The floats must not have been armed. Which, if flying at a cruise speed would make sense.
Agusta does not realize that if the floats should somehow inflate at 150 kts that the pilot would probably loss control. Why should we fly around with the floats armed, it should be part of the pre-landing and emergency ditching checklist.
S-76 float arming speed was 74 Kts.
cayuse,
couldn't agree with you more....but unfortunately common sense not always applies everywhere, check this out:
I had an emergency floatation sys accidental deployment in flight @ 110 KTS , 1000 ' on a 412 at night. we were navigating VFR, my head in the charts and in that very second we all heard a boom and the helicopter went 20° nose down and 30° bank left. in a heartbeat I raised my head up while it was still rolling (i wasn't at the controls). Only while other pilot was manouvering to regain the control and level flight we realized what had happened.
we flew the bird according to the manual ( max 60kts and max 200 '/min) and being there was no suitable landing spot ahead we brought the bird back home.....
the "orginization" i was flying for still hasn't removed the POS of arming the floats heading offshore and disarming them when back onshore....
...so someone still cruises around with floats armed all day...
I flew 76s in the GOM and they apply the correct (in my opinion) procedure, which is to leave 'em off while cruising and as per landing checklist arming the floats on final for the rig...
donno if i was just lucky or the 412 airframe has been more forgiving compared to the 139's but like i said i agree with you that it would be wiser to leave them floats alone while flying...