Francis Meyrick

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual

Section 5. Trying to keep everybody happy

5-3 Relations on the Bridge – keeping your Captain happy

The Captain, or ‘Fish Master’ as the Taiwanese call him, is the ultimate representative of the customer. Just to totally confuse everybody, the Taiwanese ‘captain’ is actually the #2 man on the ship. Sometimes also called “the Navigator “. Since the rest of the world addresses the Big Boss on the ship as “Captain “, the Taiwanese “Fish Master ” is happy to be called “Captain ” by the rest of the world, whilst being the “Fish Master ” to the initiated. Since I find calling the Captain the “Fish Master ” conjures up a mental picture of some bespectacled dude teaching little fishes how to swim, hell, I’m gonna call the “Fish Master ” the “Captain “. So there.

On very rare occasions, in port somewhere, you may get introduced to the actual vessel owner. If you’re in the good books, he will take you out for a very good meal, and offer you a vacation in Taiwan, and as many pretty girls as you like. Believe me, he will be serious. I know pilots who took them up on that offer. The hospitality was apparently outstanding. I politely declined, but it was an interesting offer. It adds flavor to the great Tuna Flying Adventure. That’s as regards the ship owner. But the captain… him you will encounter every day.
Relationships between helicopter crews and their respective captains have varied from one extreme to the other. From ‘amicable’, ‘friendly’, ‘no hassle’, ‘no worries’, all the way across the spectrum to the other extreme: ‘pure hostility’, ‘poisonous’, ‘mutual contempt’, and ‘open warfare’. Very occasionally… there has been a legendary punch up!
There have been many cases where captains have specifically asked the helicopter company at the start of a new two year contract to send out the same old pilot and mechanic. They were well liked, and got on famously with the crew… and the captain wanted them back! Please! There have been cases where contract renewal has been conditional on a named pilot and/or mechanic (or a dual rated pilot/mechanic) being available.
Almost certainly your resume will have been faxed to the captain before you even set foot on the ship.
The relationship that really matters, over and above your relationship with ‘Numero Uno Observer’, is you and the Captain…

I suspect an awful lot of friction is the direct result of misunderstanding, poor communication, language difficulties, and fundamental failure on the part of some crews to appreciate the massive pressure a purse seiner captain works under. Sure, occasionally, fairly rarely, you will meet such an animal as a downright anti-social captain, who really ought to be shot, and simply put out of his (and everybody else’s) misery. I have no idea what makes some people such certifiable plonkers. I’m not a psychologist. I have a pet theory or two, of course. I’m ah-thinking perhaps they were denied a hot, steamy nipple as a baby, and the good stuff. Instead they got fobbed off with a cold plastic tit, and pasteurized cow’s milk at the wrong temperature. They bawled their heads off in outraged protest then, and they ain’t forgiven humanity ever since! No, Sir!
Heck, I don’t know. The odd few are just miserable to work with. Luckily I never drew the short straw, and I never ended up with Captain Bligh. (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame)

Most captains, the vast majority…. they want it to work, believe me. Think of them as being in the same league as the General Manager of a medium sized factory. It is by no means a low tech factory! One look around the engine room, or a wander around all the sophisticated radar and sonar devices on the bridge will convince you of that! I like to make disrespectful references to “that old tub ” when I’m talking about my old ships. That is just a figure of speech. Don’t let it mislead you. These are not little old rickety barges, with some wooden little platform tacked onto the back somewhere, where the helicopter sits! You are talking about a 1000 to 1,500 gross ton, 100 meter plus purse seiner, which can cost anywhere between eight million dollars and eighteen million! With that sort of capital invested, you can rest assured that somewhere a ship owner, or a board of directors, is shadowing the captain like a hawk! Every day’s fishing, successful or otherwise, is monitored, analyzed, compared, scrutinied, and criticized!

Once I was sitting in the captain’s cabin, and in the background a scanner was monitoring a bunch of frequencies. Next thing the captain jumped to his feet, ran over to the radios, and turned up the volume! A look of devilish delight spread all over his face, and he started to fill me in. A rival ship owner was bawling out his captain for not producing results. It sounded ferocious. Like a whole bunch of razor sharp teeth going at it. Probably a bit like Hillary, in private, when she first heard about the cigar. From Bill. About Monica.

Every so often you could hear a little voice piping up sadly, interrupted by the loud voice, yelling!
Next thing I heard our ship’s name mentioned. My captain just started sniggering like a school boy, and poured us both a double brandy! Remy Martin, if I remember. What had happened was that we had just offloaded seven hundred ton of fish that had only taken us a week to catch. The rival ship owner was rubbing that under his captain’s nose. The latter’s disgruntled reply:
“Yes, well, but they’ve got a helicopter! “
My turn to snigger! I enjoyed that brandy!

Any General Manager has a list of current headaches and worries. His job for one! If he’s not catching fish, that could be a big worry. Occasionally a captain, sometimes along with the entire crew, will get the boot! From that worry on down, he could have engine problems, hydraulics glitches, electrical snafus, weak areas in his net that keep ripping, a wife that keeps wanting him home, and an eldest daughter who has just discovered cigar smoking boys! It follows that he has enough worries.

