Andrzej Jeziorski/HONG KONG and SINGAPORE
Hong Kong and Singapore, both major Asian international business centres, are often compared. The cities are responsible for significant portions of airspace and busy sea lanes and each must be able to respond to any emergency that needs airborne rescue capabilities. True to form, each tackles the issue in its own way.
In Hong Kong, the responsibility falls on the Government Flying Service (GFS). The GFS emerged from the resources and experience of the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force after it was disbanded in 1993, in anticipation of the handover to China in 1997. The GFS began operating in April, 1993.
Reporting directly to the region's Secretary for Security, the service employs 257 full-time personnel. It is based at Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, but its helicopters can operate from 157 registered landing sites around Hong Kong.
The service has a rotary- and fixed-wing fleet of 11 aircraft. In 1998, it completed 52 rescues, compared with 36 in 1997 and 54 in 1996. The GFS Aeroplane Section operates two British Aerospace Jetstream 41 twin turboprops, which replaced two Raytheon Beech Super King Air twins in December 1998. These are modified for their primary role of day and night search and locate missions, and police and survey duties.
The Jetstreams fly regular patrols with marine police inspectors to check for illegal immigrants. The aircraft support the Narcotics Bureau in searches for trawlers used by drug smugglers. Their duties also include aerial survey operations, such as mapping, air sampling and radio-frequency interference checks.
The Helicopter Section operates three Sikorsky S-76A+ and three S-76C helicopters - all powered by Turboméca Arriels. It also has three Sikorsky S-70A Black Hawks. GFS Controller Capt Brian Butt says the S-76s are used for various roles, including search and rescue (SAR), but the S-76C is more suited to communications flights, carrying underslung loads, police trooping (it can carry up to seven passengers) and in-shore SAR. The A+ can also perform day and night surveillance (this type has a forward-looking infrared sensor from FSI-Agema) and round-the-clock offshore SAR.
The Black Hawks, which can carry up to 18 passengers, are used mainly to support the police, as well as for firefighting missions. The S-76s are occasionally called on for this role, but the Black Hawks can carry up to 2,720kg (6,000lb) of water in an underslung bucket, compared with the S-76's 910kg limit.
Firefighting missions peak in April and October during the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals to honour the dead. The burning of offerings of paper money at gravesites often leads to fires spreading out of control. The carelessness that causes these fires frustrates GFS personnel.
"Last April, we had a bad fire during Ching Ming. While I was fighting the fire, they were still burning money about half a mile up the hill," says Butt, who has taken part in more than 100 rescues. "Fighting a fire over the hills is an art. If you are too high, the water drizzles down and is ineffective; if you are too low, you fan the fire. Upwind you get smoke blowing at you; downwind you need to use more power."
According to senior pilot (operations) Johnny Lee, the Black Hawk is unsuitable for offshore SAR because of its limited avionics and its lack of flotation gear. It can, however, carry out day-and-night inshore SAR missions as its cockpit allows the use of night-vision goggles. Its police support role incorporates transport, traffic monitoring and tactical training duties.
GFS SAR duties generally lie within the Hong Kong flight information region (FIR). Joint exercises are also conducted with the Japan Maritime Safety Agency, the US Coast Guard and mainland Chinese services.
The GFS has at least one SAR helicopter on standby 24h a day and can have a helicopter airborne in under 20min after an emergency call. The average time for the GFS to arrive at the pick-up point after a call is less than 30min, according to official statistics.
Searches for lost or injured hikers in the rocky hills of the New Territories or the outlying islands are frequent, and sometimes casualties need to be winched to safety in bad weather.
Extreme weather, such as the seasonal typhoons which hit Hong Kong, or other natural disasters, keep the GFSbusy with SAR, aerial survey, airlift and casualty evacuation duties. The storm season often leads to the need for difficult winch rescues of seamen from stricken boats, while, after a typhoon, reconnaissance flights pinpoint areas in need of help, and relief flights are directed accordingly.
According to Butt, the GFS is replacing its fleet and will soon retire the S-76s, now about 10 years old, and the three-and-a-half year old Black Hawks. It has signed a contract with Franco-German manufacturer Eurocopter for five EC155Bs and three AS332L2 Super Puma MkIIs. Deliveries will begin in June next year. The acquisition of the Super Puma will double the GFS' radius of action in offshore operations to 370km (200nm).
"You can immediately see that this will improve our range and, by eliminating the Black Hawk, we can get away from the US embargo on import and export licences, which has given us a lot of problems. As a life-saving agency, I do not believe the restrictions placed on us are fair. Sikorsky has been very good - but not the US Government," says Butt.
Black Hawk spares are treated by the US Government as military supplies, and US export regulations have led to delays in supply, he says. They have also affected S-70 servicing in the USA, as an import licence is required to send the aircraft over, and an export licence is needed to return it to Hong Kong.
Singapore responsibilities
In Singapore, SAR duties are the responsibility of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), specifically of 125 Sqn, equipped with Eurocopter AS332 Super Pumas. Based in the north of the island at Sembawang air base, the squadron has three dedicated SAR helicopters, equipped with spotlights, loudhailers, winches and medical equipment.
Sembawang is the home of all the RSAF's Singapore-based helicopter squadrons, including its most recent addition: 127 "Stallions" Sqn, equipped with six Boeing CH-47D Chinooks. These big twin-rotor aircraft share some SAR duties, although this is secondary to their primary heavylift task.
Two of 125 Sqn's Super Pumas are on standby from 08:00 to 17:00 - one on "alert 15" (ready to be airborne within 15min) and one on "alert 30" (airborne within 30min). After 17:00, the "alert 30" state of readiness is downgraded to "alert 75", since less traffic is expected after that time.
The squadron's SAR responsibility also covers Singapore's FIR, although the Super Puma, with its 4.5h endurance, allows 125 Sqn to operate out to 370km radius - twice that of GFS offshore SAR aircraft. The RSAF SuperPumas are also equipped for night SAR, and can pick up as many as six stretcher-borne casualties at once. The squadron has dealt with a wide variety of emergencies, from gunshot wounds to sailors with gas poisoning, as well as searching for the crew of a crashed Australian General Dynamics F-111.
Specialist pilot Maj Tan Sah Boon says, "long SAR [long-range offshore missions] are not that frequent - maybe three or four times a year. With short SAR [intra-island call outs], it depends on the season. We have more when the weather is at its hottest." Often these seasonal call-outs are to pick up soldiers with heat stroke.
"Under no circumstances would we fly outside the Singapore FIR," he adds, although the squadron conducts joint SAR exercises with Indonesian and Malaysian units in case a joint operation should be needed.
Singaporean SAR responsibility reaches out to the northern tip of Sarawak - beyond the range of 125 Sqn's helicopters, but within the range of RSAF Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules from 122 Sqn at Paya Lebar, are sometimes called on for search and locate missions.
The most challenging missions in which Tan has been involved have been long night-time searches. "If you go up to do a search and rescue in the dark and you are looking for a merchant ship, the light from shipping looks just like the stars - you have no horizon. You might see 10-20 ships, and you do not know which one to go to," he says. Under these conditions, the SAR pilot might ask the ship's captain to flash its lights to help him identify it.
The SAR helicopters are expected to launch with a cloud base of 300ft (90m) and with 30kt (55km/h) gusts, depending on urgency. Tan says strong winds are rarely a problem around Singapore - in contrast with the meteorological challenges faced by the GFS.
Source: Flight International