I am also concerned that this issue gets overshadowed by the "academics" trying to foist mathematical conclusions without adressing the bleeding obvious.
As a current operational offshore pilot what matters to me most is that the airspeed is stable when the visibility is poor.
The Bond dropshort stunk of a low/airspeed/height combination. That simple.
To overcome this problem the helicopter needs space to decelerate safley to landing speed whilst maintaining adequate visual refernces, which for an ARA at night, can only be provided by the "ovality" of the deck edge lighting.
When a pilot transfers from purely instrument refernces to hybrid or total visual, this ovality is the only reliable source of information available to him.
In my view the MDH is, and will always be, the pre-cursor to these problems occuring as the crew desperatley attempt to maintain, or reduce speed, when the aquisition of deck ovality is very late, despite being visual with the installation.
TWO SIMPLE CHANGES will make a world of difference:
1. RAISE MDH TO DECK HEIGHT + 200 FEET
2. DEFINE THE REQUIRED VISUAL REFERENCES AT DR/MDH as "Deck Edge Lights Visual"
Like it or not, these two simple measures will almost eradicate ARA problems at night.
Reading some of the posts, whilst the material is well thought out, the practical application of close tolerance flying required to execute an approach at night, down to Deck Height + 100 feet at 3/4 Nm, decelerate safely and land, presents a situation where the risks in doing so are unmitigated by the fact that we are just taking people to work.
Until someone can tell me why my minimum DH on the ILS (with a 1000 yards of tarmac in front of me on which to safely decelerate with pretty lights all along the sides) is 200 feet, I will remain convinced that raising the MDH is the only method to introduce an tangible safety mARgin over the current procedures.
S turns at Deck +100 feet in the dark, without crystal clear references to provide rock solid height control - is utter folly.
CDFA does not provide the answer as it simple serves to reduce the Aquisition Time for the references as we pop out of a theoretical flat cloud base at Deck + 100 feet and 3/4 Nm.
CDFA under EU-OPS is there for a reason, to prevent FW pilots descending immediatley to their MDH/A when the published procedures fail to provide a safe vertical profile - leading to the risk of inadvertent CFIT or speed instability associated with power changes in FW aircraft excerbated by wind gradient and wind shear issues. It has nothing to do with Heli ops.
Last edited by DOUBLE BOGEY; 25th Aug 2009 at 08:43.