I would postulate the following ‘theorem’:

“The lower down the list of the captain’s worries the helo crew can slide, inversely proportionate there to are the chances of a relaxed, pleasant stay, being asked back, and the chances of being forgiven the odd spectacular faux-pas! ”

The day you accidentally hover right over a hundred ton foamer perhaps, (the one he’s spent five days searching for), driving the fish down and out of the set, or the day you take a decent size chunk out of his one and only satellite dish, or the day you feel sea sick and decide to heave up all over his new color echo sounder…
Believe me, it’s all happened to guys!
In one night’s noisy beer drinking session, with the assembled ship’s officers, I managed to send our captain’s drink flying, right into his lap. I was illustrating a story with rather a lot of arm waving.
Oops….!
There was a visiting captain there, and he thought it was absolutely great. He offered me a job on his boat, right there and then. My captain took his tattered dignity, and his beer soaked private area well, but he did retire for a few minutes to change his attire. About half an hour later, I was in the middle of another dramatic story. For some reason it featured firing a catapult. It was a real good story, and I’ve damn well forgotten it. The radio operator seemed to be having a problem with understanding a catapult. Helpfully, I decided to perform a demonstration. I drew back with gusto on the imaginary elastic…
Smack! Bull’s eye…
And the visiting captain got my elbow full in his eye.
Double Oops….!
I remember he really yelped, everybody gasped, I gulped in horror, and my captain, quite unruffled…
poured me another drink!
I guess he reckoned that evened up the score…

Some things, when you think about it, are fairly obvious.
If your water pressure fails on the helideck, you don’t bother the captain… you go check with the second or third engineer. If the air conditioning fails, you don’t bother the captain… you check downstairs first and see if they are working on it already. If your ship is circling a foamer, that’s not the time to amble up to the captain and start telling him this outrageously funny story about this actress and the bishop. If he’s staring out broodingly over the sea…
I wouldn’t say anything…
Sometimes you really don’t know what’s going on, and then it’s best to wait until spoken to. If he’s in a happy, chatty mood…. great!
Now’s the time maybe to tell him the one about the actress.
The chances are, if he’s got worries… they are big worries.

Some things… are not that obvious.
I realized one day I needed to make a quiet exit stage right. I was up on the bridge, enjoying the sensation of sailing across the ocean, with the bow of the ship lifting up, falling down, lifting up…
There’s a steady, peaceful rhythm there, a purposeful movement, and Life is interesting. Maybe not always good, but always interesting. You often wonder what’s around the next corner, or over that next rogue wave…
I was in a world of my own, a nice place if I remember, and the next thing, beside me, the captain started bawling out the engineer. I mean, bawling. Real blood and guts. Surprised, although it was not aimed at me, I stood there. Innocently enough, I’m looking at the captain…
Yep! he’s definitely really mad…
Then I’d look at the engineer…
Yep! He’s getting it in the neck!
Then I’d look back at the captain…
Boy! He’s going puce!
Then I’d look at the engineer…
Oh dear! He’s getting pissed now…

And then something finally registers… I’m ‘rubber necking’.
Francis, exercise some diplomacy, and kindly but out of there, you clot!

Respect is a funny old thing. I’ve often felt people sense much more than you might think. If you secretly look down on people, try as you might to hide it, they will pick up on it.
Some pilots and mechanics really do think the Taiwanese and the Koreans are -basically- stupid.
Far from it…
I’ve winced many a time, when an ugly American, a sarcastic Canadian, an impatient Aussie, or a frustrated Kiwi, has clearly conveyed lack of respect when dealing with Asians.
Watch for the shouter. The haughty expat who is speaking English to an Asian. Who just raises his voice. And says the same thing, impatiently, at ever increasing decibel levels. I’ve found myself obliged to intervene a few times. On the side of the Asian, I might add.
Dude! There’s no point in shouting! It’s not a matter of decibels, for crying out loud. It’s a matter of understanding. That Taiwanese is attempting to communicate with you in your first language, but his second language. The fact that he doesn’t understand you, doesn’t mean he’s stupid. How about you try HIS first language, and learn Chinese…!!

Sadly, I’ve witnessed plenty of arrogant, insensitive shouters. Superior Westerners, dealing with low-life, silly, stupid little yellow men. And I’ve seen some magnificent patience and self control on the part of Asian crew, in the face of quite outrageous condescension. If I’d been one of those crew, I’d have kicked your ass. I describe several particular examples of this attitude elsewhere…

On my very first trip, although I was a qualified A+P mechanic, my boss, wisely, sent another mechanic along with me. He figured I would have enough on my plate just getting the hang of the flying. He was perfectly right. I was lucky to have an experienced “Wrench Tunahead ” with me, and he was really fine gentleman. I would have been all at sea sometimes without him. Every time I would accidentally make waves, this grand humanitarian would come along and pour oil on troubled waters.

Thus, as an example, there came the morning that I heard a loud knock on the cabin door:
“FLY! “
Okay, I thought, as I rolled over. “This is it! “ I was spending my fifth day on a tuna boat. I had not flown yet, as we had been in transit to the fishing grounds. My mechanic disappeared out the door, and I wearily looked at my watch. Seven o’clock. Boy, it was early. I slowly got up, stretched, and went and had a shower. Washed, shaved, cleaned my teeth… Hummed a sea ditty… stretched a few more times… After that, in a spirit of self sacrifice, just in case they were maybe waiting for me, I nobly forewent my breakfast. In stead, I made a cup of coffee, and staggered out onto the bridge to take orders.
“Good morning! “, I said brightly and cheerfully. Slurping my coffee.
There was no answering reply.
In fact, after a little while… I started to get the vague impression I was not ‘the flavor of the day’.
That vagueness was unsettling, and I finished my coffee quickly, wondering what was going on.

It was my mechanic who filled me in. My teacher. Sometimes, my saviour. He sat me down, and, patiently, in words of not more than two syllables (mechanics have learned to never assume literacy on the part of pilots), he explained to me the way things were…

*** The captain had probably been at work since four a.m.
*** The crew had probably been at work since five a.m.
(excluding those on watch, and in the engine room)
*** Fifty minutes earlier, two large flocks of birds had been
spotted on radar. One to the West of the ship,and one to the East
*** The captain had needed information from the helicopter,
quickly, in order to make a rapid decision which one to head for.
*** By the time my disgustingly cheerful “Good Morning!’ had
resonated around the bridge, the birds were long gone, the
fish had disappeared, the mechanic on the helideck had gotten
tired of waiting, and the captain… well, he was somewhat peeved!

Oh.… I thought, mouth agape, the wonders of this new world vaguely impressing themselves on my few remaining functioning brain cells. I see…!

