From Nick's naughty-corner
Nick
No slur given to American pilots, just those designing the aircraft. I naively would expect to be able to buy an S76 C++ from Sikorsky in Sikorsky's full knowledge that it was to be operated in Europe, and find that it was equipped to operate legally in Europe, but I believe we found that not to be the case recently - even the FDR did not comply with European regs and don't mention the HUMS system!
My point really is that this is more understandable than buying a European helicopter and finding it does not comply with European operational regs - though still not excusable.
You are right that one of EGPWS's better attributes is that it is software driven and once the software has been improved and is not just a stunted version of fixed wing software, it will probably become worthwhile. I am aware of two initiatives, one to develop v26 of the software with better AVAD functionality and another (RTCA H-TAWS working group) to look afresh at modes 1-5 in order to make them relevant for offshore ops. Interestingly I am told that even the fixed-wing boys consider modes 1-5 to be pretty useless - the algorithms have been slashed and burnt over the years to get rid of nuisance warnings and are now hardly worth the ROM they take up. They regard only the E part as being of any use and imho that part is quite good for onshore ops.
Interestingly I conducted a straw poll of some of our 225 pilots to ask if they would like to trade in their AVAD for EGPWS v24. They all said "no", including a couple of guys who had operated the C++ in Nigeria with EGPWS.
But eventually EGPWS will represent a safety improvement not a deterioration, and then we shall have it!
HC