Yesterday I was at Gloucester, on my way home from a day trip to Worcestershire, refuelling the aircraft. It was a nice day and pretty busy, there were two helicopters operating, one a Bell 206 doing sightseeing flights and also a R22 which I presumed was probably an instructional flight. There was a light westerly wind.
Mindful of rotor wash I watched the Jetranger carefully as it flew low not too far ahead of us (between the pumps and 27), couldn’t feel any rotor wash at all. It came around to the west of us, much further away, had to be close to 100m, then suddenly we really felt a lot of rotor wash despite the apparent distance – it seems even a gentle breeze can blow it quite far! I had to grab hold of a strut as my aircraft tried to weathervane into it. (It wasn’t strong enough to be particularly serious, I could stop it just by jamming my boot under the right main wheel as a makeshift chock).
I’ve never really thought of helicopter rotor wash actually blowing with the wind like that. It happened again as the much smaller R22 flew upwind of us.
I’ve never really thought of helicopter rotor wash actually blowing with the wind like that.
Because of that, I always engage the gust locks – even of calm days. A helicopter hovering behind an aeroplane will bang all control surfaces to their stops several times.
Don’t you love helicopter pilots!
I always engage the control lock when I see one airborne or close to it. Not all of them seem to be mindful of parked aeroplanes. I didn’t expect it to blow 100m though.
Not all of them seem to be mindful of parked aeroplanes.
[[off topic]] That is an understatement! I’ll not soon forget the one that lined up for take-off on the runway that I had just reported final for.
Excellent advice to always use gust locks whenever rotary-wing aircraft may hover near your fixed-wing aircraft.
I am (ahem) bi-wingual and as to helicopter pilots not being mindful:
1. As part of their education (both theory and flight) there is usually zero attention paid to the negative effects of rotor wash to other craft.
So do mention the issue to any helicopter pilot you meet, and/or kindly suggest any instructor that they include this topic in the curriculum..
2. Helicopter pilots often do not have much of a choice. Parking spots are not often separated widely, and they mostly are supposed to use the same taxiways and runways as fixed wingers.
3. These darned instable contraptions are enough of a handful to control, so don’t make life more complicated for the poor sods! (well, this applies to me anyhow 
)
I must admit to sleeping in the same bed as aart. Quite often the problems are accentuated by airfield operators who do not understand helicopters. For example, I’ve often been told to park right next to another aircraft despite this being in an upwind position! Most helicopter pilots are (should be?) very aware of the wind and the way this affects their footprint. All that said, even the smallest helicopters are throwing air at the ground at an alarming rate, certainly one which could upset other aircraft.
I hate them with a passion!
A guy in my hangar owns an R44 and he has already once managed to damage my plane (€ 12.000 damage) when he overflew my plane in 3 m while landing.
A couple of years later the same guy crashed his R44 in front of the hangar … And some weeks ago another guy in a Hughes 300 flew by our hangar (10 meters …) and blew Kilogramms of dust, grass and stones into the hangar.
I am thinking about ground air missiles whenever i SEE them ;-)
