29
SEA FOG
OFF THE SOUTH COAST OF
ENGLAND ■ OCTOBER 1984
The Royal Navy does not feel the same way the US Navy feels about flying out to sea. The RN sees it as no big deal if you fly far out to sea with no wingman, while the USN limited us to 25 miles to sea if you are a single aircraft. The RN fully expects a pilot to do everything possible to get aboard, even if he could wait ashore for the weather to improve.
The mission was to fly onboard HMS Illustrious for a two-week deployment. The ship was headed to Portugal for a NATO exercise that was ship maneuvers only. The aircrew would not be hauling Royal Marines on assaults but instead be an administrative aircraft to do passenger transfers, pick up mail, look for submarines (visual only since the aircraft had no Anti-Submarine Warfare gear), etc.—what we called Ash and Trash in Vietnam—between the ship and shore bases in Lisbon and Gibraltar. Illustrious was steaming off the south coast, near Plymouth. I, as aircraft commander, would fly the aircraft, call sign Victor Hotel, from HMS Heron to join the ship at sea. My copilot was already onboard, having gone down before the ship sailed to act as liaison. The eight maintainers who would keep my Sea King flying were there too, all waiting for what promised to be a less-than-stressful deployment. The flight down was easy and smooth on a beautiful, clear day, but upon arrival at the coast, there was a wall of sea fog, solid as a mountain wall, right off shore. Somewhere in the sea fog was Illustrious.
The sea fog off southern England was something I had often heard about, but had never seen. My squadron mates used to describe the sea fog down the coast to the west in Cornwall as being so thick that you could not see across the road, even though the wind was blowing 40 knots. I wrote it off as pilot exaggeration but here it was: sea fog, solid, gray, and not moving. Perhaps the ship was in the clear and the fog was only right there on the coast? My first call to the ship dispelled that idea. The ship reported they were in near zero visibility.
“Tower, Victor Hotel, feet wet, two souls onboard, two point zero to splash (two hours fuel onboard the aircraft),” I called over UHF.
“Victor Hotel, tower. Switch Center and they will give you a vector to us.”
“Roger, tower. Victor Hotel switching center.”
After switching radio frequencies, I transmitted, “Center, Victor Hotel.
Crossing the coastline five miles east of Plymouth, at angels one (1000 feet).”
“Victor Hotel, squawk ident”—meaning, activate the radar transponder that would highlight my aircraft on their scope. Moments later, “Victor Hotel, Center, we have you. Turn to 170 degrees and descend to 500 feet.
You are five miles out. Report ship in sight.”
At 500 feet I could see nothing but gray fog slightly below us, the tops of the fog ragged with small tuffs sticking up here and there.
“Center, Victor Hotel. Ship not in sight.
“Victor Hotel, Center, standby for vectors to CCA (Carrier Controlled Approach—radar control in both course and altitude. CCA will bring you down to around 125 feet lined up directly for landing). Turn heading oneseven-zero degrees. Climb to 1000 feet. Switch to Approach Control.”
I turned the Sea King as directed, and prepared for the approach.
Doing a CCA when you know that you are only a few miles off shore and that the weather is fine over the land, removes the worry of missed approaches and low fuel and the possibility of ditching before you run out of fuel. Miss the approach, try another, go ashore and wait for better weather. What could be easier?
At 1000 feet Victor Hotel was well above the fog bank, but when Approach turned the aircraft onto final approach course and started it down, things changed rapidly.
“Victor Hotel, you are on course, you are on glide path. Going slightly above glide path now, increase rate of descent. On glide path, come right to zero-one-two degrees. On course, on glide path. Approaching decision height, report ship in sight.”
Decision height is just that, the altitude where you either have your landing spot—the ship’s deck or the runway—and you decide to continue to the landing, or you execute a missed approach and take the aircraft around for another try. To go lower without the touchdown spot in sight is to risk flying into something, like the control tower or the ship’s masts/ superstructure.
Fog is difficult to understand. Once, flying back from a ship off the same south coast as part of a flight of five aircraft, I came to understand fog better. Taking off, the ship was all clear, but once over land, we saw a thin layer of fog over the ground. It was so thin that looking down through it you could see every detail on the ground; houses, roads, farm fields, and up through it came radio towers and hilltops. When we called Yeovilton tower and were told the field was closed with zero visibility, we didn’t believe it because we could see the ground so clearly from above.
In Britain, “closed” doesn’t mean you can’t land on the airfield, it just means you are on your own, so we decided to land without the tower’s approval. I was number three in the flight, flying in a long, loose trail formation behind the first two Sea Kings. We rolled on final and one by one, I watched the first two disappear into the fog at 200 feet over the runway. Then it was my turn, and as soon as I entered the fog, visibility went from five plus miles to zero. Years before, I read about three Army CH-34s crashing one after the other when they hit ground fog at night in Germany. They could see the ground just fine from above but everything disappeared when they got down to 100 feet. At the time, I wondered how that could happen. Now I understood, understood completely.
