Thanks for joining the discussion Phrogman. I just dont have the cahoonies to water hoist at night anymore, and I have never done it with NVG. I do not fly an auto hover equipped frame either!
As for the onshore winching, we leave the crewman goggled up. We have also fitted white external lights to the exterior of the airframe near the tailboom, as well as a downlight (white). These lights really provide great illumination for the surrounding trees and obstacles and make the crewman's job just so much easier. These white lights are specifically set up as to not impeded the crewman's scan.
In Oz, you must have a pilot steerable searchlight (in both pitch and roll) from the flight controls in order to operate to unprepared HLS (night outlandings).
We have removed the SX16 from our 109 due too much illum for NVG and rely on a single 450W white seachlight and landing light. The BKs we operate in the SAR role have a SX5 fitted but are almost never used due to excessive illum and disruption of the NVG image below 100ft. We again rely on the 450W white searchlights instead, and we keep the SX5 on for a backup or for high level search requirements.
I measured my eye relief last night and even I was surprised: 39mm!!