By the time seven o’clock rolls around on a purse seiner, half the day is gone.
It is nothing abnormal for a set to be made at four thirty or five a.m. Before dawn. Two or three hours later, the ship might be steaming again, nets recovered, with an extra fifty or a hundred ton in the hold.
I modified my behavior, and now I’m careful to be up and showered before first light. I’ve had my coffee, demolished my porridge, and if they call me, I’m ready, Eddy. If they don’t, I might… go back to bed. But if the knock comes on the door any time after that, it’s T-shirt and shorts on, drag a comb through my hair, and within one minute a fresh enough pilot bounds out, washed, shaved, fed, rested, bushy-tailed, and pretty damn keen to go fly! That’s the theory anyways…!

Months later, after I had gotten to know the captain much better, he told me a story about one of his previous pilots. Other crew members independently verified the details. It makes for an interesting story.
Apparently, whatever time of the day you knocked on the pilot’s door, the creature that sleepily emerged, eyes screwed tight up against the light, like a mole with a bad hangover, would make straight for the wind meter on the bridge. He wouldn’t even look out the bridge windows. Say the wind meter read 20 knots…
He would get a bit of paper, and write on it:

20 (wind)

Then he would take the speed of the ship. And write that underneath.

20 (wind)
14 (ship)

Now he would add the two figures together.

20 (wind)
14 (ship)
34

34 knots! Too much, captain! NO FLY!
And he’d toddle off back to bed!
Eventually this became too much for the captain, and he blew up. And basically said:
“I know how much 20 and 14 is added together!! How come all the other helicopters are flying!?? “
Their relationship deteriorated from then on in…

You can see how frustrating it must have been to have been up for hours, and to have this sleepy creature
appear for all of thirty seconds, and churn out the same story…
Contrast this with a pilot who has already been up since dawn, and who has truly evaluated the conditions, maybe walked around the helideck a while, and who then says:
“Bit rough today, captain! “

There are two corollaries to this story.
The first is that the captain reckons he switched off the wind meter on a dead calm day, and manually pushed the dial around to ’20’ and wedged it there! It’s the sort of thing he would do, actually!
And, sure enough, he got the same thing:

20 (wind)
14 (ship)
34
(34 knots! Too much, captain! NO FLY!)
Then he had a field day…

I believe it, because I saw him pull this little trick on a sleepy lookout. This worthy, was asleep on duty behind the big, fixed binoculars on the foredeck. It looks almost like an artillery piece. He was pretending to be looking, forehead resting up against the eye piece, but he was in fact out for the count. The captain, not to be fooled, came along, and quietly replaced both the lens covers. Then it was just a case of a loud bark:
“Navigator! You see any fish yet!? “
“Errr… no captain!… not yet! ” (furiously trying to look through the binoculars)
“Well, maybe you could try removing the lens covers!!! “

The second corollary is that -hopefully- you have spotted something!
Remember, the captain is a ship’s captain, and not a helicopter pilot. So no surprise he should assume the pilot knew what he was talking about!
Did the pilot know what he was talking about? Not really…
(the 20 knot figure is the wind over the helideck… you don’t go and add the ship’s speed to that!)

So the psychology there was interesting.
It’s really not that hard to get up at, say 04.45 a.m., especially if you know there’s a good chance you can go back for a snooze later. In fact, once you’re awake, you often don’t bother, and now you’ve got a whole long productive day ahead to read, study, write, play computer games, stare at the wall, or whatever takes your fancy.

I never got yelled at much by any of my captains. A few times! Usually deserved. But it doesn’t do to take it personal. I did at the start once or twice, but now I’ve long since become immune. Herding is a prime example. You know sometimes they have got to blame somebody! Think of the money, and say as little as possible. Don’t feed the fire. The captain’s company is forking out over a thousand dollars a day, and you’re collecting a slice of it. He’s entitled to yell up to a point! The odd thing is that if you don’t yell back, but just look suitably ‘thoughtful’, the chances are they end up laughing! The next thing you know you’re getting cans of fruit or beer handed in your door…

The Captain, or Fishmaster, is the man to impress. Mostly, they are good people, who want the relationship to work. If you meet them half way, and look at it from their point of view as well, you stand an excellent chance of building up a good, strong relationship.

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on April 19, 2010, 7:09 am

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual

Section 5. Trying to keep everybody happy

5-2 You and your observer (2) “A Bit of Theater “

It’s wise to remember that a lot of observers have spent literally thousands of hours, sitting at one thousand feet altitude in little bubbles, suspended underneath one single nut, wholly at the mercy of yet another nut. A veritable succession of expat, Tuna Foreign Legionnaires. They’ve seen lots of little pilots come and go. Some, a small minority, have stayed for years. Most have come, and departed within less than a year, often within mere months. Even weeks. It’s hardly any wonder that our Asian observer friends don’t always start out too welcoming. You are gonna have to prove yourself first…

Sometimes a little ‘theater’ doesn’t go amiss.
A bit of blarney, and a bit of humor. If you can jolly the show along, so much the better. No matter where you go in the world, no matter what nation you visit, there are two words you should always learn immediately. With these two words, you can have a conversation with a willing host, anywhere, anytime. Your limited vocabulary of two words will undoubtedly cause you to have to rely on facial expressions, grimaces, plenty of miming, and maybe even drawing pictures. So what?
If the will is there, you can communicate, and have lots of fun into the bargain.

The words I refer to are ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
‘Good’ versus ‘bad’.
‘Gut’ versus ‘Schlim’.
‘Bien’ versus ‘Pas bien’.
‘Goed’ versus ‘Slecht’….
In Chinese… ‘good’ = How! (as in the greeting you would expect from a Hollywood Red Indian)
and ‘bad’ = Pooh How!
With some Japanese influence, there is also another commonly used ‘good’, which is real easy for us to remember: “Psycho! ” With the emphasis on the last syllable.
The alternative ‘bad’ is “Sigh-tay! “, also with the emphasis on the last syllable. The Chinese have a unique way of spitting this word out to express their displeasure. You’ll hear the crew use it, and quickly learn exactly how to pronounce it.
I learned these words on Day One, I kept notes, and soon I had some 500 words. I couldn’t write them, but I sure could speak them.
So when or why would we wish to communicate, and why would we wish to do so with some theatrical humor?

