Dunker training

At my job we all work on many different things. Moreso in my particular little group, because we're kind of the catch-all for all of the aircraft components that don't fit nicely into one of the other categories. Which is to say not only do I work on several different utility actuation components, I am also the Navy's expert on Emergency Egress Lighting Systems (or EELS, if you like acronyms). Go ahead and be impressed.

Without giving away any trade secrets, I'll tell you that EELS are basically light strips that guide you to aircraft exits in case of an emergency. They're designed to be seen through smoke if there's a crash on land, but the big show is crashes in water (we are the Navy, after all). So, since I've been going to meetings directing the layout of these systems for a couple years now, we figured it was time that I got a little more acquainted with how they work in practice. Ergo last week I took the Navy's aircraft survival training.
Day one was mostly lectures about various procedures, and how to use all the stuff that's packed into various pockets on the flightsuit (like flashlights, flares, etc), but they did get the swimming test out of the way early. It was nothing special- it was just a Phelps-style relay swim that was 25 yards each of freestyle, breast stroke, side stroke, and back stroke. The tricky part is that directly after that we had to do five minutes of "drown proofing," or what my 1985 YMCA swim teacher called "dead man's float." This was all in regular swim suits, but it was surprisingly hard to get your heart rate down while floating in the water after a long swim. Even more surprising was that a handful of the guys in the class didn't pass- one dude even traveled here from some other base just for this class. C'est la vie!

The only other interesting part of day one was the hyperbaric chamber. This is where they taught us how to deal with altitude changes and work the breathing unit. It was fun because we each got our Top-Gun style flight helmet with oxygen mask, which we got to plug in and talk to each other over the com system. Going in I asked if I could take my camera (yeah I brought it fool) in with me, and the guy answered "No, we don't like to have any unnecessary electronics in the oxygen-rich environment. Besides, it's pretty boring. Not really worth a picture." Dave (my coworker who also got to take the course) said "I don't think he understands how boring our average day is."

So they took us up to altitude, which was only like 8,000 ft- just enough to get a taste, but not enough to make us act all silly with the altitude sickness. I'll tell you, I didn't really like the breather. You kind of had to work to get a breath in, drawing through that whole tube apparatus, and I don't like things telling me how to breathe. At another point they had us flip it to emergency mode, which they advised us would be very different from regular breathing. They said it would force the air into our lungs, and we would have to work to expel it. Oddly enough, I flipped the switch and thought "Ahh...this is more like it!" Apparently I have a lazy diaphragm.Just because I like this picture I'll mention that the grounds of the ASTC (Aircraft Survival Training Center) are littered with the burned out husks of aircraft. We thought that maybe they were there to serve as some sort of warning, but apparently they get used in various rescue scenarios. We used an old Huey to sit outside and eat lunch, because it was a really nice day.

Day one ended at about 2:00, so we were given the choice of A: Go back to my desk and work until 5:00, or B: Go back to the pool and practice swimming for day two. Guess what we chose! Work avoidance aside, I was pretty concerned about how to swim with all that stuff on. Suprisingly, only one other guy stayed back with Dave and me. They had us put on the flight suit, boots, vest and helmet, then jump on in. The first thing I noticed was that shoes really do make it harder to swim. Second, that the helmet is really buoyant. This made the drown proofing a little tricky, because now your head is more buoyant than your chest- so when you tuck your chin into your chest, it moves you up in the water. I don't know. It's hard to explain.

Also, the helmet really gets in the way of normal swim strokes. For example, you can't do regular old freestyle, because it's hard to clear the helmet with your arms. Hence the specific strokes they taught us, like the backstroke with your hands never leaving the water and the side stroke.

Once we felt comfortable all geared up in the water, we decided we's had enough for one day, and got ready to leave. This was at the perfect suck-time of three o' clock. See, we work until 5:00, so had we finished up at noon we could've had a productive afternoon in the office. Conversely, if we ended at 4:00-ish, it probably wouldn't even be work heading into the office and getting set up, so we'd just go home. Three, however, is too early to go home, and you get back just in time to almost be productive, but not quite. So we went to work.

