My wife and I were out looking for the northern lights the other evening when we saw a helicopter come over the mountain and land at the nearby hospital. Before it landed it went over the landing area and circled before going back and landing. It wasn't windy out and I have seen other helicopters do this and I am just curious why. If they had a patient aboard wouldn't they want to go directly in and to get them offloaded quicker.  

Edit: They were landing at the hospital which has a dedicated landing pad with lights and a fenced in area just outside the ER. Maybe they had to activate the lights on the pad?

Probably checking for obstructions and power lines.

Probably for the same reason a dog always circles before laying down, or maybe not.

Looking for that perfect spot? Like a dog will do when it needs to go to the bathroom.

Not a pilot so I have no idea.

Dang-it, beat.

Making sure charlie isn’t waiting.

I’m not a pilot but I always figured it so they can fly right out the same way they flew in. Kinda like backing into a parking spot.

Helicopters are the sailboats of the air. A real pain in the ass when you’re in the pattern.

It's to cinculate the rotation of the main rotor, the air, and the ground, so that you don't end up in a vortexual conglomarius.

Came here to post this.

That would have been a target for Charlie.  Those Nam pilots came in low and fast and usually flared when landing.  They took off low and fast too.  There were lots of Nam vet pilots where I was stationed.

firguring the wind without a windsock.

*fortunate son starts playing*

Look up Vortex Ring State

Watch what a dog does before laying down.  Simplest explanation I can think of.

Probably flew in downwind then turned around to land into the wind, upwind.

**not a pilot but flew in helicopters for 20 or so years**

I thought they circled the crowd looking for hot babes and then landed close by?

It gives the pilot a bit more time for bystanders to look and see that he's a pilot. It saves him from having to tell them once he's on the ground.

I'm not a helicopter pilot, but my dad was. He did explain once that you don't typically want to drop straight down when landing. In the event of an engine failure, you will want some airspeed which can help you perform an autorotation. Or something.

Actually it's to make sure he has their undivided attention for when he does tell them.

Not a pilot either but that doesn't make sense. When landing you enter the dead man's curve out of necessity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_height%E2%80%93velocity_diagram

Those guys are a different breed. Zero fucks.

Your sarcasm meter is broken.

At my hospital the helipad wind sock is 10 feet off the ground. The pilots use a flag a used car dealership nearby has that is 40 x 60 to read the wind.

Fortunate Son probably still had a few seconds left on the track.

Not a pilot, but I ride in the back of helicopters for a living.  We circle to do a size up of the landing zone.  We are looking for things like wires, wind direction, trees, if the area is secure from animals and people, etc.  The circle just gives a good opportunity to look (especially at night.  Wires are hard to see at night, even under NVGs).  In addition, at some hospitals it gives an opportunity to trigger remote lighting (with the radio), which often is tied to turning off the vent system on the roof so that it doesn’t suck in our exhaust.

I'm not a pilot but set up a lot of impromptu on the fly LZs for medical transport.
In the scenario they are looking for power lines and slope of the land.

Exact same thing.

"LOOK AT ME AND MY AWESOMENESS!!!"

They want to look cool and impress the nurses.  Obviously.

And so they can see the glare off his watch.

Kharn

I have a friend who retired from the Marine Corps as a Major and was a helicopter pilot. His retirement job was a pilot for a well known air ambulance company. He hated his job because every aspect of the flying was tightly controlled by the company. They had very specific landing and take off approach and were graded on how tightly they followed the approach azimuth and slope. Once air born and out of the approach pattern they had to follow the exact autopilot path. The same was true for when they landed.

This isn't 'Nam, this is patient transport, THERE ARE RULES!!

I was working Phoenix Speedway one year for a NASCAR race long time ago.  On the south side of the track are the helicopter pads.  We'd be back there by the maintenance sheds and you could watch them chopper in the drivers from downtown.

All of them come in nice and slow, hover and set it down real easy, driver gets out and then up, nice and slow, rotate and back to town to ferry more guys.

All of them, except this one fucking dude.  

He'd come screaming in, pitch the nose straight up to stop and then drop right down to the deck.  Take off, he'd hit it and climb fast, spin and off he went.

He was having fun and it was awesome to watch.

When landing anything near a building you can get a vortex from the way the wind and prop wash come off the building or buildings.

Basically making a good visual check of what you’re about to get yourself into and making decisions based off what you see.
FAA handbook:

High Reconnaissance
The purpose of conducting a high reconnaissance is to determine direction and speed of the wind, a touchdown point, suitability of the landing area, approach and departure axes, and obstacles for both the approach and departure. The pilot should also give particular consideration to forced landing areas in case of an emergency.
Altitude, airspeed, and flight pattern for a high reconnaissance are governed by wind and terrain features. It is important to strike a balance between a reconnaissance conducted too high and one too low. It should not be flown so low that a pilot must divide attention between studying the area and avoiding obstructions to flight. A high reconnaissance should be flown at an altitude of 300 to 500 feet above the surface.
A general rule to follow is to ensure that sufficient altitude is available at all times to land into the wind in case of engine failure.
In addition, a 45° angle of observation generally allows the best estimate of the height of barriers, the presence of obstacles, the size of the area, and the slope of the terrain.
Always maintain safe altitudes and airspeeds and keep a forced landing area within reach whenever possible.
Low Reconnaissance
A low reconnaissance is accomplished during the approach to the landing area. When flying the approach, verify what was observed in the high reconnaissance, and check for anything new that may have been missed at a higher altitude, such as wires and their supporting structures (poles, towers, etc.), slopes, and small crevices. If the pilot determines that the area chosen is safe to land in, the approach can be continued.
However, the decision to land or go around must be made prior to decelerating below effective translational lift (ETL), or before descending below the barriers surrounding the confined area.
If a decision is made to complete the approach, terminate the landing to a hover in order to check the landing point carefully before lowering the helicopter to the surface. Under certain conditions, it may be desirable to continue the approach to the surface.
Once the helicopter is on the ground, maintain operating revolutions per minute (rpm) until the stability of the helicopter has been checked to be sure it is in a secure and safe position.

There was a Huey bringing bundles of Christmas trees to the landing on my neighbors place. The landing was on a small ridge with big timber behind it, wind was coming from behind the ridge. The pilot would come in low to stay below the wind, release the bundles and kind of bounce up about 100 feet while pulling the nose up and around so he'd get picked up by the wind for a high-speed trip back down the hill. I bet he was loving it.

Good practice to circle the landing spot to scout for obstructions & hazards that could be detrimental to a safe landing.

Because it looks cool.

Those life flight pilots try to toss the patient out of the door by giving it some left cyclic while orbiting. Sometimes their IV lines get caught on stuff though, so the pilot has to give up and land.

I hung a 4X6 flag on one of my dock poles so I’d know which way to approach the slip due to cross winds. Friggin tritoon is a damned wind sock.

I had a heart attack leading a cave trip back in 2013 and was air evac'd to the hospital in Roanoke.

It was windy as shit and we were all over the place as the pilot tried to land on the roof helipad. I remember being doped up on morphine and thinking, "Fuck...I survived a heart attack in a cave, just so I could die in a helicopter crash at the hospital".

I fucking lost.

I miss being a crew chief.

Not a pilot but I use C4 to clear LZs and they circle to look for Charlie.

Wrong
All of the fucks

This, and wind.

I miss crewing every day - until I see what the Army allows and the politics.

If there were a civilian chinook Flight Engineer position I could attain, I would. But I didn't have a ton of hours, so this theoretical position would have to be for baby FE's lol