These perennial arguments about the benefits of all that installed power in helicopters like the AW139 have been chewed over many times and I have learnt a lot from my colleagues with more technical background than mine. However there are some points that have not yet seen daylight.
Bearing in mind that my views reflect those found in the major oil and gas companies I make the following points:-
1. You can argue pennies and cents about excess direct operating costs that derive from excess HP but don't forget that what gave us all the greatest heartache when the S76 appeared on the scene was not how much fuel we burnt but the maintenance costs and unscheduled down-time. 25 man-hours per flight hour actual compared with just one or two advertised by Sikorsky (it's testing my memory a bit but those are the numbers I recall from the 1980s). We would gladly have paid a bit more per flight hour if it translated into a reliable machine that delivered on our crew-change schedules. There is one base in Europe where 3 out of 5 S76s are out for major crack repairs because whilst a helo
can take off at Max AUW and fly at VNo when you do it for 10 hours a day and cycle it through up to 30-40 take offs a landings per day it will eventually break and drop you in the poo big-time unless it has structual reserves and is operated at something less than balls-out all the bl
y time. In South America there is a 332L2 operator who did what the brochure said and flew the aircraft at VNe at Max GWt every day. The airframe cracked and was out of service for 3 months leaving the customer down yet another vital resource. If we followed Nick's design philosophy (and he is not alone) then we would have the lightest cheapest machine flying balls-out for short term economic gain. Me and mine would like the other option which is a machine capable of delivering agreed payload/range targets consistently - every day - day after day. This conservatism has a price but I often have only one window of opportunity to fix my offshore platform during a 'shutdown' period and NOT doing it has a cost too and that can be a lot more expensive.
2. Nobody has yet mentioned that one fatal accident can cost the oil company (not necessarily the operator) $150m. This number (and I have seen bigger numbers quoted in this context) covers litigations costs, loss of prestige, loss of employee confidence (remember the Boeing 234 Chinook). When you hunt around for risks that can be reduced by being more conservative then that's what we will do. Feed in $150m into the DOCs and it screws your numbers up just a wee bit. Of course we want to deal with CFIT - that's why having LOFT is vital and a sim or FTD is a vital part of that philosophy. (hence no-sim-no-buy in some quarters). There are those areas of the market where the operator decides what to buy and those where the customer makes that decision for the operator. Then there are those rich enough to do what the hell they like - and good luck to them but they do not have to deal with a regime that recognises the 'Duty of Care' implicit in an employer-employee relationship. When an oil company sends it's employees to work in a helo that it has hired for the purpose then they (the oil company) take the rap if they have not ensured that everything reasonable has been done to minimise the risk to its employees. Nick's focus is predominantly FAR 135 - can you imagine where the US would be if the offshore ops came under FAR 21? About where JARs are now I would hazard a guess. How can anybody justify the difference between the two when employees have little opportunity to vote on who to fly offshore with other than by voting with their feet - and many have done that with the oil companies loosing good people who are too scared to fly.
Sorry Nick, technical arguments translated into economic arguments MUST take into account all the other human elements otherwise you will be working in a meaningless vacuum.
Geoffers
