Many of you still in Nigeria flying helicopters have to carry out night standby duties and most of those require that you have to retain night currency every 90 days. However, as we all know, there is no such thing as a night rescue organisation in Nigeria. Not just no night SAR equipped helicopters (not to mention day
), just nothing, nada, nil. How do you feel about this when you launch yourself off into a black night, just to satisfy an arbitrary recency requirement, knowing that if you have any major malfunction, even if you survive, your chances of survival are then dependent on being able to remain alive until the next day? Is the training risk really worth it? Why can't this be practised in the simulator in total safety? Are the oil companies playing with your life in insisting on this or should they come to grips with the reality of life (and death)in Nigeria and either reduce the frequency of flights required to maintain night recency or be prepared to pay the extra for crews to practice more frequently in the simulator? Are the helicopter operators totally disregarding your safety by agreeing to allow this to happen, knowing that this is true, rather than standing up to the oil companies and insisting that they will only provide the service if they (the clients) pay for you to carry out training with a reasonable (rather than unreasonable or non-existent) degree of safety? Why is Bristow with its stated commitment to a totally safe operation not leading the way in this? Do people like Mike Armlick put profit above all, even life? I'm sure there is not a single one of us who would not be prepared to go out to an offshore location at night for a genuine life or death situation, but is the risk involved in all the training flights in Nigeria really worth it when their are simulators available for all the twin engine helicopter types now operated there? Just a thought, not a rant against anyone in particular, but I'd welcome your constructive thoughts on the matter - who knows, they may just save your life one day?