I'm glad that we at last have responses from pilots who agree that landing offshore at night is potentially difficult / dangerous - At first there seemed to be so many responses from crews who felt it was perfectly normal and safe, that I was beginning to doubt myself.
Having landed at night a couple of times this week, I was trying to analyse all the things that make it such hard work, and draw the following conclusions ..........
Lack of local visible landmarks ie surface, other platforms, takes away your straight and level references, and limits your appreciation of closure until the last stages of approach.
Mixture of Instrument and Visual approach is required, carrying out an 'Approach by Numbers' at the beggining using GPS, and reverting to visual approach for landing, and a mixture of looking in and out during that ugly middle bit ! Not neccessarily a problem - Similar to what we do during a Radar Approach, but at night we seem to have one pilot doing both rolls rather than handing over control.
The state of aircraft windows, always covered with a layer of grime and possibly salt from the days flying so far. Even if you get them cleaned inside and out, on a shuttle on a windy day, they invariably get covered in salt spray etc that just absorbs and spreads the light from an offshore installation. The Super Puma windows in particular seem worse than any other aircraft I have flown at night. Their curved profile seems to bend light from outside (especially when mixed with a bit of streaming rain water) and reflect the lights from inside. It does seem bizarre that in 2005, we're sticking our heads out of a door window, just to see where we're going !!
Hovering at night is a bit of an aquired art. When training new students to hover, we get them looking far out across a field getting an appreciation of relative movement. As we get experienced those reference points can move in, and I know many SAR pilots that can hold a good hover with a small light in the chin bubble. But we all know that those sort of stable hovers can go horribly wrong, and quickly. I find that it isn't just new co-pilots, but also senior pilots that hold a fairly wobbly hover over a poorly lit deck without much to look at (ie pointing out to sea), which is why I was so surprised to find so many positive thoughts about deck operations at night.
I particularly welcome the response by Nick (who's input is beyond doubt) and GLSNightPilot who shows that even after years of night flying experience (which in my opinion is the only way to have any sort of safety an night) is also concerned about how little pilot assistance there is during night operations. I am sure the passengers would be surprised to learn how little technical input there is in a night landing offshore and how different such an approach is from one during the day. They are putting their lives basically in the hands of one pilot and we are all subject to making mistakes - mistakes that won't neccessarily be picked up by the other crew member who is often entirely unsighted for the crucial part of the approach and landing.
We have given the North Sea offshore environment an impressively safe record for helicopter operations. Lets keep working to keep things safe.