‘Cat A’ conundrum
Dear Fellows,
I am over in Melbourne this week and staying in a hotel right next to the heliport (a small, double pad, pontoon on the river). There is a constant stream of helicopters so I took the opportunity to go and watch for a while. As an aside, if you don’t like helicopters, it probably was not so nice with the noise if you are trying to get a lay-in in the hotel!
Anyway, It was the same handful of aircraft doing the circuit to and from the race course and only one was a twin. The twin stood out as it did a Cat A take-off every time. When I was watching, it was the drop off, so all were empty of passengers on take-off. It made me wonder if the singles would have benefited from such a take-off profile, albeit not within Cat A scope, or if the twin was any safer using that profile when it has redundancy anyway. The Cat A cost a little more time/money to perform compared to the straight up and out profile of the singles.
Any views? Especially if you were one of the pilots involved over these days?
PS, the whole operation looked well managed with plenty of ground crew helping passengers and smooth and consistent approaches (mainly passed my hotel room window at eye level!)