ironchefflay
You pick on two interesting features, however both show how ignorant the S-92 marketing campaign was.
just to clear up a point or two.
Quote:
It's got emergency floats in the sponsons!
Yes, but in a heavy crash landing on water the sponsons can (and did) rip off, rendering those floats worthless.
The centre section of the sponson, which is the fuel tank section, is designed to break away in the event of a crash, and in the case of a ditching, sinking. This, given the evidence of the pictures posted on the internet, Did happen. The sponson floats are attached to the rear sponson section which is also attached to the main undercarriage hard points. these stay with the aircraft after ditching along with the front section of the sponson housing the life rafts. Both can clearly be seen in the photographs.
The jury is still out the sponsons and if the front sections, which contain the liferafts actually stayed attached.
Certainly the impact velocity were high.
Here is one photo.
The right hand liferaft section has certainly been placed next to the fuselage but is it attached? Does the rear portion even look attached? Don't forget the TSB have already said the floats didn't activate either.
The survivor certainly talked about the liferafts blowing away on the surface, which suggests they may have been burst out of their container.
Better bird-strike protection.
Okay, I'll buy that! But...wait...didn't the S-76 already have that until operators started replacing the glass windscreens with plastic? Damn.
There is more to improving birdstrike protection. Including moving the inclined drive shaft to the rear of the tail pylon, among other improvments.
Plastic winshield was a retrofit made by an affiliate of Bell helicopters. sabotage?
In PHI / Shell S-76C++ case Sikorsky were quick to point out that the standard windscreen was certified to the higher BCAR requirements.
What Sikorsky failed to point out when promoting the S-92 was that while they were certifying to the latest FAA/JAA requirements, these wre not as demanding(by a factor of 2) as the ultimate BCAR birdstrike requirements apllied to the first version of the EH101 and the AS332L2 (and by association the EC225)!
It is that fast and loose marketing that seems to becoming back to bite them.