AOC flights in singles in Italy

[jimvegan]

Does anyone know the regulations regarding using singles over water for lengthy periods for Commercial flights under Italian regulations. Have encountered a couple of companies who seem to offer this service.

[vaibronco]

Please specify what AOC is, I will search into ENAC website, I guess you talk about ferrying passengers and according to what I saw, I believe floaters, life vest, raft and ELT are compulsory.
Will have a look and let you know.

[jimvegan]

AOC is the air operators certificate that any company operating commercial flights (usually public transport) has to have. Operating under this certificate involves a number of procedural headaches and restrictions that don't apply to private flights. One such restriction in the UK is that singles may not operate over water for more than 6 minutes (I believe).

[vaibronco]

Sorrry, I did not guess that AOC is exactly as COA in italian: Certificato di Operatore Aereo.
I could not find it in the ENAC website, It must be there but I should spend more time in searching it.
Since Italy is a member of JAA and is implementing JAR-OPS 3 I searched and found something here:
http://www.jaa.nl/publications/jars/606970.pdf
Go straight to page 145 of pdf document. I did not investigate about classes of single engine helicopters. Most of time in Italy will be an AS350.
I will go deeper in this matter when I have some quiet time. This is interesting, if you investigate before me, let me know.

[JimL]

If the conditions are non-hostile - helicopters operating in PC3 can fly over water. The definition of hostile/non-hostile can be found in the definitions (JAR-OPS 3.480) of Subpart F.

You still need to check because ENAC do have 'interpretations'.

Jim

[jimvegan]

Thanks I had a read of JAR OPS 3 and I imagine that they are able to operate singles with floats etc over water under the interpretion that it is not a hostile environment below latitude 45.

Can't remember when I last heard of single crashing due to mechanical issues in the sea in any case

[vaibronco]

Thank you Jim.

There are one point I don't fully understand and one that in my opinion does not make sense.

1) "(B) The helicopter occupants
cannot be adequately protected from
the elements;"
I'm not sure if for "elements" they mean weather and water temperature.
Maybe here we have a possible ENAC interpretation.

2) "(A) For overwater
operations, the open sea areas North
of 45N and South of 45S designated
by the Authority of the State
concerned"

I think that in winter the water will kill you in 30 minutes, no matter if south of 45N (most of italian waters)
Cold Water Survival (http://www.ussartf.org/cold_water_survival.htm)