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Flight in severe Sink/Wave
About 18 months ago there was a couple week period with many shark sightings
off the Southern Califonia coast. During this time I was flying a helicopter south along the Coast line just North of Santa Barbara. I was on the lee side of the coastal mountain range, which at this time was an off shore flow. I encountered sink, which was to be expected, but the sink band was much wider than I expected. I thought the sink was due to wave action, however I could not find teh lift band. I was losing alt @ between 200-400 fpm depending on position. Both my passenger and I thought we could see several sharks in the water! I moved closer to the mountains hoping to contact the "up" part of the wave, but I only found rotor. So I moved out further until I was over the water and still going down. I went out over the water as far as half mile and still could not get out of the sink. Looking at large "fish" in the water I decided to move back over land and if I was forced to the earth at least it was dry land. I was down to about 150 feet AGL before the sink quit! Yes, I tried max TQ and putting the nose down to get through the sink band faster. For teh reasons listed above I was limited flying parallel to the sink band, but I had never encountered a sink band about 3/4 mile wide in the lee of a mountain before. I am an experienced glider pilot who has much wave flying experience in gliders. I have about 800 hours in helicopters. To this day I am not sure what other decision I could have made but was hoping an experienced helicopter pilot could give me his/her thoughs. I was concerned about getting too far out to sea with many reports of shark sightings and no sea survial gear. The rotor was not much fun either. Any comments. Has anyone been forced tot he ground by sink and what did you do? Thanks much |
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