SASless
The bean counters will always win the day but in this case, I don't think anyone can tell which aircraft will be cheaper to operate. SK have come up with some pretty cheap PBH deals but not sure for how long they are guaranteed not to go up (excuse negative logic!) A number of oil companies are looking fairly closely at the other aspects - safety and ability to do the role, such as carrying a big drill bit that has to be fork-lifted into the aircraft (not sure how you could do that with the 92 - you can't get up to the airstair door and anyway your big lump would end up right at the front and upset the C of G). Nick, are people going for some sort of non-airstair door option?
Once you see beyond SK's excellent marketing hype, I don't think there's a clear cut winner.
The EC machines will never take off in a big way (excuse pun) in the USA in the same way that EC machines predominate in France. Something to do with patriotism, language barriers, and in some cases not realising that Europe even exists!
Nick
Are you going to answer my points about your rather bold initial statements or are you too embarrassed?
Regarding window sizes, would you like to post the window aperture sizes or should I - that way Rotorheads can try it at home on a piece of paper and judge for themselves whether your 300lbs engineer was 8 ft tall and/or had his bones removed, or whether he was just a normal burger-eating guy
JimL
You ask a few questions that I cannot answer as I don't work for EC so can't give you the "why"s however to answer a couple of your points, both aircraft's ditching certification is to sea state 6 (does anyone know what that means?).
Regarding crashworthy floors etc it is an option that some customers will not take. EC have sold several to VIP customers in the Middle East and I would doubt that they have taken that option. Not taking the option saves a lot of weight which would be a good thing in those temperatures. As it is an option, I wouldn't have thought it could feature on the TCDS which is concerned with the basic aircraft, not the optional extras. However I can't imagine oil companies not requiring it.
Regarding noise levels, my only contribution to that is that there seems to be an issue on the L2 with cockpit noise. I find when flying the L versus L2 that the noise levels seem to be the same, however after a long flight on the L2 my ears can be ringing. Its something to do with the 3 fans / forced cooling system for the CRT screens ( which use something like 500w of power). On the 225, I am glad to say that the LCD screens of course use a tiny fraction of the power and only 1 fan is fitted, and I think it only runs if you put on the cockpit ventilation.
We haven't talked about vibration levels yet - an extremely difficult thing to analyse scientifically as the vibration modes set up in an airframe have peaks and nulls according to where you measure. So I'll give it the subjective treatment!
The 92 has 4 blades and a number of anti-vibration generators that work by measuring local vibration and creating anti-phase vibrations to cancel out by means of a motor rotating an eccentric weight. The motor's speed/phase and the eccentricity of the weight is controlled to ensure the correct amplitude and phase. With this sytem turned off, the aircraft is pretty rough at speed. With it turned on its fine, although when I flew it some passengers were complaining about cabin vibration levels. Since then I think SK have added more generators and improved the system, but I suspect there would still be substantial variations in the vibration levels throughout the fuselage.
The 225 has 5 blades and a couple of anti-vibration generators. The principle is the same however the method is slightly different in that rather than having rotating weights, the 225's system uses actuators to move a weight around. EC do this because it has faster response to changes and of course the 225 like its predecessors has a rotor rpm that varies according to collective position (goes up as you raise the lever). It also has the automatic Nr+10 which automatically increases rotor speed by 10 rpm as the airspeed falls through 25 kts. With the system on, the aircraft is very smooth in the cockpit throughout the speed range (don't know anything about the cabin vibration level) and when it was turned off, there was a just-detectable increase in vibration when I was sitting in the right hand seat, but an undetectable change when I was sitting in the jump seat. EC say that the necessity for the generators is really only at medium speeds, say 90-110 kts where it gets a bit whoppy without them.
A 5 blade system does seem to be intrinsically smoother for some reason that only Nick could explain (but I'm sure won't, even though its on the S61!) so seems to be a more elegant solution rather than trying to beat the natural vibration of a 4-bladed system into submission.
When I flew both aircraft we were well below max weight, so which one turns out to be smoother in service is hard to say and will depend on other things such as ease of tracking/balancing etc. However until the verdict is announced, my money is on the 225 being smoother.