Well, let’s start off with your ‘pre take off’ cockpit checks. Using a check list, slowly, religiously, every day, every time, sooner or later will save you a whole lot of grief. Believe me. I have a lot more to say about this elsewhere. If you are starting out in your career in helicopters, and many people in the Tuna helicopter industry are, then the Law of Primacy applies here. If you learn good habits from the get-go, and stick to them, it will pay off handsomely at some stage in your career down the road. I promise. Believe me…
I know I can just look at all the instruments, switches and circuit breakers, and know it’s all okay. But I still, even today, (especially today), use the checklist, run my thumb down the line items, run my fingers over the circuit breakers, all the switches, and often enough slowly past the gauges as I check them! I can tell you a whole lotta stories on this subject, and I will, one day, elsewhere. I take my time and I use the checklist.
It serves as a backup for me, in case I make a mistake.
It also shows my observer that we are checking the beast very carefully.

Tie-Down accidents are the number One cause of accidental death in the Tuna Fields.
Everybody that has left one attached, and then tried to take off, and failed to lift one thousand two hundred tons of cold steel, I’m sure thought that it was a really, really stupid thing to do. Moronic.
Until they did it themselves…

I have a whole ritual dedicated to those killer things. And a lot of that ritual involves the observer.
1) The tie-downs are either all on, or all off. Nothing in between. You never take one off, fold it, put it away, then take the next one off, fold it, put it away, then the third, then the fourth.
No. Negative. Nein. Njet. Knickers. Fat chance…
They are either ALL on or they are ALL off.
2) I stretch them out on the deck, running alongside the helicopter, and fasten them to the tie-down hooks in the deck, in such a way that I can see all of the left tie-down straps (If I crane out of the cockpit), and at least the front of the right hand tie-downs. Flat on the deck. The fact that I can see the front of the right hand tie-downs flat on the deck, is actually good enough. We are safe. But I do another check. A theatrical check, slightly, but then again, it IS another defense line.
I tap my observer on the knee, just prior to rolling up the throttle, and point out his door. The gesture means:
“Hey! Check your tie-downs! “
He looks out, and gives me a thumbs up. Off we go….

One day I forgot to do that. I have no idea why. As I started to roll the throttle up, my observer tapped ME on the knee, and pointed out MY open door! He was serious. What he meant by his gesture was this:
“Hey mister Pilot! Check your tie-downs! Let’s do this properly! “

When he checks the tie-downs carefully, and I see his expression is serious (every time!), I know that deep down, he likes it that way! Safety First!
How many guys would be alive today if they had done that? Dozens…

I did have a belly cable, of course. These days, it seems more and more operators are cutting corners, using Military Surplus C-18 engines, etc, and are unwilling to invest in the release hook that goes underneath the belly of the aircraft. Simply because it is aviation quality, it is expensive. But how much does a smashed helicopter cost? And two smashed little people? If you don’t have a belly hook, then it’s going to be sorely tempting to depart from the rule above. And leave, say, just two straps on the right side on, or something like that. I don’t like it at all. In my view, it’s asking for trouble. If they didn’t give me a belly hook installation, I would be a very noisy, very unhappy camper. It almost certainly saved my life one day. I describe that adventure elsewhere.

Another example of a little ‘theater’ is with regard to fuel or day light considerations.
This ‘scene’ might occur after I’ve given him the ‘five minutes’ sign, (five fingers), and after we’ve turned for home. You always leave a bit of a reserve, but maybe after ten miles or so (with perhaps forty still to go) he sees a foamer off to one side, and wants to go there! Now I might instantly know the foamer is only a few miles, and that the detour is not a problem. But staying there for a long time, or going on to another foamer would be! So now it’s ‘theater-time’!
First, he points to the foamer. He’s all excited!
I don’t turn immediately. I make a show of thinking, calculating… maybe I’ll demonstratively look at my watch…. and then I’ll go! Now he’s already got the message: fuel is becoming a consideration!
It makes it easier maybe ten minutes later to shake your head and turn for home!

“Daylight ” is exactly the same thing. If he wants to go heading off somewhere, I might point at the sun going down, and then look demonstratively at my watch, holding it right out in front of my face, in an exaggerated, unmistakable gesture.

Once in a while, maybe early on in the relationship, you might get the impression that maybe the observer sees ‘shouting at you’ as a good way of getting his way! I had a few rides where it started to get annoying. The older I get, the longer my short fuse seems to be getting, but this time it was beginning to smolder dangerously! I firmly believe I am the Captain of the helicopter, and you can ‘request’, but don’t you start ‘dictating’! (Later, flying EMS back in the USA, I had some head-to-head run-ins with some very… faEEEEE... ‘posterior anatomically challenged’ nurses over this precise point)
We would be on the way back, and he would want a ‘detour’. He wouldn’t ask very nicely! I’d do my calculations, carefully, taking 150% of the estimated headwind component on the way home, and decide that the detour was in order. Now he would seem to think that he had ‘got one over’ and that the detour was directly the result of shouting at the pilot! Not the result of careful calculations! A while later, he would want another detour, get a refusal because we didn’t have the fuel, and really start shouting!
Now I certainly didn’t want this to become a pattern!

The problem is though, you’ve got to work with the guy!
And live with him, on a small tub, I might add. I discussed this problem with other TunaHeads, (after I’d solved it), and from the diverse reactions there was little doubt that the majority of pilots would see it as their solemn duty to squash such shouting-at-the-pilot by shouting back! Vigorously!
Indeed, my predecessor apparently had done a whole lot of yelling…
This is really not so good. Temperatures are now going well and truly up!

