Question. At what point is a Super Puma seen as a family of helicopters or individual models??
Recent events seem to blur things where I think it would be fair to say many seem to like to quote X number of flight hours of the Super Puma fleet as a whole when looking for statistics to promote a positive view on the model (s) and then instantly wish to differentiate individual models when one or another goes in. Just an observation.
There has also been comments around if the UK side of the North Sea is as safe or are individual operators / industry as a whole doing all it can safety wise. Given the community isn't that big in the grand scheme what are the pilots that complain doing about it? Maybe they are putting their hands up for huge change and its being ignored? (although that doesn't seem to be reflected here).
HC suggests that poor exploitation of HUMS is to blame for the crash of G-REDL and the two recent 225's that ditched, yet in order for the 225 to fly in the interim we have further reliance on HUMS...even more incredible is that there has been a complete change of view from Eurocopter regarding onboard HUMS data from the AAIB recommendations from the G-REDL crash to recent events with the 225.
The point is its all very well moaning about a faceless "industry" but thats just made up of individuals whom for the most part seemed to just rely on the fact that Eurocopter has a bunch of clever people and the rest should but out.