popay,
It is beneficial for a pilot in having healthy skepticism as it can sometimes help uncover hidden flaws in the system. But I am sure that we pilots all agree we should be careful not to seize upon “good ideas” and use them as justification to ignore or vary SOPs until such time as these good ideas are fully validated and a decision is taken to amend the SOPs accordingly.
Without a doubt your research and discussion on this forum has made us all think a little deeper about the topic.
mealie puddins says that his training from three pretty good airlines in the event of engine failure was to inform ATC of what they are doing as ATC was not aware of his airline’s EOSID routing.
My reading of JAR-OPS indicates that it is the operator’s responsibility to ensure performance during SIDs including in the case of an engine inop. If the specified performance criteria cannot be met by following the SID with an engine inop, then it becomes the operator’s responsibility to design a new procedure (EOSID) and submit it to the relevant state for approval.
But perhaps alf5071h’s comment that “EOSID – there is nothing ‘standard’ about this” might hold the clue. It is a contingency procedure for emergency use only and so may not need special state approval in advance.
In any case, it would appear from popay’s conversation with FRA ATC that they cannot be sure of the EOSID that a particular airline might fly in an actual engine inop departure due to the large number of operators and corresponding large number of EOSIDs.
So that would seem to leave us with the prospect that ATC either does or doesn’t know about your airline’s EOSIDs and in any case will not be able to remember them on the day? In which case mealie puddins’ and alf5071h’s advice to tell ATC your routing and intentions would seem to be the way to go.