I thought about it, and the next time it happened, I was ready. With a bit of ‘theater’.
In a similar circumstance, he wanted a second or a third detour on the way back to the ship. I had shaken my head, and he had started shouting. What I did was to make sure the 500 was neatly trimmed out, added a bit of friction, and then I let go of the controls!
I looked at him, quite mildly, and said:
“You want to FLY home… “
I made a flying gesture with my hand.
“….or you want to SWIM home!? “
And I proceeded to make huge, expansive swimming strokes with my arms!
I raised my eyebrows quizzically, not offensively, and he sort of stared at me. He couldn’t think of what to say.
Then I quietly turned for home!
I was to use the swimming movements maybe three times on various trips, without raising my voice. Then I would always simply turn for home, not look at him, and turn a deaf ear!
Problem solved. Without any ‘heat’.

There is a sequel to this story, and that is that a while later I figured out from various of the observer’s comments at dinner table, that he regarded ‘running out of fuel’ as no big deal! My predecessor after all, had performed this little trick no less than three times.
When I answered that a water landing in mid-Ocean is always hazardous, and sometimes impossible (in a rough sea), he made a dismissive gesture! Mentioning several famous cases where pilots had run out of fuel, he spoke words to the effect of: “No problem! (Meo Ountie!) Such-and-such pilot, he no more fuel! Land water. No problem! Other ship find him! Bring fuel! No problem! Meo Ountie! “

I thought that was an interesting psychological insight. Here was an observer who regarded running out of fuel in a helicopter in the same light as running out of fuel in car. You pull over to the side, get a jerrycan, and wait until somebody comes along and gives you a ride to the gas station! So finding a foamer was paramount, and the silly pilot worrying about fuel was just trivial by comparison. However, once he figured that the ‘silly pilot’ was determined not to land in the sea, and could not be bullied, he more or less gave up.

I learned from that experience that the ‘swimming strokes’ scene speaks volumes without words. And therefore causes no offense. So if he was yelling, because he’d seen a distant foamer, I’d not say anything, but just ‘swim a bit with arms flailing’, turn for home, and turn a totally deaf ear! I wouldn’t look at his furious face, take any notice, or speak a word!
It was kind of funny really, because you would be flying along, and all you could hear beside you was this furious noise, that would slowly start subsiding to muttering, then slowly sputter to a stop!
If you said anything, all you did was to ‘feed the fire’. Then the volume would increase again!
So the trick was to turn for home, say nothing, and think of the money.
After a while it became positively funny.
My pulse rate wouldn’t even go up a beat, and yet he’d be so cross! Then the mutterings would change from Pigeon English into Chinese, and you knew he was saying basically words to the effect of ‘damn these pilots! “
I would further amuse myself by quietly timing the process. At the start, he was capable of a five to six minute tirade. Without any contribution from me, that temperature was hard to maintain. Pretty soon, the noise was down to two minutes! After that, it quietly declined, and often it was no more than thirty seconds! Finally, there would come some vigorous head shaking ( “what a complete idiot pilot I’m landed with! “) and then he would be looking through his binoculars again!
(Of course, the opportunity for some impish mischief soon came along, and try as I might, I couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge in some wickedness. I had some really great entertainment at my observer’s expense, and I detail those practical jokes I played elsewhere…)

I met up one day with one of the previous pilots, who had left under a cloud, and this exact subject cropped up in conversation. It turned out that they had almost physically fought in the cockpit over this precise issue! All I can say is: “Why fight? ” You are the captain and the driver. The observer can’t fly. So the helicopter goes where YOU want it to go, and WHEN you want it to!
If there is a secret, then I would say it’s this:

“Don’t discuss it! “

The psychological stance I think one must adopt is that the command decisions are so utterly yours-to-make that the subject does not even lend itself to discussion. The trick is not to ‘feed the fire’.
Yes, the observer does work for the customer. So he’s important. But not to the point that he can usurp command. It’s not a democracy. This is a point I will not yield on, and I’m not alone. Some (not all) of the hospital based EMS programs in the States, with some (not all) very bossy flight nurse personalities, make it very hard for the pilots. It’s seriously distracting, and hence it can be dangerous, and stressful.
Think of a smiling elephant. A big, fat, heavy, lump of smiling elephant. You’re trying to shut the door, and he’s on the other side. Smiling and leaning. Who’s gonna win?
Stay pleasant. Nice. Exercise your captaincy.
Smile, but lean!

I talked this business over with another TunaHead, and he reckoned that his observer was cut from the same gnarly old tree. Obsessed with finding fish, and not perturbed about a water landing due to lack of fuel!
As he says: “I wish they could see how close the tail rotor gets to the water even on a calm day! “

On many days, a water landing is hazardous, and if you’re stuck with little or no fuel, what can you do if a front comes through, or even a micro burst? Now you are in danger of tipping over, especially in a Hughes 500. And did somebody mention insurance? Whatever about a water landing due to mechanical problems… what is an underwriter going to say about a water landing due the the pilot running out of gas?
Somebody could be in for a hefty premium increase!
However, as of 2010, the accident rate over the last few years has been sufficiently appalling, that it is likely that some operators are unable to even get coverage. The trend is not positive, towards fewer accidents, put it that way.

Keeping your observer happy involves making him feel you’re a really experienced, safe pilot, and it also involves a degree of subtle cunning. How to keep the emotional cockpit temperature down.

If a bit of ‘theater’ or dry humor helps… great!

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on May 5, 2010, 5:07 pm

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual

Section 5. Trying to keep everybody happy

5-1 You and your observer (1) “The Basics “

Observers vary in character and outlook so greatly, it’s funny.
One man, very serious, you could annoy by simply talking. He would peer and peer through his binoculars, never relaxing, always frowning. Him you would please by utter silence!
“Two-seven-zero! “, he would say.
The helicopter would turn.
“Go down! “
The helicopter would go down.
“Log! Radio buoy! “
You’d go down and pop a radio buoy on a log.
“Five minutes! “, I would say.
And we’d go home!
Any unnecessary conversation visibly annoyed him!
Very occasionally, he would be chatty. Okay, I’d chat!
I learned that “Speak, when you are spoken to! ” seemed to work very well with this gentleman.
He was fine, excellent observer, sharp… Just didn’t say a lot!