I held the aircraft steady as I slowed down and touched down in the center of the runway with hardly a bump. I could hear the first two aircraft calling on the radio that they could not taxi off the runway because of no visibility at all. My crewman had jumped out to act as a ground guide but I could not see him beyond the rotor disk so I joined the other aircraft in shutting down right there on the runway. Tractors would tow us in when the visibility improved enough for the ground crews to find the taxiways.
But now, I was over the sea and there was no runway, only the deck of a ship. At 125 feet, decision height, I looked up—nothing but gray fog, no ship in sight. Since I was now below the altitude of the ship’s masts, I immediately applied power and began a rapid climb before I hit them.
“Approach Control, Victor Hotel, ship not in sight, executing missed approach,” I called.
“Victor Hotel, Control, Would you like to try another CCA?”
“Control, Victor Hotel, negative. The fog is solid. I am now VMC (Visual Meteorological Conditions, i.e. clear of clouds/fog) above it again. Switching back to Center,” the aircraft commander called. The aircrewman, trained as a navigator and communicator, had come up to the cockpit and at my signal, switched the radio frequencies back to Center so that I could concentrate on flying.
“Center, Victor Hotel, fog is solid, did not break out on CCA. I am going ashore to await your call when you are clear of the sea fog.”
“Victor Hotel, Center, do not go ashore. We will attempt an ELVA (Emergency Low Visibility Approach).”
What do you do when you are far out to sea and you have done approach after approach in the fog and cannot see the deck? You are over the ship but it is invisible below you. What do you do when your fuel is running out and you don’t have enough range left to make it to land? The last, the very last resort is an ELVA.
The difference between a CCA and an ELVA is that CCA uses aviation radar, much the same as is used at any good-sized airport. An ELVA, on the other hand, does not use aviation radar at all. Instead it uses the antiaircraft radar that controls the ship’s defensive weapons. The ship’s defense system tracks you all the way down and since, when it is tracking you, it cannot track incoming threats, it is only used as a last resort. Too, a CCA is a smooth approach, with constant course corrections being supplied and altitude instructions given to keep you on a smooth glide path down.
In an ELVA, the ship holds a steady course directly into the wind. The anti-aircraft controllers just give you course directions and distance from the stern. Instead of smoothly descending at a constant rate as you slow your airspeed in a CCA, you start at 300 feet and 90 knots. then, in steps as you get closer to the ship, you slow to 80 knots as you level off at 250 feet, then 70 knots at 200 feet, then 60 knots at 150 feet. In the final portion of the ELVA you are in a hover at 50 feet, directly off the stern. At that point you should be able to pick up the ship’s wake visually and follow it to the flight deck. To help you along in finding the wake, the ship’s deck crew throws floating fares overboard at certain intervals. You find the wake, follow the flares, and land aboard.
That’s the theory anyway …
I had never done an ELVA, neither in a simulator, nor in a helicopter. Helo pilots all consider ELVAs one of those esoteric, arcane things that one quizzes copilots on, like back course ILS (Instrument Landing System) approaches and FM homing, not something that is actually done any more. No worries, though, since the weather above the fog is clear, the land is just a few miles away, and my aircraft has a couple hours worth of fuel left. I have plenty of time to try new things.
I turn the aircraft to follow the course directions provided and descend to 300 feet and 90 knots when directed. Shortly, I was once again in the fog and visibility was once again zero. The ship’s wake is not visible, nor is a flare pot. I slow to 80 knots, then 70, then 60, as I descend in steps. Shortly I am in a near hover with barely any forward speed at 50 feet on the radar altimeter above the sea. I look up—only fog, gray and featureless. As I am about to call waving off, I see something move just below and in front of the aircraft’s nose, and suddenly something bright orange flew down into the water. Continuing to hover slowly forward, I realize that what I saw was one of the deck crew actually throwing the flare pot into the water. Then the darker gray of the ship’s stern is there, and then I hover aboard and follow the directions of the LSE’s lit wands, vague through the fog.
Over the landing spot, I lower the collective and the deck crew runs under the rotor to chain the aircraft down. Victor Hotel and crew are safely aboard Illustrious.
My own deck crew, who had boarded the ship before she sailed, climb aboard as I shut the helicopter down.
“Sir, we are very surprised to see you,” the Chief, the senior enlisted man, says.
Looking at the aircraft from side to side, I realize that I cannot see either ship’s rail, meaning that visibility is less than 50 feet.
“You are not half as surprised as I am,” I reply.
The mission was to get the helicopter aboard the ship and I have. The mission is complete. Luck and superstition?