Creating a realistic piloted simulation of helicopter recovery to an offshore platform

This paper describes the development of a realistic piloted simulation of helicopter recovery to an offshore platform, which has been used to assess the effect of turbulent air flow on a helicopter landing on a full-scale offshore platform. Time-accurate CFD was used to create the unsteady turbulent airwake generated by an offshore platform. The computed unsteady airwake velocities were integrated with a flight dynamics model representative of a Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk helicopter in a six-degree-of-freedom motion flight simulator. A simulated flight trial was conducted in which a test pilot was instructed to perform a series of helideck landings to the platform for wind speeds of 20 to 50 kt and to give workload ratings for the difficulty of the task. The workload ratings, along with the corresponding pilot control activity and helicopter positional accuracy, are discussed in relation to the effect of the airwake on the helicopter and pilot workload. The results show that as the freestream wind speed increased, the vertical velocity fluctuations and pilot workload also increased. The paper demonstrates the potential for realistic piloted flight simulation to be used to support helicopter operations to offshore platforms.