At the other extreme, there was the chap who you’d please by not waking him up! I’m serious!
He’d close his eyes, and he liked a little snooze. He’d get all grumpy if you elbowed him in the ribs.
We were flying along one day, and I heard this funny noise.
What the heck…?
It was kind of like a flat, level, droning noise. A bit like a busy bee. Next thing the tone went up and down, more or less melodic. I looked across, and there was his Lordship, eyes closed, face relaxed, humming a happy little tune to himself. Relieved to get away from his captain for a while, I guess.

An interesting assessment is: what position does your observer occupy on the ship?
Junior or senior? If you’re lucky, you’ve got the captain. Although this may be intimidating at first, it’s actually really good news. The captains that fly, occasionally or all the time, are the easiest to work with. They understand the helicopter. They understand about landing into wind,or landing with the ship running downwind. Your reasonable requests are always instantly complied with. The Boss is on board!
A lot of American skippers fly in the helicopter, and will ‘make the set’ (judging when to drop the skiff boat) from the helicopter. Some of these captains are truly awesome when it comes to experience. Some are very much the pioneers, and have twenty or thirty years fishing experience behind them. They will suss out you, the newbie pilot, in minutes flat. By the time he’s flown one take-off with you, he’s going to know if you’re going to be any good or not. It may be a little intimidating at first -it was for me- but I think pilots who fly the captain are lucky. A lot of possible problems will simply not occur.

Unfortunately, on some ships, the captain will not fly – ever!
In fact he won’t set foot on the helideck. Now you may end up with a ship’s junior. You may wonder why such an important task as finding fish on that rather expensive helicopter gets delegated to a deckhand. Sometimes the deckhand has built a reputation for really sharp eyesight. Other times, it’s because of fear. F-E-A-R. One captain had promised his wife that he would never fly in the helicopter. Before you laugh too loudly, remember that there have been many really nasty fatal accidents involving ship’s captains over the years. In one of them, which reverberated around the Asiatic fleet, a captain was killed when he got so frightened that he jumped out of the helicopter at one hundred feet. The pilot is a friend of mine, and I got that whole story firsthand. They had a tail rotor failure, and they were established in autorotation. One moment the captain was there, the next he was gone! The pilot performed a superb auto, and put the machine gently down on the sea. But… no captain! Poor chap was killed instantly in the fall. Click here for the whole story.

There was also a crash in South America, which killed a very popular and well known purse seiner captain down there. That kind of tragedy is really, really bad for the tuna helicopter industry. Which is struggling with a poor image. Add to this several really ugly tie-down accidents, involving fatalities; and one mysterious crash which must have been so hard it defies description: all they found was one float and part of a human spine!
You can’t… blame people for being very wary of these helicopters!

So another way of really annoying your observer is by adopting a cavalier attitude to safety. And hence, his survival. They know helicopters can be deadly. Some of them have lost friends in crashes. They’d much rather you do a careful walk around, do a careful fuel check, and not indulge in any aerobatics!

I have heard some great stories, and one of them is a first hand account, straight from the captain involved! I served some time with Captain Chan, a terrific Taiwanese captain to have if you are a tuna pilot, and he told me how he was getting worried about his pilot, and the violent stunts he was performing. Whistling past the crow’s nest, hammerheads, etc. One day the pilot was up alone, herding. The pilot was getting a bit carried away. It was becoming more of an “air show ” than a typical herding operation.
The captain called him on the radio. Words to the effect of:
“Steady on, lad! “
Back came,literally, word-for-word, the following -classic- reply:
“NO PROBLEM, CAPTAIN! “
Ten seconds later, there came a spectacular:
“SPLASH!!!!!!! ”
The whole ship saw it happen. Shock, horror…

Cause: inadvertent tail rotor contact with a wave, followed by a roll over.
Exit stage left: one Hughes 500.
All eyes were glued on the surface of the water. Where’s the pilot?
Thankfully, our young friend was seen a few seconds later, surfacing, and blowing out a stream of water…
Issue: One ‘Submarine TunaHead Certificate’!
Ouch!
‘No problem’, eh?

Well, it was a problem for his company, because they fired him.
Our friend was lucky. A few years later, he was still fishing, still a TunaHead, but older and wiser. And so are quite a few holders of the ‘Submarine TunaHead Certificate’. Still fishing! But not everybody gets away with it. I have a story to tell later about somebody who did not. And I also have some serious recommendations of what you can do to vastly enhance your survival chances in the event of a scenic underwater detour. Get yourself a “Spare Air ” bottle, and learn how to use it. Take an ‘Open Water’ basic scuba diving class.
It might just save your life.

Sometimes I ask myself if ‘splashing out’ in a Tuna chopper is just a little bit too much like nosing over (or ground looping) a tail dragger fixed wing aircraft. With the difference that coming to grief in such a landing accident in a tail dragger is hardly ever fatal, whereas going on a submarine tour in a helicopter very often IS…!
Sometimes guys have been recovered still strapped in their seat belts after a seemingly gentle enough ‘roll-over’. Meaning that they were probably not knocked unconscious. Poor guys just panicked and didn’t even get their seat belts undone. However, if there are doors on the aircraft, you had better open them first, and grab the outside of the aircraft first, before you undo the seatbelt. Otherwise you will have great difficulty exercising the leverage on the door handle – your body may twist the other way under water. Also, a friend of mine tried to escape, and ‘something’ was holding him back. He wasted precious seconds trying to undo the seatbelts which were already undone… until he realized it was his headsets that were holding him in.
(not even a helmet, just ordinary David Clarke’s).
Maybe in your thinking, all of a sudden, that “Spare Air ” bottle seems cheap at the price, eh?

