives the signal that the briefing set. A door opening is not a signal. Another passenger walking is not a signal. A thumbs up from someone in the cabin who cannot see what you can see is not a signal. Engine noise dropping is not a signal. If you cannot see the signal, you stay still, crouched, with your gear held down, and you wait. Waiting costs nothing. Guessing costs everything. The same applies in reverse when you get out. You stay where you are put, low and together, until you are waved clear, then you go the way you were shown and you keep going until you are well outside the disc. If anything at all is unclear, you stop and ask before you move. No pilot or guide has ever been annoyed by a question at this point in the day.
4. **On a slope, always work from the downhill side.** When a helicopter sits on sloping ground the rotor disc stays with the machine, so on the uphill side the ground rises toward the blades and the gap between the disc and the snow or rock shrinks fast. Walking up to the uphill door puts your head and anything you are carrying into the arc while you still think you are clear. Approach and depart from the downhill side, every time, and if the landing is on a knoll or a ridge where downhill is not obvious, take the direction the guide points and nothing else. This is also why the crew may ask you to move a long way around before you approach. That detour is not fussiness. It is the only way to reach the door without ever being above the level of the skids. On steep terrain the pilot may hold the machine with only part of the skid on the snow, which makes the whole thing even more sensitive to where your weight goes and when.
5. **Stay low, and carry everything flat.** Move in a crouch with your head down, your hands low and your eyes on where you are going. Do not straighten up until you are well clear. Skis, boards, poles, probes, shovels, tripods and camera poles are carried horizontally at waist height, held firmly, parallel to the ground, and never upright, never over the shoulder, never on end while you shuffle them into a bag. A vertical object in a rotor arc is fatal, and it does not need to reach the blades on its own, because rotor wash and a stumble on soft snow will lift it for you. If a strap slips or something starts to slide, let it drop and keep moving. You can pick it up later, or the guide will, once the machine is shut down or gone. The same applies to packs. Carry them low in one hand or wear them, and do not swing them up onto a shoulder anywhere near the machine.
6. **Secure every loose item before you go anywhere near it.** Rotor wash is stronger than people expect and it comes from an angle you do not expect. It takes hats, beanies, gloves, buffs, hoods, sunglasses, goggle covers, map sheets, lens caps, camera straps, unzipped jacket flaps, foam packing and rubbish, and it can put any of them into the main rotor or straight down an engine intake. That is a risk to the aircraft and everyone in it, not just an annoyance. Before you approach, do up your jacket, put your hood down or done up, pockets zipped, gloves on your hands and not tucked under an arm, camera and phone on a secured strap or in a closed pocket, nothing balanced on top of a pack. If something does blow away while the machine is running, you let it go. You do not chase it and you do not point at it and walk after it. Tell the guide when you are clear and it gets dealt with later.
7. **Loading and unloading is the crew's routine, and you follow it exactly.** The loadmaster, pilot or guide decides who sits where, in what order, with which bags, and that order is usually about weight and balance rather than preference. Get in the way you were shown, sit down, and put your seat belt on straight away and firmly. Do not touch controls, levers, latches or handles. Do not open or close a door yourself unless you have specifically been told to and shown how, because helicopter doors are light, they are easily damaged, and a door that comes off in flight is an emergency. Keep hands and gear inside. Stay seated and belted until you are told to move, including after landing, because the machine may lift again or reposition. When you are released, undo the belt, take only your own gear, get out low, and go the way you were shown. Headsets, if you have them, stay put unless the crew says otherwise, and the intercom is for the crew, not for chat.
8. **If you are the group waiting on the ground, position and brace before it arrives.** Rotor wash on snow produces spindrift and can create a full whiteout where you cannot see the machine, the guide or your own group. On dust or dry ground it does the same in brown, with grit and small stones. Move well clear of the landing zone in the direction the guide sets, at least far enough that the wash is uncomfortable rather than overwhelming, and get everything on the ground and secured before the machine is on final. Skis and poles go flat and crossed or pushed into the snow, packs go on top of them or on your lap, nothing stands upright. Then crouch or kneel with your back to the machine, goggles down, hood up, hands on your gear, and stay there. Do not stand up in a whiteout to see what is happening. Do not walk toward the sound. Stay put until the wash drops and you get the signal.
9. **Fixed wing on remote strips has its own rules, and a stopped propeller is not a safe propeller.** A turning prop is invisible and it extends further than people judge, so you never walk around the nose of a light aircraft. On a high wing single you approach and leave from behind the trailing edge of the wing, in the crew's view, and you keep the wing between you and the prop as you move. Never touch a propeller, even with the engine off and the switches off, because a fault can fire a cylinder and turn it. Before start you will hear a call and see the crew look around, and by then everyone must be clear, belted and quiet. Loading is by weight and balance, so the pilot decides where people sit and where bags go, and that is a flight safety decision that is not open to negotiation or a swap for the window seat. On outback strips, expect hazards that a sealed runway does not have: kangaroos, cattle, emus and birds, soft or wet surfaces, loose stones that damage props, and crosswinds. Stay off the strip, stay in one group where the crew can see you, and keep your gear weighted down so nothing blows onto the surface.
10. **If something goes wrong on the ground, you do what the crew says and nothing else.** A ground incident, a warning, a fuel or fluid smell, a bird strike on the roll, a hard landing or an aborted start is a moment where the crew's instruction is the only plan. Listen, then move the way they indicate, keeping out of rotor and prop arcs the whole way. If no instruction is possible, get out as briefed, go forward and out to the side away from the tail and away from the fuel side, and keep moving until you are clearly out of the way. Then form up where the crew or guide directs so a headcount can be done. Do not go back for gear, do not split up, do not film it, and do not stand in a place where the machine might have to move. The overriding rule for everything in this lesson is this. The briefing you are given on the day by that operator, for that machine, on that landing site, overrides anything general you have read here, including this. If you are unsure at any point, you stop where you are and you ask.

