I too think that aspects of this thread can be moved to another one.
Red and White said about the 139:
Here is an aircraft that has staggering performance for which someone pays handsomely, buy very little to help stop us flying it into the water on a inky night.
That is exactly the point I have been making on the other threads (are you there FLI?) about the CAT A issues. When are we going to get spending on that which kills us most????????????
Much of the discussion above has mentioned rig positions and moving rigs as a danger. I am assuming the concern here is if the aircraft does not have radar, or am I missing something? How many accidents have occurred with CFI unseen rigs V CFIT? Is it a biggie?
I am thinking the AVAD V EGPWS issues are generating the right kind of focus for us - CFIT. I have another suggestion that is not fixed wing orientated:
Why don’t we have a radar altitude hold function for these machines (particularly off shore)? You might be able to achieve it without the full four axis autopilot by not going through to the full hover capability, let’s say limited to min IFR speed.
What if the radar alt hold function was pre-selectable and predetermined? Imagine setting a "hard deck" of say 200ft Radar Alt by arming the system. Then as the helicopter descends through that figure the collective automatically attempts to level the aircraft by holding current airspeed and turning to heading bug(with pitch/roll/yaw autopilot functions ).
Bitchin Betty would feature by automatically calling radar altitudes from 1000 ft by saying (preferably with a Swedish accent) "passing 1000 ft AGL". Then next call at 500 and every 100 from there. For terrain flight across ridges where this might get rather annoying, there is a mute ability, and even a clever algorithm that prevents the same height, or an increasing height being called within a certain time period.
You could even use the hold system during a step down, by leaving it set at say 500 ft, then if you want to go through this and poke around below that (aka the S76 GOM splash), reset the system to say 200ft and arm, then 100 ft, etc. A big caution light tells you it is not armed.
To overcome the system if it activated during an approach when you forgot it was on, you would simply depress the collective AND cyclic trim switches. It may even prompt you to disable it when you put the gear down....lots of possibilities.
Why don’t we also point another radar altimeter slightly forward to provide earlier recognition of rising terrain? Lots of possibilities if we could spend the money on these sorts of devices and not unnecessary fuel burns and drive train weights hauling around protection from a far lesser evil – engine failure.