To: ZH844
Every design has aspects not liked by the operators but the S-92 and the EH101 are the best helicopters ever design both in terms of operation and safety.
Based on what Nick Lappos has stated about the design characteristics of the S-92 I would agree with your comment above. However I disagree with the second point of your statement about the safety of the EH-101 Merlin. Westland can only address those elements that they had design responsibility for. Agusta was responsible for the powertrain, the hydraulics system the rotorheads, flight control system and some of the blade design as well as fuselage design for the civil version.
I supervised preparation of the Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analyses (FMECA) for the Agusta designed elements which, included all of the catastrophic failures that could cause loss of the aircraft. For whatever reason the department manager had all catastrophic failures removed from the FMECAs so they were never considered in the certification for civil usage or, for military applications. As a result, two of these catastrophic failures have manifested themselves on the Merlin and many more will in the future. See my post above regarding gearbox seizure.
