Low Flier – Qinetiq renewed their agreement with the National Trust to lease St Kilda quite recently. My understanding is that part of the deal restricted the number of helicopter flights, which has made it difficult to get permission to fly there. I think this is why you will struggle to get land owners permission.
The National Trust are quite particular about the island - to give you an example I had a flight with a film crew from Wales doing a program on the island wildlife - with permission of the National Trust. The warden for the island (employed to make sure nothing is damaged on the island and to stop dogs getting onto the island from boats) came to make sure I didn’t fly too close to the cliffs were sea birds were nesting – fair enough. After 5 minutes filming close to the sea birds the camera man wanted me to fly away from the island to get some footage of the island itself. We were 8-10nm miles from the island and spent about 5 minutes climbing and descending to get some moody shots with bits of passing clouds when the warden insisted we land immediately as the helicopter noise was disturbing the sea birds – we were 8nm away from the place!!!!!
Farmer 1 - I totally agree with your sentiments about landing in St. Kilda. The grey area entering St. Kilda with a single engine failure is not pretty. Winds from the north I found the worst – anything over 35-40 knots is definitely hard work.
Check – I would be interested to know what wind limits you flew in and out of and found St. Kilda so insignificant as ‘you don’t remember any problems’. I spoke to a former Bristow pilot who gave me the company’s wind limits and they were very low – partly due to one S61 actually landing in the sea with a downdraft and then water taxiing onto the standing!! I have also spoken to the SAR pilots and many other pilots who agree St. Kilda is a very difficult place to operate to safely in high winds.
Low Flier – if you do get permission I have a couple of SOPs I wrote highlighting problems and pointers for particular wind scenarios I can let you have.