Validation of Simulated Ship Air Wake Effects on Helicopter Recoveries

The Royal Australian Navy completed a series of First of Class Flight Trials in 2015 to establish Ship Helicopter Operating Limitations for Australian Defence Force rotary wing aircraft to the Canberra Class Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD). A Risk Reduction Tool (RTT) was developed to understand the impact of LHD airflow behavior on rotary wing operations. Specifically, the tool combined a ship air wake, a flight dynamic and a Pilot Model to provide an indicative effect of the air wake on pilot controls throughout an MRH90 recovery evolution. A verification of this tool suggests that the RRT in isolation was not able to characterize the flight environment with sufficient fidelity to predict pilot workload during recovery operations to the LHD. However, the RRT improved upon the information provided through stand-alone ship air wake analysis and as such the tool is suitable as a risk reduction measure prior to flight testing.