Common Mistakes

Standing up too early after getting out, especially on soft snow where you sink then straighten. Fix: stay in a crouch until you are well outside the disc and you have been waved clear.

• Walking around the tail to reach the far door or the far side. Fix: always go around the front, wide, in the pilot's view.
• Carrying skis, poles or a probe over the shoulder or upright while shuffling gear near the machine. Fix: everything horizontal at waist height, held with two hands where possible.
• Treating someone else moving as your signal to move. Fix: only the pilot or guide signals, and you wait for yours.
• Chasing a blown hat, glove or lens cap. Fix: let it go and report it once you are clear.
• Approaching a slope landing from the uphill side because it is the shorter walk. Fix: downhill side only, or the exact line the guide points out.
• Opening or closing an aircraft door yourself out of habit. Fix: hands off, wait for the crew.
• Assuming a stopped propeller or a winding down rotor is safe to walk past. Fix: treat both as live until the crew says the aircraft is safe.
• Standing to watch the machine land instead of getting low and holding your gear. Fix: gear down and secured, crouch, back turned, goggles on.

The Drill

Run a cold rotor walk before the first flying day, on flat ground and then on a slope. Lay a rope or a line of wands as the main rotor disc, mark the cabin with two packs and the tail with a ski pole, and set a waiting point thirty or so paces off to the side. The group then runs the full sequence: wait crouched with gear flat and secured, receive a signal from the person acting as guide, approach in a crouch from the correct side carrying skis horizontally, mock load and buckle, sit still, unload on signal, and depart to the waiting point. The standard is three clean runs in a row from the whole group, where nobody moves without a signal, nothing anyone carries rises above waist height, nobody crosses the line level with the cabin doors, nobody stands upright inside the disc, and nobody has a loose item on them. Any fault by any person resets the count to zero. Then repeat the approach on a slope, from downhill only, until it is automatic.

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