ASSESSING HELICOPTER RECOVERY TO AN OFFSHORE PLATFORM USING PILOTED FLIGHT SIMULATION AND TIME-ACCURATE AIRWAKES

Watson, NA ORCID: 0000-0003-0316-8266, Owen, I ORCID: 0000-0001-5642-736X, Prior, M and White, MD ORCID: 0000-0002-8611-9525 (2022) ASSESSING HELICOPTER RECOVERY TO AN OFFSHORE PLATFORM USING PILOTED FLIGHT SIMULATION AND TIME-ACCURATE AIRWAKES. In: European Rotorcraft Forum 2022, 2022-9-6 - 2022-9-9, Winterhur, Switzerland.

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Abstract

This paper describes an investigation in which piloted flight simulation has been used to study the effect of turbulent air flow on helicopter recovery to an offshore platform. A helicopter flight simulation environment has been developed in which the unsteady air flow over a full-scale offshore platform has been modelled using time-accurate Computational Fluid Dynamics. Real-time piloted helideck landings have been conducted in a six-degree-of-freedom motion flight simulator where a flight dynamics model representative of a Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk helicopter was integrated with 30 seconds of unsteady computed air flow. A test pilot was instructed to perform landings to the helideck of the platform for wind speeds of 20 to 50 kt. Ratings of pilot workload and turbulence were obtained during the trial which, along with the recorded pilot control inputs and helicopter states, were used to analyse the effect of the platform's airwake on the helicopter and on pilot workload. The results show that as the freestream wind speed increased, the turbulence intensity and pilot workload also increased. The workload ratings, along with the corresponding pilot control activity and helicopter positional accuracy, are discussed in relation to the airwake to which the helicopter was subjected. The paper demonstrates how flight simulation with time-accurate airwakes could be used to support helicopter operations to offshore platforms.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Unspecified)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2022 07:40
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2023 19:22
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3165305