EGPWS & Helicopters.
I was fortunate (no really) to operate one of the first Twin Otters fitted with EGPWS, (at the oil companies request and purchase I must add).
We had exactly the same issues that you find in the helicopter world and it all had to do with the database (Honeywell). Otters in support of helicopters operate to and from every goat track on the planet and you think that their in the db???
Bitching betty would be bleating and moaning so eventually the crews simply left it in Terrain Inhibit all the time negating the “Enhanced” part.
The aviation managers from the oil companies did not believe our protests until they actually audited flights and sat in the seat behind us. So much so that after departure on a clear VMC day we flew directly at a 1200ft peak and “ridge rode” with the auditors to prove it did not work as advertised. Simply because in the remote areas the db did not even have the 1200ft mountain!
After this the companies concerned suspended the introduction of EGPWS in the helicopter fleet until assurances were made that the db was to be corrected and there would be some way of inserting rigs as a type of user waypoint (rigs do move, I know I lost one once when the GPS of one machine in the fleet had not been updated and we flew off to la la land). To the best of my knowledge this has yet to happen.
We all know the real world limitations of the existing equipment (in an offshore or remote area environment) in the current configuration. If we are really to make progress it needs to be truly adapted for the environment with user input to db updates in a similar manner that we have data card updates every month for FMS/GPS data bases.
Now back on thread……
S92….. vibration, noise & power……. Yes please!