Situational Awareness, Flying Weather and Airmanship

Pilots should have in the back of their minds a mental map of what the environment they fly into looks like. Getting a fuller perspective or a mental picture of Situational Awareness (SA) perhaps needs pilot examples. This post explores weather factors of SA in Greenland, which leads to outcomes of airmanship.

An old-flying cowboy stated, “Don’t go where your mind has not gone 30 minutes ago”.

Within the context of SA, this means avoid losing your situational awareness and be ahead of what could happen.

Being situationally aware is being aware before the mission, during, and after. Yet, situations do occur and pilots lose their SA. Hopefully, the pilot recovers and avoids an accident. Above all, maintaining SA is crucial. Some pilots are situationally aware throughout the day, and even throughout their entire mission or rotation on base. In this sense, underlying SA is the self-imposed factor of risk assessment.

Pilots do have an automatic decision-making trigger that is based on training, experience, and seeing the issue on hand. Being aware begins with the pilot before flight, flight planning, performance planning, weather briefing, and weight and balance calculations. Not least, having an overall SA includes weather situational awareness, particularly in Greenland.

Pilots should have in mind a direction to go if the weather turns. With airports far apart, flying greater distances beyond the area terminal requires maintaining SA throughout the entire flight. SA of the weather is knowing how the weather is moving. Such that pilots ask:

What was the weather like before, now, and later in the day where I'm going? When decoding weather actuals for higher altitudes, flying weather at lower altitudes takes a bit more analysis. A valid question for helicopter pilots is, “How I am supposed to use this weather information?”

On a ferry flight, 1 July, on the AS350/H125 from Ilulissat, JAV, to Nuuk, GOH, part of understanding the en route forecast from DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) is to compare the weather analysis (including other weather resources) before flight to what is seen in flight. Just after departing Ilulissat, the Captain of the flight stated,

"What I do now is compare my preparation with what the real picture is. I like to find the confirmation of what I've seen in the preparation. It gives me a good feeling about my preparation before departure. For now, the picture fits."

This was a VFR flight with reference to the ground. In these fjords systems, flying longer distances, the VFR Captain must be sharp, with eyes looking far out. Having 'the weather picture' before flight allows the Captain to navigate as the Captain saw fit.

VFR navigation has its challenges and is different from IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). Flying VFR rules means maintaining legal visual conditions, but flying VFR also means the weather can deteriorate, forcing pilots to make continuous navigation decisions.

Let's say that on a VFR day, the forecast had cloud cover that could turn from scattered cumulus clouds mid-morning to broken. From noon onwards, the humid air caused nimbostratus clouds to form. In flight, the pilot would have to get below them before getting trapped. This is what could happen during ferry flights in Greenland. As weather changes, it is up to the pilot to have visibility throughout the entire VFR flight. Below is an image of cumulus clouds after departing Ilulissat.

Now let's continue the visual with the nimbostratus clouds thickening from the altostratus clouds. From the cloud layer diffused by falling rain (or snow), it starts to rain and the drops splatter on the windshield. Cloud cover is imminent. The cloud base lowers. Yet, visibility has not diminished.

What's important for weather SA is that the lower level altitude that helicopter pilots fly gives fewer visual cues to situate their awareness. Even when the conditions are not exactly IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions, below minima), the visual area of the eyes becomes smaller, and the same in good visibility. However, when the conditions are IMC or bad weather, the visual area to look out is even worse.

When navigating the 44,000 km coastline, it's one thing to think that landing at the nearest airport or heliport is possible, but in Greenland, pilots are aware IF there is a sudden change in weather, stuck in IMC, and/or they are in conditions bordering their personal limits, there is no easy place to land. The proximity of alternates or known possible stations to land do exist, however, Greenland's flight environment does not allow for safe landings as readily available in Europe or North America. There is no taxi or snow scooter or nearby hotel to stay.

Being aware when flying near open water gives perspective in appreciating SA, particularly in a single-engine. In a single-engine operation, when flying the coast, the pilot should be aware to fly close enough to the shore or high enough, so that if the situation demands, an autorotation down is possible.

Depending on the situation, simultaneously, 'By Heart' emergency items kick in, muscle memory recall, and the eyes start to perceive the whole surroundings. As such, the Captain adds:

"The goal in such a situation is to be able to autorotate on shore. If that is not possible for whatever reason, then we have to inflate the emergency floats and ditch into the water closest possible to the shoreline."

IF there are situations where the weather closes in and the helicopter, pilot, and passengers/customers are stranded at a known alternate or tele site (Greenland telecommunication sites), depending on that situation, the pilot and passengers/customer will wait out the weather. Customers such as Tusass who charter the helicopter for a specific mission are well acquainted with the operation and do have 'survival' gear with them.

In extreme situations where the helicopter was damaged and perhaps, the pilot's life was in danger, a pickup by another helicopter was the only way out. Two pilots who have decades of experience flying in Greenland know of one such situation......which involves a polar bear. Pilots who have been with Air Greenland long enough, have heard of the story.

The image below is a drawing on the nose of the Bell212. The original dates many, many, many years ago known as HOBO. The drawing seen below is a reproduction done by Claus Motzfeldt. A helicopter head on with a polar bear.

What are the odds that a polar bear sniffs for food and finds a helicopter? There are places in Greenland where helicopters do fly and polar bear tracks are visible.

It is the reality that flying VFR ferry flights in Greenland requires situational awareness of the weather before and airborne. It requires the pilot to be smart in the planning for refueling and take off time, and flexible enough to accept changes to the route planned.

The Captain of the ferry flight had SA of the weather. He was sharp in his planning. He knew exactly where the helicopter was in reference to the weather at that moment and where he wanted to navigate towards. He had knowledge of the flight environment, skills to ferry the helicopter, and proficiency to make good calls during the entire VFR flight, which led to excellent airmanship. After departing Kangerlussuaq, SFJ, and to move away from the low cloud cover inland, the decision was to follow the fjord out to the coast and continue down the coast towards Nuuk.