DB ....im not at all surprised by your post . You are the jobsworth who agreed it was unsafe to fly in gin clear air because the experts thought the ash cloud was over you. You were wrong ...and they were . You assumed they were experts ....they werent .
I guess it takes all sorts and some are just "by the book " merchants ...luckily for all of us some people ( from high time pilots to test pilots ) have used their own common sense and sometimes pushed the boundary and created new techniques and ways to use helicopters . This is how we got SAR etc in the first place . I have never flown with a pilot like you who believes ALL rules ,daft or not , need to be stuck to in order to be safe . Your idea of the HV curve is a good example . That would mean banning most sling load ops , heli skiing , and confined area landings would be a tad tricky also . Obviously there is no point in sitting in that curve regularly just for the hell of it .
I agree with Crab ( which im sure will horrify him !!!)
ps Out of interest how many rules have YOU tried to change and suceeded ?
or do you think all the rules are correct ?