The good news is that we are making headway in at least one area - ventilation! The background was made clear in a quote receive today.
This is a JAA limitation. JAR 29.831 (ventilations) wants at least 0.3m3/min of air for crew member. The only way to respond to the JAR while on ground or in hover is to do what we wrote in the RFM.
Still some work to do to fully understand the reasons behind the need for ventilation and the 'acceptable means of compliance' chosen by AW. I will try to get some more info.
The ongoing debate about floats is a testament to the price paid by our community for inadequate disemmenation of information. I have been reluctant to be too bold about my support for the AW approach to the problem because I have to admit that until recently I was one of the old school and armed my floats when I got into the OEI 'zone'. When I sat down and thought it through I began to realise that my attempts to manage the situation according to my rules were self-defeating.
Of course anything can go wrong at any time and in the first 30 years of my career I lost 30 close colleagues to a variety of incidents including one who died, along with his son, for want of a quarter-inch nut. In our world we trust the designers and makers of our trusty steeds because if we didn't we wouldn't get off the ground. We base our own qualitative assessment of each machine on experience, rumour and sometimes heresay on Pprune. We then have a choice about following the manufacturer's advice or not, the Ops Manual advice or not. We all know what we should do but in the end we may choose to follow the lead of someone or some organisation that has not taken the trouble to find out why things are the way they are before blithely accepting that because it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck it must be a bloody duck!! But it isn't - its a blooming swan.
If I had been the Ops Director signing of a potential 'killer' change to my Ops Manual I would have jumped on a 50 quid return flight to Milan Malpensa, paid the 50 euro taxi ride to Vergiate and spoken to the horses mouth. Of course, sitting on my right hand all the way would be my Tech Director (damn the expense) because I'm just a dumb jockey and couldn't tell a wiring diagram from a London Underground Map. Then and only then would I have casually said 'eh-up lads, it's just another chopper - lets do it like we did on the old one'. WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE WENT TO ALL THE BOTHER OF DESIGNING THIS B****Y swept up system ??????????????
G
STOP PRESS - this just in
Vne PLACARD
Believe it or not there is no mistake!
For JAR certification, the windscreens had to be proven able to withstand a birdstrike at up to 8000ft PA at up to ISA+35°C (Note Bene UP TO 8000ft Hp)
With the glass windscreens (17mm thick and 45kgs each) there was no problem but the acrylic windscreens are not so robust and failed the tests at lower airspeeds hence the dip in Vne on the placard at 8000ft.
Above 8000ft there is no certification requirement to provide protection against birdstrike and the limiting airspeed is again determined by all other aerodynamic factors.
You have to go to Figure 1-5 on Page 1-11 of the RFM and look for the area of the chart maked with a dash and two dots thus _.._.._.._ This area goes up to 12000ft Hd which is equivalent to 8000ft Hp and +34°C (or ISA +35°C)