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#1
28th January 2011, 09:22 AM
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Interesting Events in Newcastle area last night
Thought I’d share a few details on some interesting events that occurred last night in the Port Stephens/Willamtown/Newcastle area. Please excuse me for some incompleteness as I only caught the end of the events and also missed some radio calls due to reception.
At approx 20:45 28/01/11, I heard a chopper flying low over my house in the Newcastle area. This is not uncommon where I live because I’m not far from the Westpac Rescue Helicopter HQ. I thought I’d look out of the window anyway just to have a peak and saw that the chopper had its spotlight shining and didn’t look like it was going in to land at the HQ. Again I didn’t really think much about it because we have had in the past a Chopper (not one of the Westpac Rescue choppers) do what I think are training exercises in the Newcastle area, shining the spotlight down different streets and house in very large areas and on those occasions I haven’t really heard much on the radio so thought this would probably be the same occurrence. For some reason though I thought I’d get my handheld scanner out and have a listen anyway to see if anything interesting was going on and half my luck there was. At about 20:50 my scanner which scans through a few stations in the Newcastle/Williamtown area stopped on Brisbane Centre 125.7 with “Chopper 1” calling to “VH-UFU” advising to fly straight and level and to head in the direction of the bright lights in front. He then went onto say that he would be making a right hand turn to fly alongside the left had side of UFU to try and get visual with the aircraft. It was obvious to me now that the pilot had got caught in cloud and Chopper 1 had been called in to assist him down. The cloud was pretty low from my view but there were some holes around. My thoughts at this stage were that the chopper flying above me was Chopper 1 and that UFU would be around somewhere also but this didn’t end up being the case as the chopper above went in to land at Westpac Rescue HQ at about 20:53 and took off again not long after and called in to BN Cen offering assistance as it had NVG’s on board. The BN Cen controller relayed this to the Chopper 1 pilot which replied back with a “that pilot will be just as qualified as I am so at this stage I will just get this plane in into the circuit at Willy and then….” (missed the last bit). Most of the time Chopper 1 was just in direct communications with UFU on 125.7 with the controller only calling in when he had any information for Chopper 1 and also asking UFU his endurance remaining. During the rest of this time I had missed a few transmissions as the reception wasn’t too good where I was but basically what happed was, Chopper 1 was in visual contact with UFU, albeit using lights. Chopper 1 advised UFU to turn on nav lights and landing lights and assured him that there were no obstacles and just to use his AH to stay straight and level and he’d step him down to 500ft and head to the circuit at Willy. The controller did offer assistance with a qualified pilot on had to assist the pilot UFU as this was the first time he’d flown at night. Chopper 1 advised the were now on a left downwind runway 12 and assured the pilot of UFU that there were no other obstacles around and that he would be taking him down to finals and along the runway where he would attempt to land. Chopper 1 advised that he would be flying the length on the runway and if a go around was needed he would do so and they could attempt it again. Chopper 1 asked the pilot if he had done his landing checks and once completed advised to attempt the landing. He also advised that the runway was very long and that if the pilot was coming in to high, not to worry because he had plenty of runway to work with. At this stage I did not hear any landing clearances which I get in this situation may not have been needed and at 21:08 the pilot landed first go and taxied down the runway to the parking area. The Chopper 1 pilot congratulated the pilot of UFU on his first Solo Night Landing and praised his calmness in this situation. The BN Cen controller thanked the Chopper 1 pilot and so did Westpac 1. I did miss a few transmissions here but did hear Chopper 1 saying it would have been nice if he had a set of NVG’s. I believe Chopper 1 landed at Willy also as I didn’t catch anything else besides Westpac 1 coming into land at HQ. I have to say that the Pilot of UFU was very calm and sounded very professional and the Chopper 1 pilot did a great job in intercepting UFU in cloud using the spot light and talking him through every step of the way. I know that I missed the beginning of the events and the pilot could have been circling in cloud for some time before Chopper 1 got to him, but it seemed strange that it was well after last light that he was still flying even though (I’m assuming) he had no night rating. On my way to work this morning I just caught the end of the news saying that RAAF pilots assisted a Cessna pilot down after he got caught in cloud in the Port Stephens area. The reported did say the name of the place he was heading but I missed that as well. Overall it was a job well done for everybody involved and was well worth missing a few games of the Djokovic vs Federer match on TV I was watching at the time. Not much happens on the airwaves in my area so that was my highlight for a while. 
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#4
31st January 2011, 12:09 PM
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Mike, I had the same feeling listening to it happen. Though at no stage did I sense that there wasn't going to be a successful outcome. All involved were very calm and at no stage was there any panic from the Cessna pilot.
It's a shame that I didn't get to hear all the transmissions because I'm pretty sure there's some things missing in there. Damian, I guess that would be the case, although it was strage that the Bris Center controller did off the use of the Westpac chopper as they would have better knowledge of the area. If the RAAF chopper based at Willy was the one involved, why wouldn't he have just as much local knowledge.
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