Devil49:
Great post.
The mystery of SPIFR capable helicopters crashing in IFR conditions would have to be solved by the human factors folks.There is an obvious gap that needs to be plugged there and needs involvement of the regulators ,operators and the pilots.
As to the night scheduling issue:could'nt agree with you more. The Part 121 ands 135 regs of the FAA are probably the most liberal in the world. Consider this: in a 90 day period a part 135 opearator can schedule me for 77 days of work with 8 hours of flying everyday and still be legal. Nobody does it ,but, they can. Most other countries have duty time regulations that are a lot more pilot friendly. Some have clauses about extra rest periods for flights originating or terminating after midnight.We need to look at that closely.
There are EMS bases around the US where it is not unusual for pilots to work 7 straight nights in a row and fly every night of the shift. I don't buy the fact that on the last night, at O dark thirty ,the pilot is not tired.While most companies talk the talk about take -yourself-off-the-shift-if-you-are-tired stuff, try doing that a couple of times and see what happens.The first guys to give you grief will be your fellow pilots.
The "tombstone imperative " forced the FAA to regulate duty time for HEMS operators. Maybe they need to look at the issue once again. Especially since, as Shawn rightly pointed out, most accidents happen at night.
Thoughts?
Alt3.