FH1100, I will take you up on a couple of your points in order to balance the "discussion" a little. I would argue that the S92 is probably inherently one of the safest helicopters in operation today. In six years of service and over 250,000 flight hours, there has been one accident, which arguably should have not been fatal. Certainly the training I received when I did a type rating on the S92 (2 years before this accident) was perfectly clear about the course of action in event of total loss of pressure in the MGB. Since 2004 the Puma fleet has suffered 16 accidents, including a disintegration of the MGB, which everyone seem conveniently to have forgotten. Whilst I appreciate there are more Puma variants in use around the world, and hours flown are greater, according to EC the Puma and its derivatives have recently clocked up 4 million hours total, since 1992. So call that an average of 220,000 per year. 880K over the 4 year period and 16 accidents. Statistically that is one every 55,000hrs compared to one every 250,000 on the 92. Now I am not one for statistics, but as your comments indicate you want to see something demonstrated this is a start. (numbers from EC and SAC)
Okay, it seems to me that the S-92 does not bring all that much that's really new to the industry that makes it demonstrably or measurably "safer" than anything else out there.
Sadly, as we've seen in reality, the S-92 is not proving to be all that much safer than anything else. Maybe less safe compared to helicopters that actually *do* have emergency lubrication systems (not that cockamamie emergency bypass system). But hey, it is fancy and new!
Statistics only give us a historical picture and of course I am not claiming it is the full picture, and you must allow for various factors, but all the evidence provided in all studies, including those done by our oil company customers does suggest that a more modern aircraft has provided a significant improvement in safety.
Avionics It is true that avionics can be retrofitted to most, but not all aircraft. It is not always practical and is not always straightforward, nor always cost-efficient. The Rockwell Collins AMS has proven to be extremely robust and reliable. The high level of redundancy and cross-comparison does provide a very real improvement over older types. There are arguably better systems available now, but in my career, having flown some 9 other types this is the most reliable and best I have used. It is also very stable in the event of electrical surges such as from lightning strikes and static discharges. There have been some failures of course and there have been issues with the DCU's in instances, but so far a total electrical failure has yet to happen, and even in the all of the lightning strikes that I am aware of, including one of my own, no electrical/avionic systems have failed. The same cannot be said of the EC's flying around. Hopefully an engineer can pipe in here an explain a little more than I. So yes it is a
big deal
Floats It has Sea State 6 floats. They are not just in the sponsons, but also in the nose and under the tail. If a crash is heavy enough to pull the sponsons off then it is unlikely there will be much left of any other part of the machine either, so an irrelevant point. Where it would help though is that if you do ditch in rough cold seas you have a good chance of staying upright long enough to get out of the emergency exits. Of emergency exits - there are as you pointed out more of them and they are bigger. Very comforting if you are that Pax trying to get out, and someone in front of you is injured, or blocking the exit. So worth a lot I would say. Or if the aircraft does tip, at least you closest exit is very close, and you dont have to go swimming to find the next one.
Bird-strike protection As was mentioned by someone with experience in this field and you promptly snubbed, there is a lot more to protection than simply changing the windscreen. The throttle levers are also better protected, especially compared to the L1/L2, to prevent anything coming through the windscreen and chopping the engines for you, as was possibly the cause in the PHI S76 accident.
Oh, please. So...we're thinking that a bird could strike the tail rotor pylon then? I'm curious as to how a bird could bypass the huge, hulking mass of fuselage and rotor system to find its way to a direct hit on the inclined tail rotor driveshaft. From above, perhaps? And again I ask: How many t/r pylon birdstrikes have been recorded over the years? Seems to me that SAC is touting as yet another "SAFETY FEATURE!!!" something that is arguably so. I mean, let's be honest here; just because they say it, does that make it true?
What do you think happened to the 139 in Hong Kong harbour this year. That bird somehow missed the hulking mass, and granted it hit the rotor not the pylon, it could just as easily hit that, especially if the helicopter is climbing, such as on departure, and the bird is upwind, in front of you. So no it doesn't have to be the bird that hits the helicopter from above. This has happened numerous times in the past, and bird strikes to the tail have taken down aircraft.
RIPS- Rotor Ice Protection System -
But...let me ask, has icing been a problem in the past? Have we lost any aircraft in the North Sea or North Atlantic due to MRB icing? Secondly, I'm not sure I'm in love with the idea of dispatching into "known ice" IN A HELICOPTER. I guess we'd have to get "Shell Management" to weigh-in on whether his company would approve launching when "known ice" exists. So while RIPS *is* a real technical advancement, I'm not so sure that it makes the helicopter absolutely "safer." I think that's arguable. (Okay, I know icing can occur even when it's not forecast. Has this been a problem in the past?)
Have you actually flown offshore? Yes icing is a problem, and continues to be one. The effect on performance can be very dramatic, and very quick. It is believed to possibly have been the cause of a chinook crash in Afghanistan in 2007, with the loss of 8 soldiers. Combine blade icing and an engine failure and you have big problems. There is a performance penalty with RIPS, but you will at least have clear blades when you need them most. The system is also now reliable and works well. We usually operate to ensure a positive, clear area area of at least 500' below, to ensure an escape if RIPS fails. Having flown in heavy icing, it is a big improvement. It allows us to fly safely, when otherwise we could not. Dispatching into "known icing" is absolutely not a problem, if done and planned for properly and I don't know why you think it is. We have been doing it for years in other types, with limited clearance, monitoring the build up, and descending or vacating once the build up was too much. We would not operate in winter if we couldn't. The RIPS gives us a much greater freedom of movement in the sky, and is inherently safer, due to the fact it is clearing our blades of ice constantly.
A oil quantity gauge - as has already been mentioned, is firstly not much use, as the pressure is the most important thing. It really does not matter that much how much oil is in there - if you have zero pressure, you need to get down - NOW. Everything else is irrelevant.
I hope this adds another perspective, and is not intended as a sales pitch, but is from my "coal-face" perspective, with a reasonably good insight to the aircraft having flown several thousand hours on it and being able to compare it to several other types directly. It is all good and well to rant and bitch, but the reality is that emotion has injected a disproportionate and in many cases ill informed and inaccurate amount of bad press toward the aircraft, which has certainly caused some to have a very skewed perspective.