Re: UK Coastguard SAR - Bristow out??
212 - Steve OC will be in the position where his company will be operating both the 92 and the 225 on the N Sea - so he will be best placed to compare the operating issues. As for me, I have only had a demo flight in the 92, but do operate the 225 so of course I am biased! (Though my opinion was already formed after my intial flight on the 92 and the 225)
SAS - as I said the aircon is "nice to have" for the passengers, but we are stuck with what the oil companies want - we are not going to pay for aircon and reduce our payloads unless the oil companies want it. Unlike the airlines, it is the bean counters who decided whether the pax will fly with us or the opposition so there is no benefit in providing comfort stuff that is not required / paid for. Sad but true!
Limited icing - I thought I had already explained that. It just depends on what you need for your location - if you are operating in the Sahara, de-icing would probably not be needed. If you are operating overland at high latitudes, de-icing would be pretty essential. The N Sea is at a latitude where limited icing clearance is adequate to get the job done safely on 99.5% of days (you don't fly on the 0.5% of days) and the extra cost (initial and maintenance) and weight of full de-icing is not justified (in the oil companies' opinion)
Floats: the post from HH was a red herring - the 225 floats are of course certified up to the gross weight of 11 tonnes.
Good question about the sea state - I don't know enough about it to give the correct answer according to Jar-Ops 3 but I do know that the 225 has a better ditching sea state certification than the 332L, L2 or the 92 at the moment, which has to be a good thing. In practice we fly until the oil companies consider that they can't get us out of the sea with their rescue boats and have recurrent training on how to get out if it turns over.
HC