FJJP
Thank you for your confirmation of the common met conditions.
With all due respect to your experience in flying VFR in the region, this flight was not just recognising and giving a wide berth to the Mull – it was going in very, very close and turning up practically on the coastline. Given that their approach was very much “end on” to the Mull, there were no other features on either side to aid perception – just that amorphous grey lump ahead.
My point is that to military helicopters on that route, this would have been an all too common situation.
If there was an operational situation (eg carrying the security team that was such a potential target) whereby it was preferable to mask ones approach to the mainland by approaching directly the high ground (at low level) and turning in close hugging the ground, as it were, then you may want to consider ways of achieving this safely as, in my humble opinion, it would be very difficult to judge the starting point of such a turn which would have taken some significant room given their high speed and weight. Judging purely visually may result in a turn too soon to achieve the objective of getting in close – or too late which would have catastrophic consequences (it would have been too late once the coast was crossed or the mist was entered to do anything other than what was in fact done – an up and left evasive manoeuvre which has always suggested control at this final point). This latter point, to me, suggests that endless discussions about (unprovable) control problems has been “muddying the waters” – at least until the details of the flight plan have been clarified and this surely has improved through recent contributions from several ppruners, wouldn’t you all agree?
If you are really frustrated by people discussing this aspect, may I respectfully suggest that you can constructively close it off by assisting with bringing this line of inquiry to closure by using any contacts you may have to get input from military helicopter pilots who have done THIS flight?