Originally Posted by
SASless
What some seem to be missing is the military style ITO being discussed by Crab and some of us is that ITO does not require any SAS/Upper Modes, and totally ignores PC1 criteria and cares not how many engines the aircraft has.
(I have quite some hours in just that military role, did exit mil at retirement. Been there, done that.)
I’m not talking about what is possible for a trained pilot in for example state aviation like the military.
EASA-land regulates PC1 for HEMS from heliports and airports, right?
PC1, with a not automated EC135 will require 60KIAS still with visual references to the ground.
Not legally possible in the weather we saw.
The latest H145 with v.10 requires visual references to the ground until TDP, barely legal in this case.
But still required to follow the profiles for PC1.
So there are no legal possibilities to perform the military/ SAR - style T/O like a regular Trans Up etc, as they will not fullfill the PC1 requirements.
(There is a straight up to TDP procedure with upper modes in ”Hover”, earlier ”GTC.H, so we do not need to back into anything.
So what I thought I was clear writing but probably was not is that the suggestion/ discussion about the military style T/O is not really relevant here except for - hypothetical discussions.
After leaving the air force and getting some years in the HEMS business it is quite easy to see that in the HEMS you do not get to regularly train in the same way as for example when doing SAR.
Also, long from all entering HEMS have much IFR experience at all (I guess this is similar at many other HEMS operators).
I would say that statistically it would be easy to show that the military style takeoffs, specially hand flown will have higher risk than automated ditos. (Not even thinking OEI-things, but just spatial disorientation etc.)
The combination not to train it often / regularly like I did / we did / some do and the increased risk to start with equals = probably something HEMS crews should not do even if it was allowed.
To that, add slight fatigue and a mission that begins 02:00 and goes for some hours.
HEMS has by definition dangers enough as is, so I think we need to reduce the risks where we can, to get an acceptable total risk.
This will mean I do not come close to show off my, from before obtained skills and I fly more or less precisely in the center off the envelope all the time.
Much less ”Biggles” but much more safe in the end.