Mixture:
Quote:
The reality is that, if one were to just "put it down" in downtown London, their @ss would be (the proverbial) grass.
Ok, putting the geographical context of London aside for a minute because that's a topic that could be debated in its own right until the cows come home....
(Just to stress before continuing, the following is not aiming to draw any parallels with the late Mr Barnes.... I'm going to sit patiently for the AAIB report. I am strictly talking in a general tone here, and not looking to draw any parallels with recent events).
I would be curious to know how many multi-thousand hour heli pilots would seriously be willing to do a precautionary landing due to the weather closing in around them making it somewhat precarious to press on further due to impending obstacles.
I suspect many would probably only do a precautionary if forced to do so by mechanical failure and would much rather use their "experience" to do some scud-running of a questionable nature on the basis that "you've flown round these parts a million times before and know them like the back of your hand".
It seems to me that by refusing to contemplate a precautionary, you are throwing away a great safety asset that helicopters hold over fixed wings. That is the relative ease at which you can set them down on a small footprint.
I might be wrong, but the problem is that its only human nature that with experience comes confidence, and its only human nature that people tend to err on the side of over-confidence and are unwilling to accept what might be seen as defeat.
Actually, my reply directly related to this context.
The context affects the decision to "divert to landing". To ignore context is to engineer a problem to fit the desired solution.
The general tone of my post was directed toward the (in my opinion uninformed) general concensus in this thread that a landing in London would be no big deal and hence an 'easy' decision. It is anything but!
"...scud-running of a questionable nature..." for a PPL-H may very well be just another day at the office for an experienced CPL/ATPL-H. Again, context and preconceived judgement.
I believe the opposite is true, most well experienced rotary pilots consider the 'divert to land' often and when it works out noone hears about it. What the layman often does not realize is that there are a myriad of consequences to making that decision, depending on the context, and many cannot be accepted lightly.
And, as you said, we are no longer talking about the incident at hand in any way.