Somebody once said about tail draggers: “There are tail dragger pilots who have ground looped, and there are tail dragger pilots who have yet to ground loop! ”
Those who have never tend to sneer, and look down on those who have. Forgetting how easy it is to do!
Until they do it!
Ouch…!

It’s the same with Helicopters in the Tuna Fields.
Those who have never taken the submarine tour tend to sneer, and look down on those who have.
Caution: like a ground loop, it’s easily done!!
I’ve never played at a dive-dive-dive submarine game – yet! It scares me! Lots!
I’m humble!
My observer knows it scares me, which is why I don’t belt around as fast as I can low-level, squarely and utterly in the hatched area of the ‘height velocity diagram’. Why I don’t show off – much! Why I plan my descents with due regard to the height velocity diagram optimum profile – every time!
And he likes that!
If you indulge in stunts, sure, just every male passenger with any cajones will indeed laugh and giggle while they are up with you. It’s not ‘manly’ to plead: “I’m scared! Please stop! ”
But that doesn’t mean he ISN’T…

I had an observer, my very first one, who was downright aggressive and sullen for the first few weeks.
I was a bit mystified. I wasn’t sure if it was personal, or what. Well, I discovered that I was his fourth pilot in as many months. His captain had fired the previous three.
One trip – fired.
Three pilots. Three times.
In addition to that disquieting fact, his best friend had been killed in a helicopter crash off another boat.
He was nervous, and had asked the captain to be released from flying duties. The captain had refused.
The observer had argued that he didn’t want to fly. The captain had ordered him, and threatened to drop him off at the nearest port if he didn’t!
Enter: (Roll of the drums…) Yet another new Tuna Pilot, wide eyed, and green as Ireland!
You can’t blame poor Akaya for being suspicious. Little did he know he was going to be stuck with me continuously for over a year. After a while, he can’t have been too terrified, because he was as angry as the captain was when my employer wanted to transfer me to another ship!
We were already ‘blood brothers’ by then…

I’ve frequently heard of observers being reluctant to fly, or point blank refusing to fly, with certain pilots.
You won’t get asked back! On the other hand, when your employer tries to transfer you, and your observer goes nuts at the captain, saying that he doesn’t want to fly with anybody else…
Now that’s good for job security!

It’s kind of interesting meeting up, and chatting, with the manager (or the owner) of the fishing company that owns the boat. One thing I learned is how much they value a good observer. The crew man who finds the good logs and the prize foamers is worth his weight in gold. If the helicopter pilot can get along with the number one ‘fishfinder’, then that is truly great. So another way of looking at it is this:
what counts is hitting it off with the ‘number one observer’…

Sure, there are often two or three observers, who take it in turns to fly in the helicopter. Or you will have a main observer, with one or two ‘reserves’, if Number One wants a break. But the relationship that really matters -apart from that with the captain – is that with the acknowledged ‘number one fish finder’. Because fish finding is serious and tiring business (imagine concentrating and holding binoculars up to your eyes for two hours), these ‘ace’ guys tend to be serious about their business. That’s okay!

Other ways of upsetting your observer are technical rather than psychological.
Different tuna pilots have all been guilty of one, more, or all of the following sins:

* ‘losing sight of floating logs’ whilst orbiting.
* ‘insisting on huge amounts of fuel reserves’, and therefore cutting
a promising flight short
* ‘running scarily low on fuel’
* ‘turning beautiful noise into a sudden loud silence’ (running outta gas)
* ‘being rough on the controls’
* ‘setting unreasonably strict wind and weather limits’
* ‘unfamiliarity with GPS systems’ (being a SINR)
* ‘turning left rather than right (his side), so he can’t see’
* ‘waffling all over the shop when trying to drop a radio buoy’
* ‘scaring him to death on take-off and landing’

And, finally, what’s really going to upset him:

*** ‘crashing’…..!!!

The best way to keep your observer happy is to be a real SAFETY orientated guy.
If you are – it shows!

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual

The fifteen most likely scenarios for a tuna chopper crash

Below I offer you merely an opinion. And you know what they say
about opinions. You are strongly encouraged to form your own,
and don’t mind me. But my listing (in order of ranking!) might give you
some food for thought…
(click on the orange hyperlinks)

1. Tie-down Accidents

2. Faulty landing technique (1) – rolling deck, contact with obstacles,
tail boom strikes, etc

3. Faulty take-off technique – hit by ship (sometimes on landing as
well)

4. tail rotor strike during herding (often leading to broken backs)

5. “Blue-out ” (my phrase)

6. faulty landing technique (2) – coffin corner; HOGE, etc

7. running out of gas – failure to assess weather, daylight and headwind

8. ‘Dynamic roll over’ while dropping radio buoy – line snagged

9. autorotation down to a glassy sea

9b. autorotation – optical illusion regarding size of floating objects

10. poor preventative maintenance at sea

11. Excessive reliance on GPS; poor situational awareness; poor
ship/helicopter communication; daylight/night

12. sudden, cataclysmic mechanical failure; use of Military Surplus C18
engines instead of more modern C20 engines is a factor here

13. sudden, violent turn by ship before helicopter secured; slide plus
contact with fixed obstacle

14. Sudden violent wind gust, possible micro burst or thunderstorm;
slide plus contact with fixed obstacle

15. contaminated fuel; inadequate monitoring of fuel quality; lack of
use of Biobor (fungus inhibitor)

I’ll also give you one bonus accident cause, and you decide where that one ranks amongst the above fifteen.

??. being an arrogant idiot… (SEE THE VIDEO ABOVE!)

