I have flown a fleet wide AOC for 14yrs
Get some time in. Most of the posters here from Aberdeen cannot remember 14 years ago. I can; it was the year that I officially retired from a North Sea company and I managed another eleven years flying contract for various companies in three different continents. However, forget the willie waving and ask yourself why the CAA and all three major offshore companies all have the same procedures in the event of an indicated engine fire. Despite the recent accident a couple of years ago which was a i/4,000,000 occurrence, despite the recent spate of ditchings, the North Sea helicopter has a superb safety record considering the number of hours and the stresses that their helicopters have to cope with. The UK military, or any miltary, cannot hold a candle against them when comparing peacetime accidents.
In the late 90s I was flying in China teaching Chinese pilots to operate to Western standards. Chinese aviation during that time was appalling. We had British CAA personnel who refused to fly in Chinese airliners. The stories going around were unbelievable; if an airliner crashed and there were no Westerners on board they just bulldozed over the hole, if an ATC bloke caused an accident they took him round the back and shot him. We Brits, Ozzys, Kiwis and Yanks in both the rotary and the fixed wing civil aviation world slowly brought them around to our way of thinking using our proven SOPs. Chinese aviation is now as safe as any aviation system in the world.
I do not know how much of the S61 is made of magnesium but a lot of the mystique in miltary circles is based on the speed at which Whirlwinds and Wessexs would evaporate if they caught fire. I can remember having to put a parachute on in order to do an air test involving climbing above 3,000 ft. because if it caught fire it would burn out before you could autorotate to the ground.
North Sea helicopters are not made like that any more. They are made out of alloy and steel and the designers look at it and think that if that bit catches fire what do you need to stop it going to that bit, and so on. Logic says that an engine will not run with an uncontrollable fire because the fire is burning the fuel that the engine is supposed to be using. Shut off the fuel, the fire stops. The days of helicopters catching fire and burning out in the air have gone. It is now an orderly progression through the checklist which will, and has been proved, controls the problem.
shame on you that you have adhered unblinkered to 45yrs worth of SOP's without a second thought or challenge.
I am stiil alive.