Day two was all in the pool. The entire class was doing most of these tests, but three of us (me, Dave, and a guy named Bill) were getting the extra dunker and HABD training, so we were kind of kept separate. I'll let you know which tests were special. In any case, the first test was 25 yards each of breast stroke and side stroke, followed by the 5 minutes of drown proofing in the full outfit. We had just practiced this, so piece of cake. Next!

Then came the 25-yard underwater swim. It's just like it sounds- swim 25 yards underwater. You are allowed to come up for air, but you have to do this move where you splash the water around with your hands before your head pops up (in theory to clear debris and/or burning fuel). I heard the instructions, and thought "Pff. 25 yards. I'm not going to come up to breathe." Turns out that swimming underwater fully clothed takes a lot longer than I'm used to. I think I had to come up for air 3 times. My pride was a little hurt, but I passed otherwise.

Then came the dexterity test. This was the first time we were able to actually swim through an underwater emergency exit, even if it was just a fake door in a panel at the bottom of the shallow end. I really wish I had a picture- oh! They're in the background of this picture, under where "ADR" is painted on the wall. It's just a board with a door in it- the handle directly above the door actually opens it, but there are two additional fake handles on each side (so that's five emergency door handles, all different- or as Dave put it, "The worst emergency exit ever"). There's also a roughly 10-foot pipe attached to it that lays down on the pool floor. So the test goes like this: You belt yourself into an aircraft harness attached to a strap that the instructor holds (which makes you feel a little bit like one of those kids who's parents put them on a leash). You stand at the far end of the pole, away from the door. The instructor pushes you underwater, and your first goal is to escape the harness. You must then pull yourself hand over hand along the pole to the door. At this point I'll mention that at no point during an emergency egress are you to "swim" until you exit the aircraft. All motion is done by pulling yourself along, lest you kick one of your fellow crew members in the face. Okay, once you arrive at the window, you must actuate all five different handles, then exit the door. Simple enough, right? You get to do it twice with your eyes open, and the third time is blindfolded.

The crew was always trying to get people to do what they called "The Pepsi Challenge," which meant that you did the test blindfolded on your first try. I would always get a little cocky and think "Yeah, I can do this blindfolded!" when they described the test, but then after watching the trainer do a demo I'd think "Hmm...might want to see while I'm doing this." And as the tasks progressed, it became less and less likely that I would take the challenge. In any case, we all (me, Dave, Bill) did it perfectly, three times in a row. That makes it seem easy, but there were a couple of guys who just couldn't do it. One guy in particular couldn't even get out of the harness before he ran out of air- and come on, it's a quick release, designed specifically for this scenario. He would pop up out of the water, swearing up a storm, time after time. I felt pretty bad for him, but hey, if you can't do this, you have no business getting harm's way.

Next was what they call the sweat trainer. This was where the special training began- most of the class was done now. I thought "sweat" was a clever name for a challenging test, but evidently it stands for Shallow Water Egress Aircrew Trainer or something, making it not only assuredly a backronym but one of those acronyms where everyone redundantly says the last word, like "PIN number." You can see the apparatus in the background of this glamour shot, again along the back wall.

It's basically a 12 foot-ish long, 3 foot square tube made out of aluminum tubing. There's a door at each end, and two chairs mounted on top that can be flipped upside down so that they're inside the tube. When it's placed in the pool, the chairs stick up, but pretty much everything else is under water. They ran us through multiple scenarios in this thing, but most of them were a variant on strap in, get flipped, escape the harness, check the close exit but pretend you can't open it, traverse the tube, open the other exit and escape. I declined the Pepsi challenge on all of them. Keep in mind that we did this two at a time, so not only did you have to maneuver around the chairs and bars, but the other dude was coming right at you. And yes, we had to do this blindfolded.

