How Helicopters Land in Rough Seas

Landing a helicopter on a moving ship may already be tricky, but it becomes much more tricky in rough seas, when the ship is rolling and pitching. Thanks to the Canadian "bear-trap", helicopters can land a lot more safely. But how multiple helicopters can land on a small ship that only has one landing spot, is #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT

Music:
Intense Thrill - Bonnie Grace
There is no Sequel - Philip Ayers
Chaos Theory - Ava Low
Virginia Highway - Tigerblood Jewel
Dark Water - Magnus Ludvigsson
Refined Enlightment - Howard Harper - Barnes

Footage:
Prism Defence
Forsvaret
Sketchpad Warrior
paddle562
armysgt90able
Cramm HLS
Netherlands Navy
arko
roadglide447
National Archives
Videoblocks

US Department of Defense

Note: "The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."

[Pubk]

Major Buong’s story is pretty interesting to me. He had balls to try landing a Cessna on a carrier.

[NuclarDude]

The fact that the Midway's Captain didn't hesitate at all to clear the deck for that Cessna speaks volumes about what mattered to him.

[Manannan_mac_Lir]

I enjoyed the pause for effect after “S-HOL”

[ianlowry]

Pretty cool to hear about that USS Midway story. I have been on that ship since it is docked in San Diego and is setup as a aircraft carrier museum.

[jamesharrison]

My dad was a navy rescue diver on helicopters. I remember as a kid asking him how they landed helicopters in rough weather. Seemed so simple once he explained it. A life saving device for sure.

[bonechawneomusic]

S-HOLE is the best mnemonic device in existence now and all thanks to you. 😁

[revolver]

I appreciate your longer videos :) nice to listen to while I clean up my room since I'm not really interested in war, but how materiel gets places in the military through transport and engineering is awesome.

[fearthehoneybadger]

Transporting to my ship, I was lowered by cable onto the moving vessel. It was quite a rush.

[HaechiYT]

That last story was insane and you told it very well. I think it would be a very interesting format for your channel, the telling of incredible stories like that.

[thespectre]

this is a topic I have wanted more insight on for a while, thank you Not What You Think team!

[BadDadDodge]

that is an awesome story at the end where they portray that life is priceless. fair play to those sailors for ditching the helicopters to save the family

[GamerbyDesign]

What a legend. Dropped 10 Million worth of helicopters to save 7 lives. Proably didnt even have to think about it.

[Cyclegladiator]

That Cessna landing on aircraft carrier is an amazing story. Thanks for posting

[whatever_]

The Bung lee story is much more interesting than just this.. The aircraft that he landed on the Midway, was kept and put at the "National Naval Museum" which it is still at today!

[ludovicbon]

The frigate in very rough sea is the Latouche-Tréville (D646), a French F70 ASW frigate (class Georges Leygues) . The footage are from the film "Océans" by Jacques Perrin, a french actor and director . The Latouche-Tréville has been retired 2 days ago and leaved Brest, saluted by 21 canon shots .

[flyingbeaver]

Thanks for mentioning the Royal Canadian Navy's invention of the Bear Trap. What we lack in funding, we tried to make up for with ingenuity. I'm sorry to say that this situation has not improved in recent years. Those serving in the RCN today, at every rank, continue to do outstanding work.

[BMF]

I was a Marine company commander during the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975. We were embarked on the LPD Denver. There was a continuous flow of South Vietnamese helicopters landing on our ship. As soon as the people were off, we pushed it overboard while the next helicopters was attempting to land. They were also ditching along side our ship. I lost count of the number of helicopters we pushed into the sea but we ended up with several thousand refugees on our ship alone. The Navy took them all to Subic Bay, The Philippines where we spent time setting up a refugee camp in an area known as the Upper MAU Camp.

The scene looked like D-Day 1944 with ships as far as you could see from horizon to horizon. Russian recon planes were overflying us several times a day.

It was an amazing operation.

[LION-NUMBA-ONE]

Such a Canadian solution to the problem.

“Sir, we can’t land these helicopters on the ships due to rough seas!”

“Here, just put this ol reliable bear trap on the deck and run a cable up to the helicopter! Should do the trick!”

[LiebensteinMovies]

Much more interesting than expected, absolute stunning footage!

[hammond]

Been there, done wasn't fun. Imagine landing 2 MH-53J's on the USS Missouri's helicopter pad that was designed accommodate only 1 H-3. There was no bear trap system and even if there was, we had to land on opposite corners to keep the rotor blades from hitting each other. One main landing gear of each helicopter was right next to the wire at the edge of the deck which meant, the tip tank was hanging out over the water. Me being the flying crew chief at that time, had to go out and place the wheel chocks and safety pins. The inboard side was easy enough but, I had to climb up onto the sponson (main fuel tank), then out onto the gull wing (holds the tip tank) and hanging my head over the side (seeing that the water was very far away) to insert the 12 inch long safety pin.
On a later landing, one of the pilots (thankfully not on the helicopter I was assigned to) misjudged his landing and smacked the deck hard enough to blow the seals on all 3 landing gear struts, spilling hydraulic fluid all over the deck.