Notice that missing from this list of most likely accident causes is maintenance ex shore base. The reason for that is, that I’ve seen first hand many of these maintenance shops. Indeed, I’ve worked in one. I don’t think that is where the problem lies. Those guys are either good or very good. Offshore maintenance is very different. Even the best operator is relying on the offshore (unsupervised) mechanic. Some are good, some are brilliant, and some don’t have the foggiest clue…

Francis Meyrick
(c)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 5, 2010, 11:05 pm

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual

Section 4. GPS Systems and Offshore Navigation Issues

4-5 Hey, it sure is getting dark!

Why, you may wonder, a whole chapter devoted to ‘sunset’?
Because it catches people out. The closer you get to the equator, the faster the sun sets. You may have had a nice blue sky all day, with only a fringe of solid, but low cloud on the western horizon. Somehow this lulls you into a false sense of security. That fringe of ‘solid but low cloud’ is really going to bite you.
It’s uncanny how fast the sun sinks. Especially when you’re struggling into a headwind, a bit tight on fuel, and flying a Bell 47! Combine that rapidly sinking sun with that low cloud on the western front, and you’re in for a short twilight. Next thing, it’s dark! With no cockpit lights, no attitude indicator, and no visual references, you will have to land in the sea. It’s like somebody hit the light switch…

Let me tell you another story against myself -yes, I wasn’t all that smart – to illustrate the point.
We had been searching all day for fish. It had been a big ‘nada’. On the third flight of the day, at about 35 miles due East of the ship, we spotted some large foamers a few miles further East. The wind was westerly, and a good 15 knots. I suspect to this day that the observer, who was also the ship’s navigator, used to study the stopwatch and the GPS, and used to do his own ‘flight planning’. I further suspect that he simply took the ‘time to go’ (back to the ship) straight off the Tigershark, (at the outbound/tailwind promoted ground speed) and
completely failed to allow for the return headwind and consequently greatly reduced ground speed. Some GPS units will simply not give you a ‘time to go’ back to the ship if you are heading away. Others however do. In other words, the GPS will simply take your present with-the-wind high ground speed, and use that erroneous figure to give you an estimate back to the ship. A hopelessly optimistic figure!

Now I wasn’t that green, and I was doing the mental arithmetic for FUEL remaining, and I usually subtract 150 per cent of the expected headwind from my airspeed. So there’s an extra safety factor. But like I said, I suspect muggins beside me was ‘playing pilot’. Without allowing for the radically different ground speeds. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. At any rate, when I wanted to turn back, he became downright unpleasant. He roared and bawled and yelled and screamed. He was pissed – he wanted to stay over the foamers.
I allowed myself to be intimidated for a precious ten minutes or so. I was new, anxious to please, a bit upset, and now distracted by him! (I have long since learned the trick: you announce ‘five minutes!’ After that, you turn and fly home! You don’t even COMMENT on any histrionics. You simply turn a deaf ear. The noise soon sputters to an indignant stop) And so it was that I re-ran the mental arithmetic over and over again. I left out one calculation because it simply never occurred to me: DAY LIGHT remaining…

I can say that my fuel calculations were spot on. We never had a problem there.
But… the funny thing is that I remember turning around, knowing we had a fifty minute ride back. At that stage, I remember the sun was so pleasantly high in the sky, I still didn’t think about DAY LIGHT remaining.

Then that golden orb started to sink. And sink. And sink. It positively plummeted…
The low,solid cloud bank that had appeared so benign and harmless, suddenly started to take on more ominous characteristics.
Oh, sh….t !!
Soon it was obvious that we were heading into trouble. My observer, who had been giving me abuse for the first five minutes of the return journey, now became rather quiet…
The sun hit the clouds, slithered down behind them so fast you could see it disappear, like a monkey down a greasy pole, and seconds later all the lights started to go out! It’s weird. One moment it’s broad daylight, the sky is sunny, and you’re able to see everything on the instrument panel as clear as anything. A few minutes later, you are straining and peering at your instruments, running all sorts of calculations, and wishing you were home!

The little Bell 47 was doing its best, as I slowly wound on more and more throttle. I was redlining it, poor thing, and still we had fifteen minutes to go. It got darker and darker. The sea was now featureless.
Now the ship’s lights were on, bright lights in a dark void. The ominous clouds, with the westerly wind, had reached the ship, and soon we were underneath them, feeling the first drops of rain, splattering accusingly on the windscreen..
Errrrrrr…..which ship?
There were at least two, five miles or so apart, and the GPS seemed to be indicating somewhere between the two. Bright lights, black background. I could still make out references by which to fly, but these were fading fast. I asked my observer, more in hope than in trust,if he knew which was our ship. I wanted to save every minute I could! He swung up his binoculars, studied the lights for a few seconds, and then, rather to my surprise, positively indicated one of the lights.
“Are you SURE? “
I almost snarled it. He was not my flavor of the month.
“Yes-yes! “
I swung the helicopter directly for the lights indicated, hoping to save a few minutes.
We had not gone far, when the captain’s calm voice came over the headset.
“Moggy! Wake up! Stupid Paddy! You go to wrong ship! “
He was watching us on radar!
My observer physically flinched, that slight ducking and bowing of the head, shoulders raised, that indicates guilt, and I positively GLARED at him across the dark cockpit. If looks could kill he would have been thrashing around, foaming at the mouth, dying a horrible death!
The fact of course was that it was really all my own fault…

We turned onto the new course, courtesy of the radar heading provided by our vigilant ship’s Captain, and I initiated a shallow descent. I had been a night flying instructor, and I knew the risks (and the phrases from the many accident reports) of ‘rolling around a single light on the horizon’ and ‘descending inadvertently into the sea whilst pre-occupied with distant lights’. I could just about keep references. As we got closer, the ship grew in size, and now it was easier.
We landed safely, out of the dark sky, with rain falling, but another few minutes would have meant a precautionary landing in the sea. I had learned once again, and not covered myself with glory!

You’ll note the Taiwanese captain did rather well -again! This man would never have gone to bed with his helicopter still flying. No matter how tired he was. This man was sharp. We return to this later…

Francis Meyrick
(c)