Talkspike
Nice to see there's still some debate and fire running in the participants of this thread. IMO all debate is good, even at the price of sarcasm.
The immersion suit is irrevocably linked to the S-92 thread as the helo design and its over-water use is what requires us to wear such PPE. That's why we need good immersion suits, because a dry-run capability does not mean we're not going to ditch, albeit hopefully if the situation arises it can be executed in a safe and controlled manner and we can do so knowing our cold-water survivability is reasonable.
A separate thread sounds like a good idea though as it will hopefully instill constructive discussion on other people's experiences.
Going on a A330 or any other fixed wing aircraft has its own risks, as does anything in life, but it hasn't stopped me doing either. I just flew recently in France in a A320, big deal. There are certainly more qualified people than myself to find the root cause of that disaster, thank you very much, but I'm just not that good!
Where I wholeheardedly agree with you fellow posters is that the media is doing this industry no favours and only scare-mongering us mere mortals. Why not ask them to give the standard family-type SUV the same treatment, I'm sure lots of soccer mums will really appreciate that...
As I said a while ago, let's just get on with it, improve what we can and move on with life, it's too short to worry about every single thing that can go wrong.
BTW, I still want to see SS6, better immersion suits, less vibration, more transparency and discussion between pilots and PAX. Then I will have a more chilled-out flight, but only because my nose-hairs won't be constantly waking me up, the suit won't be trying to cook me, and I can catch some shut-eye while you drivers do your thing.
Hot off the press, Remington is teaming up with SK to provide in-flight nasal hair clippers to improve PAX comfort on the S-92a!
Last edited by maxwelg2; 20th Jun 2009 at 23:17.