Cockpit protection
Ah the old chesnut back again.
After some forty years thinking about the problem .. I still don't have an answer.
A few years back I was asked to give evidence in the Glascow B206 accident where a colleague suffered head injuries and the police passenger was killed. The deceased estate's claim was that had the passenger been supplied with a bone dome .. he would probably have survived.
I took the view that utility flying needed fire suits and protective head gear, BUT and its a big but, we are in a commercial environment, and I'm not sure airline passengers would be too happy to see their pilots climb aboard in flame proof suits and crash helmets! And what about the flight attendants!
I know I wouldn't be happy giving a trial lesson, (where the object is to pull in the training business) wearing full protective gear. But on the other side of that coin .. guess who I'd blame when I'm cabbaged due to a head injury following an accident?
Its already been said here. The matter becomes a personal decision, perhaps akin to flight in the H/V avoid area. The ace in the hole the versatile helicopter enjoys is its ability to climb out from a landing site vertically. During my thirty-six years in helicopter operations, I haven't been prepared to abandon such revenue earning sites and I AM prepared to fly inside the H/V so called 'avoid area' for a few seconds of increased risk when considered against the minor risk of an actual engine failure ... which in my case is nil in a little under 14,000 hours airborne. I have always referred to the 'avoid' area as the 'area of extra caution' which I believe puts that situation into its proper perspective.
I accept that public transport flying is a different ball game and commercial pilots are obliged to minmise any increased risk, but I don't see the sense of treating non commercial pilots like F1 racing drivers. So until 'elf n safety' rules require me to dress up, I plan to continue in a smart white shirt, black tie with wings and rings. I wonder what that COF Chief Pilot of the 1970s Ferranti Helicopters would have said. Colonel Bob Smith required his pilots to always wear white gloves when carrying fare paying passengers and with a clean new pair worn every day!
Now lets have the opposite views.
Dennis K