To help you understand the definition of a Luddite given the context I have chosen to use it I should explain that aviation is constantly changing and seeking ways to improve. There was a growing list of incidents and accidents that cause helicopters both military and commercial to end up in the water in an uncontrolled fashion without the benefit of floatation equipment entering into the survival equation despite being equipped with floats.
For quite some time now floats have been available with a specific design feature intended to ensure that the possibility of inadvertent in-flight inflation is so remote as to be considered to all intents and purposes impossible. Thus it is possible to have this survival aid on standby all the time you are over water. believe I am right in saying that the Merlin and Lynx are so equipped as well as the 139. Maybe any Merlin/Lynx drivers will correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe that a case of inadvertant float inflation has ever occurred on any type so equipped. One 139 operator operates his entire fleet over water all the time and must have clocked up over 5000 hours of flight without incident. This on top of the tens of thousands of hours clocked up by the Navy.
I have a colleague who found himself in the water one dark night whilst manoeuvring his SAR S76 in preparation for a pick-up. He described to me the terrifying moments when he was sinking deeper and deeper beneath the waves, when the last breath of his STASS gave out and he could not find his way out. His final act before losing cosciousness was to give up and take a deep breath that delivered nothing but water. He was rescued, resuscitated and lived to tell the story. It is with those events in mind that huge amount of treasure has been allocated to giving you - Joe Pilot - a better piece of safety equipment but because you chose not to understand you want to go back a step - frightened by the scare stories that have no basis in fact - and put your self at risk. Well, should you suffer the fate described above I would not want to be the Chief Pilot who has to go round to your family and explain why you chose NOT to use the equipment correctly.
G.
