Originally Posted by
SARWannabe
Wrong. With respect, the whole crux of the matter is that people, including the planning committee and other stakeholders in Penzance Heliport, are unknowingly seeking advice from people who are out of touch with current CAT regulation and promising the undeliverable based on what the S61 once did.
You cannot fly a ‘Proceed VFR’ GNSS PinS approach with a 523ft AMSL OCA (not <300ft the observant will notice) in less than VFR destination weather +/-1hr eta, which for flight over water is a 600ft cloud ceiling. Well you probably can, but you’d need 2 IFR alternates meeting planning minima (+200m/400ft) as the destination weather would be below minima.
Neither can you dive and drive over water to 250ft these days incase there is a large vessel. You can’t use radar to mitigate against this unless you are flying an ARA or offshore GNSS approach iaw a HOFO approval in which case passengers must be wearing survival suits and be HUET trained etc.
So you have an ‘IFR’ approach designed to let one down to 523ft requiring VFR destination weather at Penzance (600ft ceiling and 1500m vis), hardly the weather resiliance game changer in low cloud and fog.
Ah yes - Culdrose Radar... have you ever tried them at a weekend, or after 5pm, or during a bank holiday, or times of school holidays, or around midday... or whenever else they NOTAM it or just decide to shut - hardly the robust solution you want to rely on for your IFR separation.
(P.s. in a 600ft cloud ceiling you don’t need to fly IFR to Lands End, you can fly VFR).
I will admit to being out of date as to modern procedures which is why I am not relying on my memory but on up-to-date information. May I refer you to the open letter published by Sloane Helicopters, the proposed operators (PA16_09346-OPERATING_SITE_REQUIREMENTS_-_SLOANE_HELICOPTERS-3632425.pdf) as part of the planning application to Cornwall Council. It explains in all necessary detail how the service would operate and the specific differences between operating from Penzance and from Lands End. The approaches to Penzance were planned by one of the foremost ATC planning experts in Europe and he was confident that IF approaches into Penzance and Tresco to 300ft AMSL would be approved. They could not be approved before planning permission had been granted. Validation flights have been flown.
Regardless of that, whatever the weather conditions prevailing, because Lands End is at 400 ft elevation and Penzance is at sea-level, Penzance will always be better off. I flew the service for six years, (how about you?) made nearly 4000 round trips, IFR or VFR, in full accordance with CAA requirements including diversion fuel. Within the first year I lost count of the number of times we routinely flew our service while Lands End was closed due to weather. I have flown six of the twelve daily flights VFR with Lands End at 400 'grounded all day. Ask anyone in Penzance or Scillies who used the service and they will tell you which was and will be the most reliable.
At the open meeting held in Penzance prior to final approval of the planning application speaker after speaker got up and said that, for example, (post Penzance helicopter service) that if they wanted to go to hospital on the mainland on a Monday in winter (no passenger boat in winter) they had to plan to travel on the previous Friday, with all the expense of a stay in Penzance over the weekend to make sure they made their appointment. One girl said she nearly missed her own wedding because it took her five days to get off Scillies via Lands End. Never happened at Penzance.