During this portion it really hit home that staying calm was the key. If I started to get hyper and felt like it was all "Go! Go! Go," it was much more difficult than if I just calmed down, and thought "Yes, I'm underwater, blindfolded and strapped upside down to a seat, but if I play my cards right I'll be out of here in 10 seconds, and I stay underwater for way longer than that for fun while swimming." If you think about it, nothing we did was really all that hard. I guess the whole "underwater" thing adds a little danger, but otherwise it wasn't that bad.

So next up was the main event:The dunker. It's pretty much just what it looks like: a replica of a helicopter cabin that can be lowered into a pool and flipped upside down (because that's how helicopters sink). The idea is very simple- strap in to a seat, get dunked and flipped, and when it comes to a stop, get out in an orderly fashion, following all the rules you've learned. Obviously, the big holes are for safety. We were only allowed to egress through the two exits in the back, which you can see behind us in that first picture. For our three runs we used three different seats: one by the exit (furthest in this shot), and the two far ones (in the center here). We were constantly surrounded by trained instructors who were barely chatting and relaxing (including 3 divers underwater), so in theory the danger was minimized. They gave us 25 seconds from the moment the dunker hit the water, and if we weren't out they would come in to get us.

Luckily, it never came to that. Our first two runs (for which I was in the two far seats) were basically textbook, and I believe everyone was out within 10 seconds. It's odd, but if you stay calm, it really wasn't that big a deal. I'd even go so far as to say it was kind of fun. However, the blindfold did change things a little.

I do feel like I got a little ripped off. For the blindfolded run I got the seat right next to the exit, so even though I had to open it underwater before I could get out, it was still right there. Dave and Bill had the seats in the back, so they had to traverse the whole cabin underwater by touch only. I got right out, and by the time I pulled off my blacked-out goggles Bill was right behind me. We had a little mini-celebration, and then we were like "Hey Dave... Dave?" followed by a minorly tense 4 or 5 seconds before Dave popped up out of the water. Turns out he got a little turned around, figured out (by touch) that he was heading the wrong way, adjusted and still made it out with plenty of time.

We still had the HABD training to go, but honestly, it was all downhill after the dunker. HABD stands for Helicopter Aircrew Breathing Device, and it's just a little compressed air bottle and regulator that stores in your vest. I don't remember all of the specifics, but it gives you approximately 2-4 minutes of air if you get caught underwater. This was kind of like high-school math class- you know how you would start a new topic, and you would spend 1 or 2 days doing super long, complicated problems? And then the teacher would be like "Oh by the way, here's the super short, easy way to do the exact same thing?" Well, the HABD bottle was like that. It's like "What do you want to do to me? Blindfold me? Strap me upside down? Do your worst! I'm breathing down here!" It was a game changer. Time was no longer a factor.

This is not to say that the HABD was without a learning curve. I ran into the same problem that I always had with the snorkel as a kid- breathing through my mouth but not my nose. Try it, right now: breathe in through your mouth with no air going into your nose. Now, you may think that you're doing it right, but in reality you're probably inhaling and subsequently swallowing gallons of chlorinated pool water. It took me several tries to get the hang of it, especially when they make you hang upside down on the side of the pool. At one point I asked "Can I hold my nose?" you know, jokingly even though I truly wanted to. The guy was like "No." But once I had it, I had it. They had us do a few simple swim tests and repeated the SWEAT trainer with the bottle, and that was pretty much it.

So there you have it- an average Joe's take on the Navy's Aircrew Survival Training. That took a really long time for me to write, and I'm sure I've forgotten something, so feel free to comment. Oh, and the rest of the pictures can be found here.

Oh, and you know the Emergency Egress Lighting? The whole system I was there to get a feel for? Didn't work on the dunker. Apparently their batteries were dead. So as the Navy's expert on EELS and a certified N4/NP4 & N7/N9 aircraft survival traning graduate, I can say with authority that Egress Lighting sure seems like it would have been helpful.