I’ve lurked in rotor heads for long time with only a few posts and I’ve watched this thread with interest since the accident. I don’t want to discuss the ditching but as the thread now is mostly about night flying offshore and its inherent problems I’ll throw my ten penny worth in.
I’ve been flying offshore Uk for the past 30 years (both north and south) Started in the late 70’s with BO105’s based offshore in the east Shetland basin and now driving the all swinging all powerful 139 in the southern NS.. About 15% of the past 3 decades has been at night and as a choice I prefer flying at night. I actually enjoy it...at least most of the time!
From single pilot IFR with no radalt and a stability system that was a joke.... to now..a machine with a pretty good autopilot. Sit back and enjoy type flying!
The flying up north wasn’t as bad as it seemed as most places had massive gas flares and the structures were pretty huge. Lots of visual cues seen through cracked Perspex at the time, though landing on a pitching tethered tanker at night had its moments.
In the south the night flying is a lot more demanding with tiny unmanned platforms, and very few visual cues to help you.
My point (at last) is that whatever you fly and however you fly...to land you need to be able to hand fly this machine on to the deck....to recognise the visual cues you are seeing and to convert instrument flying into visual flight...progressively.
Sounds simple...but it needs (current) practice....and training. Though I enjoy night flying...it’s always treated with respect ‘cos it can bite your head off!
How much time do we spend practicing for that “engine failure” Most of our profiles and much of the required testing of pilots..is concentrated on that. In 30 years I’ve never had a mechanical engine failure. (one icing)
Yet how much time is spent training and keeping current in night approaches?
And when we do train...it’s normally in pretty good weather.
Simulators...simulators you may shout.
..........as far as that last minute or two where (if we have one) we disengage our auto pilots and hand fly the aircraft onto the deck in the dark is concerned...they are as useless as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.
Great for procedures, and CRM training but the
graphics and aircraft handling are awful.
This is a cry to the sim manufacturers to give us a simple dedicated helicopter sim...that does what it says on the tin.
Maybe a night landing sim with no axis movement? ’cos surely the graphics can’t be that hard...???
It’s about practicing on something that has very few visual cues...just shapes and lights . certainly they can do that...can’t they?
Safe night flying offshore is all about practice and training and we...in the industry are in danger of not getting enough of it. A good sim. on every base must be the answer...but someone has to build one!