I mean, did he give himself any chance of ever pulling this off safely? We as a pilot community seem to be doing inexplicable stuff that wrecks otherwise perfectly serviceable helicopters time and time again
Did the "system" give him the chance of pulling it off safely? Inexperienced on type, flying a 206 as well while gaining his 11 hours on type, maxed out weight wise, min spec engine. I was always of the opinion it took about 100 hours to gain confidence in a new type, but then I may be a slow learner, it takes a while for everything to fall to hand - muscle memory, where is that float switch? Mostly flew a 76 with 412 occasionally added, getting into the Bell always took adjustment - reaching for the heading knob was always a gotcha.
Pertinent quotes from the report.
the helicopter manufacturer advised against conducting left turns at low airspeed, especially in performance limited conditions (and what was this lad doing? Complying with company SOP)
although legally qualified to conduct the flight, the pilot was inexperienced on the helicopter type, and the opportunity provided for consolidating their skills on the helicopter type was limited (do we say its his fault for the limited type experience?)
We could always use the excuse the RAAF applied to a fatal F-111 crash, "If Bloggs didn't think he could handled the mission he could have refused to fly". ex Sale school boy
Gulli. How does one gain experience? By doing with adequate supervision and training, both missing in the F-111 case, one could say both were missing in this helo accident also..