Crash Position Indicator (CPI)

Crash position indicators (CPI)

For modelers looking to add a crash position indicator to their CH-113 Labrador or CH-113A Voyageur the rules are fairly straight forward, the helicopter, regardless of variant must be yellow...that is of course with two exceptions that will be obvious later in this post.

A close up look of the CPI - Photo Scott Hemsley

The first exception is an unpainted Labrador 303(below) being overhauled by Boeing at their Arnprior facility. While the lack of paint is interesting, the location of the CPI is of even greater interest.

The second exception is Labrador 302 in red, white and blue livery during CPI trials. The DND photo below was sent to me by Mike Belcher. Note the position of the CPI is aft of the exhaust.

304 in front of 407 Squadron hangar in Comox, 1984. Note that CPI is below and aft of the exhaust. The helicopter is SARCUP modified and has the cone shaped engine inlet screens.

304 Again, however the engine inlet screens are the top hat style, but most interesting is the fact that the CPI is now located directly below the exhaust, so for some unexplained reason the CPI has been relocated.

The picture above is a hint that 11308 in yellow pre-SARCUP livery may well have been involved in CPI trials in Cold Lake. Position of the CPI is aft of the exhaust. Meanwhile aircraft 310 is pictured below with the larger tanks, but no radar or CPI.  Still other photos show 311 with both the larger tanks and radar, but still no CPI? For the modeler, this means there are a whole host of options for 113 variants where the CPI is concerned, but all, with the aforementioned exceptions, are in yellow livery. The photo above is a DND photo scanned from the CF flight safety magazine "Flight Comment". The photo below was taken by me (Randy Brown) while stationed in Gander, Newfoundland (103 RU).

A Pre-SARCUP 308, possible during CPI trials?

308 Again without a CPI, this time however the CPI was lost in flight. After landing at CFB Comox following the CPI loss, I took this picture, which was scanned from a 35mm slide.

Voyageur CPI clearly located below the exhaust.

318 With conical engine inlet covers and a CPI located below the exhaust.

A SARCUP 113A in the water during SAR Mewasige - 30 Sep 86 off Missassagi Island . The location of the CPI is aft of the exhaust. The extra nose glass and is good evidence that this helicopter is a Voyageur variant. The engine inlet screens are conical. At some point the CPI would have been relocated and the screens changed to the top hat style. Photo - Ted Brown

In the next blog I will get closer to the end of this phase of the original blog intent and start setting up the blog to address individual aircraft in their various stages of evolution. The intent is to look at each air frame chronologically starting from purchase to retirement as was done in the first phase.